More than 1,000 employees at one of Australia’s largest banks are facing redundancy just days before Christmas, as concerns grow over the effect of artificial intelligence and offshore operations on jobs.

National Australia Bank is expected to cut up to 1,500 positions before the end of the year, followed by as many as 1,000 further roles by the close of its 2027 financial year.

The planned reductions amount to roughly 6 per cent of NAB’s workforce, with corporate departments expected to absorb most of the cuts.

NAB employees who spoke to the ABC anonymously said they had anticipated redundancies as the bank expanded its use of AI and shifted more work offshore.

James*, who resigned only days before NAB revealed the job cuts, said he had stopped feeling secure in his role after staff were told the bank would expand its teams in India, with a focus on digitising and simplifying processes, increasing automation and speeding up turnaround times.

He has since left banking for a position in the service sector.

‘People are feeling the anxiety,’ he said. ‘I can’t be replaced realistically for the next five to 10 years.’

Another employee, Dylan*, said he discovered that his role could be affected by this year’s restructuring after spending a decade working in NAB’s technology team.

Dylan’s team will be required to reapply for their positions during a two-week consultation process, meaning existing employees will compete for fewer available jobs.

Employees who do not secure a position are expected to finish work by December 17 at the latest.

‘Until today, it’s been a lovely place to work,’ Dylan said.

Technology, including AI, is expected to continue reshaping the way work is carried out across NAB. However, the changes are not understood to represent the widespread replacement of employees by artificial intelligence.

The ABC reported that a leaked workforce plan showed Dylan’s technology division, which had just under 500 employees, would be reduced to 400 positions by the end of the 2027 financial year.

The plan reportedly indicated that the Australian-based proportion of the team would fall from 53 per cent to 40 per cent.

Meanwhile, the proportion of roles located in India was reportedly set to rise from 14 per cent to 30 per cent.

The share of positions based in Vietnam was also reportedly expected to increase, from 13 per cent to 20 per cent.

The Finance Sector Union, which represents bank employees, said it was appalled by NAB’s decision to make staff redundant so close to Christmas.

FSU national assistant secretary Nicole McPherson described the move as a ‘wrecking ball’.

‘It will wreak chaos and entrench a culture of anxiety at a bank that seems hell-bent on self-destruction,’ she said.

‘To take a wrecking ball to 6 per cent of one of Australia’s largest workforces this close to Christmas is disgraceful and shows that NAB’s leadership is completely detached from the lived experience of their workers.’

It comes after NAB chief executive Andrew Irvine told staff to be ‘thoughtful’ and check in on one another, while indicating support would be offered to those ‘impacted personally’.

The banking giant lodged the announcement to the ASX on Tuesday morning after carrying out what was described as a ‘broader review’ of its workforce. 

NAB said the changes would leave it better able to address ‘risks and opportunities’ from ‘more challenging economic conditions, increasing customer expectations, competitive intensity and rapid technological change’.

‘We are particularly focused on reducing the size of corporate functions. There will be no material impact to customer-facing banking roles,’ Mr Irvine said.

‘We have also deliberately made deeper changes to senior management positions, which will broaden leadership responsibilities across the bank.

‘This will simplify work between teams and improve cross-functional processes with clearer roles, priorities and accountabilities for our colleagues.’

The ASX statement said NAB expected to record a restructuring charge of approximately $300million pre-tax in the 2026-27 financial year.

The cost related to redundancies, redeployment and organisational redesign.

NAB is not the only member of Australia’s ‘Big Four’ banks to have cut jobs.

In February, Commonwealth Bank laid off about 300 workers in Australia and increased its workforce in India just weeks after recording a $5billion profit.

Commonwealth Bank had increased its India-based workforce by 21 per cent to 6,788 in the year to June 2025, a 138 per cent increase since 2022.

ANZ also confirmed in September 2025 that it would cut 3,500 jobs over 12 months.

*The names of the workers have been changed to protect their identities.

READ MORE: ANZ Bank to cut THOUSANDS of jobs in Australia 

Former Jetstar pilot Greg Lynn has told a court he was targeted with faeces and other “bodily fluids” in prison, while also claiming fellow inmates have been watching him.

Lynn, 59, is facing a murder charge over the death of Carol Clay, 73, who disappeared from a remote campsite in northeastern Victoria in March 2020. Clay vanished alongside her friend Russell Hill, 74.

During a bail application in the Supreme Court of Victoria on Thursday, Lynn said another prisoner threw a bottle containing faeces and bodily fluids at him while he was being held in protective custody.

He told the court that, following his arrest, he was taken to Melbourne Assessment Prison and placed in the solitary confinement unit for 14 days while undergoing COVID quarantine.

He was then permitted to leave his cell for just one hour each day, spending that time in a small enclosed yard.

Lynn said he questioned prison staff about why he had been placed in the unit and whether he could be moved into the mainstream prison population.

According to Lynn, staff told him it would be unsafe because of his public profile and warned that other prisoners might attack him to gain notoriety.

He said he spent six weeks in solitary confinement before being gradually moved into a 12-cell protection unit, where inmates were allowed out of their cells from about 8am until 4.30pm.

Lynn described the protection unit as being no larger than the courtroom, with up to 12 prisoners living in what he called “very intense” conditions.

He said the alleged attack took place after he had finished giving evidence during his first trial.

Lynn told the court he was eating dinner alone in the unit’s yard when another prisoner approached the door carrying an empty milk bottle filled with faeces and other bodily fluids, then threw it at him.

He said he immediately reported the incident to the front desk and identified the prisoner he alleged was responsible.

“He’d prepared this obviously well in advance,” Lynn told the court.

“He had an empty milk bottle, which he’d filled with faeces and other disgusting material, bodily fluids, and he threw that at me … It was a disgusting attack.”

While giving evidence from the witness box, Lynn named two inmates as well as prison staff.

He said he was placed back in the prison’s solitary unit for a week after the incident, despite being “the victim in the attack”.

He was later transferred back to the protection unit.

Lynn also told the court about a second incident, which he said occurred on July 5 this year at the Metropolitan Remand Centre, where he has been held since October 2024.

He said tension in his unit had built ‘over many months’ as more prisoners arrived whom he believed were informants.

‘They would clearly lie about their own mother for a sentence discount,’ he said.

Lynn told the court he had refused to share a holding cell with two prisoners he believed were informants. 

When he returned to the unit, he said one of them confronted him on a balcony.

‘He was ready to explode. He was like Vesuvius,’ Lynn said.

He said the man made threats mentioning ‘s*** bombs’, said he had ‘killed before and he’d kill again’, and told Lynn to ‘think of my family’s safety’.

Lynn’s wife Melanie, a part-time flight attendant, had been present in court alongside her stepson Geordie, whom she arrived with hand-in-hand.  

Lynn said he asked a prison officer to have the two men separated.

Later that afternoon, as he went out to the yard, the man was standing by a meal trolley.

Lynn said the man told him: ‘So lagging doesn’t work anymore.’

He said he replied: ‘That’s interesting coming from an informant.’ 

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‘And he said, “Who’s an informant?” And I said, “You are”. And he said, “Who am I informing?” And I said, “Me”.’ 

Lynn claimed the man then threatened to stab him before spitting on him. 

Lynn said he walked back inside, reported it at the unit’s front desk and locked himself in his cell.

He told the court that the next morning, other prisoners in the unit shouted abuse at him for up to an hour.

He said the abuse referred to his family and his home suburb, and included threats that he would be stabbed or bashed.

Crown prosecutor Mark Gibson SC put it to Lynn that he was highly sensitive about informants and worried a prisoner might make a false statement against him. 

‘I was sensitive to that,’ Lynn said. ‘I was worried that they might make up lies.’

Mr Gibson asked whether he knew that calling someone an informant was the ‘highest insult’ to a fellow prisoner and was likely to provoke a reaction.

‘And it was a very accurate term as well,’ Lynn said. ‘It was the truth.’ 

Lynn insisted he didn’t think he was insulting the other inmate and added: ‘I was aware that he would probably not take it very well, but it was the truth.’

Mr Gibson claimed the incident ‘wasn’t out of the blue’ and was ‘an argy bargy between two prisoners, one of whom is alleging the other to be a police informant’.

‘I am the victim here,’ Lynn complained. 

‘I am the target of this informant. To suggest that I have somehow orchestrated an assault on myself, that is just ridiculous, sir.’

The prosecutor also said CCTV of the July incident showed no physical interaction between the two men. 

‘He pokes me and he spat on me. That must be seen on the CCTV. I challenge you to bring it here and show it,’ Lynn said. 

Mr Gibson told the court the footage had been destroyed because it showed nothing.

Lynn said he is now held in a unit where he is locked down for 23 hours a day.

He said staff had suggested other units, but he did not feel safe there.

If bailed, Lynn hoped to return home to live with his son. 

Lynn addressed a concern that he could misuse the airport security pass held by his wife.

He told the court he had ‘heard this story’ and rejected it, saying the idea was ‘ridiculous’.

‘The security pass has a picture of Melanie on the front. I would not pass as a tall, thin, blonde female,’ he said.

‘Anyone who had to look at the pass would see that this has clearly been stolen.’

Asked what he would do with it, he said: ‘Steal an airplane? It’s ridiculous.’

Lynn said his wife was a part-time flight attendant for a budget carrier and would be the one to suffer if he did anything with her pass.

‘She earns peanuts. She lives below the poverty line, and she really struggles to get by,’ he said.

‘She would definitely lose her job, and she’d never get a job in aviation again. It would plunge her into severe poverty, and it is just ridiculous to suggest that I would do something to my family.’

The bail hearing before Chief Justice Richard Niall continues. 

Lynn will go to trial over the alleged murder of Ms Clay in May.