Darwin business forced to backflip on policy banning Aboriginal customers

An NT business has been forced into a hasty backflip after adopting a policy banning all Aboriginal people from the premises.

A DARWIN business has been forced into a hasty backflip after banning vulnerable customers — including all Aboriginal people — from the premises.

The business, which the NT News has chosen not to name, put up a sign saying the policy was “due to the NT government mandate policy on vaccines to Covid-19”.

A mandate requiring all workers who may come into contact with vulnerable people, including children and Aboriginal people, to be vaccinated against the virus came into effect last weekend.

But the business owner said he took the sign down again within a day after someone posted a photo of it on Facebook and he never refused entry to anyone while it was up.

“It was pulled down the next day because everyone came and told me about the problems with it,” he said.

“I’ve had anti-discrimination ring me, I’ve had people ring me and had some really, really good phone conversations and they said you’re better off just ripping the sign down.”

The business owner said he initiated the policy because some of his staff were unvaccinated but they were all now “going out and getting their jabs”.

“I’ve got a lot of Aboriginal customers and when they came in they asked about the sign and I just explained it to them,” he said.

“I took it down the next day as soon as someone put it up on Facebook, I got the calls and thought right that’s it, it’s off.

“I’m so stressed out about the whole thing.”

The man said he had just copied and pasted the categories of people considered vulnerable from the NT government’s Covid-19 website.

“The government, I feel, is just putting it all on the businesses and then we’re the ones that are going to get hit with anti-discrimination … there’s no recourse back to the government,” he said.

“I’m no lawyer or anything like that, I was just doing the best I could.”

The man said he was aware of a number of other businesses who had also put up similar signs.