Nobody deserves to be treated the way Rex Sultan was at the Gap View Hotel

PRESUMABLY all Rex Sultan wanted on the night of August 25, 2017, was to have a drink or two at the pub.

The Gap View Hotel in Alice Springs

PRESUMABLY all Rex Sultan wanted on the night of August 25, 2017, was to have a drink or two at the pub.

What he ended up getting was a vile, racist comment about how he needed to go home and have a shower if he wanted to be served.

The bartender, Angel Batt, could smell something unpleasant at the bar of the Gap View Hotel and presumed it was Mr Sultan, who, it happens, was wearing a neat button-up shirt and had showered before stepping out for the night.

Ms Batt, the NT Civil and Administrative Tribunal found, made her assumption about Mr Sultan “because Mr Sultan is Aboriginal”.

Can you imagine yourself being treated as Mr Sultan was that night?

The disgraceful treatment Mr Sultan was subject to sounds like something from a different era.

The Gap View Hotel in Alice Springs

It is shocking that this kind of attitude towards Aboriginal people still exists among some people in the Northern Territory in 2019.

Mr Sultan ought to be congratulated for having the patience and sense of right and wrong to see his Anti-Discrimination complaint through to the end, almost two years to the day after Ms Batt told him he couldn’t have a beer.

Many people would have simply wanted to move on with their lives, especially given the drawn-out process for dealing with discrimination complaints.

Any modest compensation payment the hotel is ordered to pay is unlikely to fully put right the indignity Mr Sultan suffered.