Rita Panahi: Darebin Council needs to explain why it sacked worker who challenged merits of Welcome to Country

The Leftist Darebin City Council needs to explain precisely why it sacked an employee for merely challenging the merits of holding endless, pointless and divisive acknowledgement of country announcements.

The Leftist Darebin City Council has some explaining to do. They need to clarify to their constituents, and the wider public, precisely why they sacked an employee for merely challenging the merits of holding endless, pointless and divisive acknowledgement of country announcements.

That former employee, a street sweeper called Shaun Turner, a man who has Indigenous nieces and nephews has now won an unfair dismissal claim at the Fair Work Commission. Darebin council stands condemned for targeting Turner and ultimately terminating his employment for the crime of stating a mainstream opinion.

Perhaps not a majority opinion in hard-Left Northcote but certainly a widely held point of view in the rest of the state including much of Darebin.

Turner’s great sin, the one that left him unemployed and having to seek legal remedies, was to state the following after a ‘toolbox meeting’ began with an acknowledgement of country.

“If you need to be thanking anyone, it’s the people who have worn the uniform and fought for our country to keep us free,” Turner told the meeting.

“It’s getting out of hand and people are losing it, it is now being done at the opening of a postage stamp.”

Mr Turner questioned why a Welcome to Country ceremony needed to be held before a toolbox meeting.

He also said: “As far as I know half of us are born here, I don’t need to be welcomed to my own country. If people don’t want to be there, they can leave.”

Forget about reinstating him to street sweeper duties, can we make Turner leader of the Victorian opposition?

How refreshing would it be to have a clear-eyed leader not afraid to state a popular opinion that challenges the Leftist orthodoxy that has for so long gone unchallenged in this state, other than during the Voice referendum where the majority of Victorians rejected the notion of enshrining racial privilege into our founding document.

Turner should be applauded for challenging the bureaucratic overreach that first demonised and bullied him for an entirely reasonable and well expressed view, and then sacked him.

Just consider what an intolerant and oppressive workplace the City of Darebin has created where individuals must self-censor or be bullied into silence, lest they be fired for saying something most reasonable people believe.

And yet after the Fair Work Commission ruling, the council was in deep denial claiming that they provide a culturally safe workplace.

Just as long as your culture is one that is obsessed with identity politics and pointless virtue signalling.

The council should reinstate Mr Turner’s job and promise to do better. Picture: Andrew Henshaw

Darebin chief executive officer Michael Tudball said: “We want to take this opportunity to reiterate our unwavering commitment to providing everyone with a safe working environment at Darebin. That includes physical safety, cultural safety, and emotional safety.”

What utter nonsense. Far from providing a safe workplace, they have created an ugly, oppressive culture. One where an employee was made to feel like a “racist” and then sacked by hysterical superiors drunk on power.

Fair Work Commission deputy president Richard Clancy found against the council in the unfair dismissal case noting Darebin’s “harsh” and disproportionate reaction to Mr Turner’s comments.

“Mr Turner made a comment to the effect that if anyone was to be acknowledged or thanked at a toolbox meeting, it should be the servicemen and women who had fought for this country (i.e. Australia) but I do not consider that expressing such an opinion constitutes a valid reason for dismissal,” Mr Clancy said.

The council have created an ugly, oppressive culture.

“I have not been persuaded these particular comments of Mr Turner either rise to the level of having been disrespectful and aggressive in tone, or that they were perceived by anyone to be so … I reiterate that even if the reasons for the dismissal relating to the comments about Acknowledgements of Country and Mr Turner’s colleague were regarded as valid, the dismissal was harsh.”

Mr Turner told the FWC: “I was brought up in Broadmeadows. I come from a family of eight … My best friends out at Broadmeadows happen to be Aboriginal, one of them marrying my sister. I have a niece and great-niece and nephews who are all Aboriginal.”

On Thursday the City of Darebin failed to respond to questions from the Herald Sun about whether Mr Turner would be reinstated and whether he had been offered an apology.

They also did not respond to questions about whether the leadership team would undergo training to ensure these errors are not repeated.

The Fair Work Commission may ultimately, at a future hearing, order that Mr Turner be reinstated.

But the least the council can do, after their reprehensible conduct, is to pre-emptively reinstate Mr Turner’s job, apologise sincerely and promise to do better.

Rita Panahi is a Herald Sun columnist

Originally published as Rita Panahi: Darebin Council needs to explain why it sacked worker who challenged merits of Welcome to Country