Drug addiction not grounds for discrimination in lease dispute, tribunal rules

A man who was refused a lease because his prospective landlord suspected he was on drugs was not a victim of unlawful discrimination, a tribunal has ruled.

A MAN who was refused a lease because his prospective landlord suspected he was on drugs was not a victim of unlawful discrimination, a tribunal has ruled.

Matthew James Eccles took the dispute to the Anti-Discrimination Commission in 2019 and the ADC referred it on to the NT Civil and Administrative Tribunal, which handed down its findings last month. The tribunal found no evidence he was actually a drug user.

Mr Eccles had signed a lease to rent a business premises in Winnellie owned by Nikki Beach One and lodged a complaint against company director Peter Bakaric and property manager Lee Doyle after the lease fell through a year earlier.

In an email from September 2018, Mr Doyle told Mr Bakaric he had concerns about Mr Eccles’ ability to pay the bond and asking if any “checks” had been done.

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Mr Bakaric responded that prior investigations had turned up some “court cases with ‘not providing goods’ which have been resolved” and that “he is on a watch list with Fair Trading”.

But in the emails tendered to the tribunal, Mr Bakaric said despite Mr Eccles’ “history” he was prepared to “giv(e) him a chance”.

Mr Doyle wrote back saying Mr Eccles had “scratches and scabs consistent with a drug user” and that he’d spoken to a previous employer who told him Mr Eccles was a “good bloke” but had “heard he has had a drug problem”.

About an hour and 40 minutes later, Mr Bakaric replied.

“I’ve done more checks on Matthew,” he wrote.

“Let’s get rid of him.”.

In ruling that drug addiction did not constitute an “impairment” under the Anti-Discrimination Act, NTCAT president Richard Bruxner said there was no evidence before the tribunal to support a reliable conclusion that Mr Eccles had ever actually been a drug user.

“I emphasise once again that the conclusions I have reached have nothing to do with whether the beliefs held by Mr Doyle and Mr Bakaric were correct,” he wrote.

“Nor should those conclusions be seen as an endorsement of the way in which they treated Mr Eccles, which could fairly be described as shabby.

“The issue for the tribunal was whether that treatment involved unlawful discrimination and in my view it did not.”

Mr Bruxner found that while the chronic skin condition that fuelled Mr Doyle's suspicions did constitute an impairment under the act, it wasn’t the “basis” for any discrimination.

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