Fair Work orders BHP to reinstate miner sacked for anti-Muslim rant

BHP Billiton must reinstate a miner sacked for a series of anti-Muslim and homophobic comments.

BHP Billiton must reinstate a miner sacked for a series of anti-Muslim and homophobic comments after a Fair Work Commission full bench majority said the dismissal was harsh.

In a dissenting judgment, commissioner Leigh Johns supported the sacking, describing the miner’s comments as crude, lewd, sexist, deeply offensive and ­Islamophobic.

The Mount Arthur Coal operator was sacked in February after an investigation into comments made on the mine’s two-way radio system and heard by up to 100 people.

They included that a colleague would like to get his rear end “banged up” and another worker would “probably like a good teabagging”. Speaking about going to a Reclaim Australia rally, the operator then said: “Muslims had 1400 years of bloody inbreeding so they gotta be f..ked up.”

In July, the commission found that the sacking was harsh and ­ordered the operator’s reinstatement. Mount Arthur Coal’s subsequent appeal was rejected by vice-president Adam Hatcher and deputy president Nicole Wells.

They said an employee personally directing anti-Muslim comments at a colleague of the ­Islamic faith was “objectively more serious than the expression of anti-Muslim opinions to fellow employees who are known to hold similar views”.