‘I can’t see it working out’: Street sweeper Shaun Turner looking to move on from Darebin Council

Shaun Turner says he is unlikely to seek a job back at Melbourne’s Darebin Council, but is considering his options, adding his wife is ‘always on my back to go back to work’.

Shaun Turner, the street sweeper who was sacked by ­Melbourne’s Darebin Council. Picture: Alex Coppel

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Shaun Turner, the street sweeper who successfully challenged his sacking for objecting to an acknowledgement of country at a toolbox meeting, says he is ­unlikely to seek a job back at ­Melbourne’s Darebin Council.

“I’m really considering moving on – I can’t see it working out,” Mr Turner told The Australian on Thursday.

Mr Turner was dismissed after questioning why the acknowledgement of country was being made for the first time at a ­meeting of the council’s street-cleaning team, a meeting he said was attended by about eight or nine workers.

The council worker, whose ­father served in World War II, told the meeting: “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.”

The Fair Work Commission upheld Mr Turner’s unfair dismissal claim and is considering whether he should be reinstated or be awarded compensation.

When Mr Turner was dismissed by the council he was on WorkCover due to shoulder ­bursitis and he said his doctor had recommended he not return to driving the sweeper, due to its ­repetitive role.

“With the shoulder, I probably can’t go back to the same role,” he said. “My aim is to talk to council, to see what their decision is. Have they got another job with the same conditions, or do I go down the compensation route, get some compensation, and move on with life?

“Until we meet in mediation, or until we go back to court, I’m really at an unknown but I think I will probably have to find something else to do.”

Mr Turner said he earned about $70,000 a year as a street sweeper, and he received 75 per cent of the wage when on ­WorkCover.

Any compensation awarded by the commission would be capped at six months of his pay.

Mr Turner, 60, had worked full-time at Darebin for five years.

Shaun Turner is considering other work, potentially a driving job. Picture: Alex Coppel

“I was always planning to retire there from the time I started there,” he said.

“When I started full-time I was 55. You are not going to change too many jobs from there.

“Not too many people want to take you when you are over 55. They don’t want to put all the money into you and five years later you are gone.”

Asked if he would want to keep working at the council he said: “Probably not. I think it would be really hard.”

Mr Turner said his friends had “pretty much” backed his objection to the acknowledgment of country at the toolbox meeting.

“A lot of people are really ­supportive and said it had to come to a head sooner or later,” he said.

Mr Turner, who voted for the Coalition at the May election and liked Peter Dutton, is not a fan of the new Opposition Leader Sussan Ley, citing her decision to make an acknowledgment of country at the start of her recent National Press Club speech

“I was shattered. Why start with that? You’re only Opposition Leader. Tell us what you’re going to do in regards to cost of living,” he said.

“Don’t get up there and go down that line because I’m sure Peter Dutton wouldn’t have.”

Since the Coalition’s defeat and Mr Dutton’s own loss in his seat of Dickson, costing him a seat in parliament, he said he did not believe the Liberals “stand up for conservative values at all”.

“Sussan Ley is talking about getting women in, but she got rid of some good women, Jane Hume and Sarah Henderson, as soon as she got in, and pushed them to the backbench,” he said.

“I thought they were great conservative women.”

He said one of the reasons for the Liberals losing the election was that Mr Dutton did not adequately rebut Labor’s attack on the Coalition over Medicare and nuclear power.

“When (Donald) Trump put all the tariffs on and then Jacinta Nampijinpa Price said, “we’re going to make Australia great again’, that’s all Labor needed to jump all over it,” he said.

“From there. It really set them back.”

Mr Turner said the Liberals were often too similar to Labor and he might have considered voting for Pauline Hanson’s One Nation if the right-wing minor party had stood a candidate in his electorate.

“I’m a fan of Pauline’s because of what she’s gone through and what she says,” he said.

“People will throw the racist word at her, but she goes, ‘no, I look after Australians, not the ­illegals that come into it’.

“She’s just probably got a bad rap over the years.”

He said he wanted to keep working and one option was a driving job.

“My wife wants me to keep working. She’s always on my back to go back to work,” he said.