Sacked street sweeper Shaun Turner: I’m pale, stale and male, but I speak for silent majority
WATCH | In his first comments since he successfully challenged his dismissal for objecting to an acknowledgement of country, Shaun Turner believes his win struck a chord and laments changes in the modern workplace.
Shaun Turner, the street sweeper who successfully challenged his sacking for objecting to an acknowledgement of country at a toolbox meeting, believes his legal win struck a chord with the “silent majority”.
“I think it got to a point where people thought, ‘A toolbox meeting? What next?’ It just never ends,” he told The Australian in his first interview since the Fair Work Commission upheld his unfair dismissal claim against Melbourne’s Darebin City Council.
Mr Turner, a 60-year-old married father of three who voted Liberal at the recent election, dislikes Anthony Albanese and Dan Andrews, and holds what he calls “centre right” views. When asked, he says “of course” the country has become too politically correct.
“I just feel like if you were a pale, stale male you can’t go to work now and have a laugh,” he said during an interview at his home in the northeast Melbourne suburb of Research.
“If me and you are having a laugh over here, and he (a third person) takes it to management, well, next minute we’re getting a warning for not being inclusive.
“Work is (full of) pretty much programmed robots. You have got to be careful of what you say.”
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 that “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”.
Fair Work Commission deputy president Richard Clancy upheld Mr Turner’s unfair dismissal claim and is considering whether he should be reinstated or be awarded compensation.
Given the commission is still deliberating, Mr Turner said he could not speak in detail about the case and events surrounding his sacking and successful action but he did want it known that his actions were not racially motivated.
He said he believed acknowledgment of country should be confined to large events attended by international visitors, and was unsuitable for meetings attended by small numbers of people.
“When it comes to this, the first thing that happens is you are labelled racist. I may not like a lot of people but I have no problem with Aboriginal people,” he said.
“I played football, I was brought up with people of all races in Broadmeadows. Some you get on with, some you don’t. The easy thing to throw around these days if you can’t win an argument is to call someone racist.”
During his working life, Mr Turner had worked for two other councils, run his own street cleaning business and, perhaps surprisingly, given his disregard for Labor and unions more generally, was a union delegate at Darebin.
“There was no one doing the job and no one would speak up for the workers,” he said.
“I’d been on management and I’d been on the workers’ side. I know you give and take. The union will go hard one way and the management will go hard the other way, where I could see both sides and conciliate between them and come to an agreement.”
He said he gave up running the business because “I got sick of dealing with people”. “Dealing with staff you have got to pretty much be a teacher, a parent, a psychologist, all different people,” he said. “I got to the stage late in my career where I thought I would like to just go to work and do the job and go home.
“That’s what I liked about street sweeping: I work by myself, go to work, do the job and go home and don’t have to take phone calls 24 hours a day.”
Mr Turner’s job has taken a toll on his physical health. When he 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.
He said he was uncertain about whether he would pursue reinstatement. While seeking redeployment was an option, he was looking at pursuing compensation
“You win legally, but you lose what you had, the comfort of going to work,” he said.
“I have spoken to some of the workers. They would love to see me come back but my doctor recommends not going back into repetitive work.”
He said the Australian Services Union was a “great help” when he was under investigation by the council but he represented himself during the case, claiming that after he was sacked he was told “the union’s solicitors didn’t want to take the case”.
“I also had a friend who asked someone from the Liberal Party if they could help and they didn’t want to get involved either,” he said.
Mr Turner said he voted for the Coalition at the May election due to his low opinion of the Prime Minister. “I voted for Dutton because Elmer Fudd was the other person,” he said.
“I thought Peter Dutton would be stronger on defence, stronger on crime. He had all those things going for him but, to me, Peter Dutton was an ugly man. He didn’t resonate with female voters due to his looks and he was made out to be scary.
“People say looks don’t count for anything. People lie. If Peter Dutton looked like Robert Redford, he would have sh-t the election in.
“Then I think Donald Trump coming in, that finished him. All of sudden, everyone turned and said we don’t need Donald Trump here. Dutton would have made decisions like nuclear; I’m all for nuclear. I have no problem with nuclear reactors for power. It’s the cleanest energy, but for some reason people are stuck in the seventies. They just think it’s a bomb and that’s it.”
As for Labor, Turner said Mr Albanese was appealing because “people like hearing the word free”. “They’re going to get free childcare. Nothing’s free. The taxpayer pays it. I pay for someone else’s kids to go to kinder now,” he said. “I can’t go to the doctors and just take my Medicare card. It doesn’t happen these days.
“It’s like Dan Andrews. How did Dan Andrews win again?
“You can lock playgrounds up. You can tell people they’re not allowed out. You can sell us off to Belt and Road. Given the decisions, it was amazing that bloke won the election again. I know the Liberals in Victoria are hopeless and too busy fighting among themselves.”
Despite being a one-time union delegate, he is no longer a union member.
“Unions fight for things that have nothing to do with them,” Mr Turner said.
“It’s like councils who stick their nose in where they shouldn’t be, like worrying about whose flag we are flying, like Gaza and what’s going on in Palestine. All of a sudden we are all wearing Palestine colours.”
Mr Turner said he had been heartened by the support he had received since news broke of his commission win but he did have one question.
“What about all the beers I got offered?” he joked. “Is there any chance I could meet those people somewhere? I’d go home very drunk, I can tell you.”
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