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| Down Under | |
| Lesbian bus driver fired after spear chucker gibe | |
| 2008-12-18 | |
| This should be fun to sort out A LESBIAN Asian bus driver was fired by Brisbane City Council after she wrote a note referring to commuters as "spear chuckers with prams" . But Lillian Tam - who said she has fought discrimination all her life - said the note was not meant to be malicious or racist.
The full bench of the Australian Industrial Relations Commission this week rejected Ms Tam's appeal against an earlier decision of Senior Deputy President Peter Richards, who found her dismissal was fair. Ms Tam, 47, of Parkinson, had been a casual trainee bus driver at the Richlands Bus Depot for two and a half years, when she left the note requesting a particular bus for a friend and colleague at the refuelling station on April 6, 2007. It stated: "Could you please not give a 2506 merc (sic) tomorrow coz (sic) I'm taking over and I'm doing all the 110s - I do not want to pick up all those spear chuckers with prams!!!" Bus route 110 travels through Inala, Acacia Ridge, Salisbury, Moorooka and Annerley. The commission was told that if Ms Tam drove a high-floor bus, as she requested, many passengers would not get on because of the lack of space to manoeuvre their prams. But the note was found by indigenous co-worker Katherine Jennings, who told the commission she felt angry, humiliated and frustrated by the "extremely derogatory" and "disrespectful" language. "It conveyed to me that dark-skinned people are primitive," Ms Jennings said. "The note was an ugly reminder to me that old attitudes towards Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island people persisted in the workplace." | |
| Posted by:tipper |