Teacher sues for compo
‘Heavy drinking’ questioned
A CATHOLIC primary school teacher has taken action against the archdiocese for onthe-job stress she said caused anxiety, with a tribunal refusing to accept a doctor’s report pinning the blame on her nightly glass of champagne.
The St Anthony’s Catholic School teacher made a claim for workers compensation in October last year following a stressful workplace meeting about a student with disabilities that caused her to become “extremely anxious”.
The Launceston school, under the auspices of the Roman Catholic Church Trust Corporation of the Archdiocese of Hobart, disputed it should be liable to pay compensation, arguing the teacher’s employment hadn’t contributed to her condition to a substantial degree.
The case, which was heard in Hobart before the Workers Rehabilitation and Compensation Tribunal of Tasmania, hinged on whether a doctor’s report ought to be accepted into evidence.
The doctor said the teacher was consuming 9.8 standard drinks a week, which he said was classified as “heavy drinking” for women.
Previously, the teacher had only drunk on weekends, but as of mid-2020 had been drinking a glass of champagne each night, he said.
However, he said the stressful events at work did not explain her current symptoms or her current impairment — and that she would have coped better with her workplace stress if not for her use of alcohol.
“In my opinion, her symptoms and impairment are unrelated to work factors, but she perceives work-related factors of having caused her symptoms,” he said.
The teacher’s lawyer argued the doctor’s report should be excluded from the tribunal.
In her newly published decision, Commissioner Lucinda Wilkins said the doctor had used incorrect reasoning in finding the teacher engaged in “heavy drinking”, which she described as “unfair and highly prejudicial”.
She said there was no evidence to support his assertion that she was consuming 9.8 standard drinks a week, and that even if she was consuming 1.4 standard drinks a night, that would have put her in the lowrisk threshold.
Commissioner Wilkins said there appeared to be no reasonable basis for the doctor’s supposition that the teacher’s drinking caused her condition and no evidence that gave the archdiocese a reasonable chance of refuting the compensation claim.
“GREEN” beef might not sound very appealing but it is hitting the shelves of a Tasmanian food market chain as a husband-and-wife wagyu farming team work to produce carbon-positive meat.
Cattle get a bad rap on the greenhouse gas front but the Tasmanian Agricultural Company says it is on a mission to produce a truly-carbon-positive product through home compostable packaging and rotating stock across “salad bowl” paddocks.
Company owners Sam and Stephanie Trethewey began farming Wagyu cattle near Deloraine in 2019 and now have 2000 head on their property.
Its “regenerative wagyu” has hit the shelves at Hill Street Grocer stores across Tasmania and will soon launch nationally.
Tasmanian Agricultural Company Wagyu beef is packaged in home-compostable vacuum-sealed bags which are plant-based and plastic-free which Mrs Trethewey said was a game changer for meat packaging.
“You can put them in your home compost, worm farm, or even bury them in the garden. They’ll break down over time and not cause any harm to the environment,” she said.
The cattle graze across custom-designed multi-species crop paddocks which
boast up to 30 different species such as peas, radish, corn, oats, turnips and sunflowers.
“During test trials of our meat with chefs, they reported the cattle’s diet imparts a unique flavour. Now we just need to see how the public responds,” Mrs Trethewey said.
The diet boosts nutrition for the animals and also improves soil health by drawing down carbon dioxide from the air and storing it in the soil through photosynthesis.
Tas Ag Co’s cattle are also moved to fresh paddocks daily, mimicking how animals move in the wild.
“Our cattle are like natural lawnmowers. They keep our pastures in a constant state of regrowth, enabling us to store tonnes and tonnes of carbon through our holistic farming techniques,” the couple said.
“Cows are the punching bag for climate change, when the reality is that they’re actually part of the solution.”
In 2019, the company became the first farm in Tasmania to register a soil carbon project through the Australian government’s Emissions Reduction Fund.
The couple hopes the farm will eventually store more carbon dioxide than the operation emits.
COWS ARE THE PUNCHING BAG FOR CLIMATE CHANGE, WHEN THE REALITY IS THAT THEY’RE ACTUALLY PART OF THE SOLUTION
STEPHANIE TRETHEWEY