Payout over racial abuse
A MAN has been ordered to pay compensation of $2500 to a Hobart historian he threatened and said was a “f...[ing] self-obsessed white dog”.
In a decision handed down in Hobart last week, the AntiDiscrimination Tribunal found Reg Watson’s complaint that the man, whom he did not know, had directly discriminated against him and engaged in prohibited conduct on the basis of race, was substantiated.
The tribunal found Mr Watson was sent an email in June last year headed “you f...[ing] self-obsessed white dog”, which said: “How dare you spread so many lies about my Palawa mob! The problem with you c…s is the fact that you ARE descended from white men, you’re [ sic] true line is lost, only a true Elder has the power to reinstate you but you disgrace us. You will be forgotten and that is a fact.”
Tribunal member Leigh Mackey said Mr Watson received further emails, some of which included threats to his safety.
Ms Mackey said: “The applicant experienced unwelcome and unexpected intrusion into his previously secure, private and safe domain from a stranger whose communication to him was threatening, rude and, as found, discriminatory.”
The tribunal heard the complaint on July 31 but the man who sent the email did not want to participate in the process.
“After 200 years of fighting for the original agreement in the original conciliation I have zero interest in the Tasmanian Government’s opinions of what is and isn’t justified … I have been discriminated and persecuted just for being me,” he told the tribunal in response to a request to participate in a conciliation conference.
Ms Mackey said Mr Watson told the tribunal that he was formerly a historian with a specific interest in Tasmanian history. She ordered the man provide a written apology by the end of this week and pay Mr Watson $2500 compensation.
Mr Watson told the Mer
cury the emails constituted “quite stern racial abuse”.
He said he went to the AntiDiscrimination Tribunal because he wanted to send a warning that such behaviour was intolerable.