ACT Discrimination by Employee - What to Do?

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Lili

Member
4 April 2017
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Hi there, I'll get straight to it.

I stayed at Canberra City YHA as I have in the past with my partner. When I was traveling home, I got told that a certain staff member threatened to sue the manager and YHA if I was to stay there ever again as they felt unsafe.

So now I'm not allowed to stay there based on one employee who I never once saw when I was there. I found out they only knew I was there by checking the check out list. I used to know this staff member when I stayed there we were friends and I told them I didn't wanna talk to them again. I find this very disturbing that someone can do this.

I need to know what legal things can be done as I feel discriminated against. I was also wondering if anyone could tell me if or what legal issue this comes under.

Thanks for reading
 

Rob Legat - SBPL

Lawyer
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There's not enough information to tell whether you've been unlawfully discriminated against. 'Discrimination' is not, itself, unlawful. Discrimination on the basis of things like gender, age, religion or ethnicity is not permitted in most instances, unless there is a valid excuse.

Refusal of service to someone based on their individual actions (real or imagined) is generally fine. If someone has any knowledge of the particular innkeepers-type legislation in ACT, they might be able to give you a better idea.
 
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Lili

Member
4 April 2017
2
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1
Wow, thanks - didn't know that discrimination doesn't matter and that people can be rude no matter what. So. Now why do anti-discrimination laws exist or even why do any laws exist if things like that are perfectly fine?
 

Rob Legat - SBPL

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There's lots of common sense type reasons. For example:

- You can't legislate to stop being asses.
- Government (apparently) tries not to be too over-bearing in regulating private dealings.
- Discrimination can be legitimate, and even lawful. Consider situations where someone is a known shoplifter and is refused entry to a store for that reason, a drunk person wants to keep drinking past the point of safety, someone with an open wound wants to engage in an activity that involves bodily contact, a person without a drivers licence wants to hire a car, and so on.

As for why anti-discrimination laws exist, the basic premise is that there are certain fundamental qualities about yourself that you either can't change (age, gender) or are intrinsic to your character (religion). The law provides that unless there's a valid reason for doing so, these qualities should not affect the way you are treated in an egalitarian society.
 

Rob Legat - SBPL

Lawyer
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16 February 2017
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Gold Coast, Queensland
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That's not available on your profile. What's your question?