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Captain Sharkey
07-18-2008, 06:34 AM
So they can dispense with the farce of interviews, and just cherry-pick the golliwogs they want for various positions directly from their little list, that's the idea.

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Public servants may have to divulge religion and ethnicity
John Masanauskas
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,24035840-2862,00.html
July 18, 2008 12:00am

VICTORIAN public servants may have to divulge personal information about their religion and ethnicity under a move to crack down on workplace discrimination.

And businesses could be asked to help fund a campaign encouraging employers to adopt culturally inclusive workplaces.

The recommendations come from a State Government report that has found ongoing racial and religious discrimination at work.

The report, to be released today, calls for the state's anti-discrimination watchdog to be given power to launch its own investigations and to seek orders through the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal.

Currently, the Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission can act only if a complaint has been lodged with the organisation.

The report, Harnessing Diversity: Addressing Racial and Religious Discrimination in Employment, says research showed that people with non-Anglo-Saxon names often missed out on jobs because of their backgrounds.

"In Victoria, the research found that those with Vietnamese and Greek-sounding names had significantly less success in gaining job interviews than those with Anglo-Saxon names, despite the details in the applications being identical," it says.

The report recommends that twice a year, the Victorian public sector collect employee data on country of birth, ancestry, religion and languages spoken at home.

"The information reported to be used to identify major improvements and initiatives that promote multiculturalism or that meet the needs of culturally and linguistically diverse communities," it says.

VEOHRC CEO Helen Szoke said yesterday that individual employees would not be singled out under the proposal.

"It means, of course, that issues around privacy or . . . Big Brother have to be addressed," Dr Szoke said.

She said a social marketing campaign, similar to the WorkSafe ads, would promote diversity at work.

"It reinforces good attitudes and it makes it much more difficult for people to be discriminatory in that environment," Dr Szoke said.

The report is a collaboration between VEOHRC and the Victorian Multicultural Commission.

Attorney-General Rob Hulls is considering changes to beef up the state's equal opportunity laws.

John Abney-Hastings
07-20-2008, 07:20 AM
Vietnamese don't get hired because they have criminal records and refuse to learn English.

I would be very surprised if anyone is giving Greeks a hard time any more. The Greeks and Italians are treated as our welcome, if slightly retarded, distant cousins.

The Voice
07-20-2008, 10:17 PM
Many years ago in late 1984 while I was still at school I had job interview with Sydney University for an apprentice electrician's job. There were half a dozen apprenticeships on offer and while they were impressed with me I do remember being told that they'd already filled the quota of jobs for Australians, the rest were to go to minorities. They wished me luck but said that there was nothing that they could do. I was just 15 at the time and I wasn't impressed at all. I guess that it was around that time that I started to take a bigger note of how the country was changing and how we were starting to be openly discriminated against in favour of people who had no right being here in the first place.

DonaldT
07-23-2008, 03:09 PM
Vietnamese don't get hired because they have criminal records and refuse to learn English.


Exactly.

They don't hire Vietnamese sounding names for a very good reason... it's more than likely they can't speak proper English or have a horrible accent.

Greek people, I'm not sure what's happening there. Perhaps they are rejected for their horrible Meditteranean/Effie/Nick Giannopoulos accents? Perhaps they had past bad experiences with 'loud' Greeks in the past?

Greeks, I've never had a major problem with. They seem to be hard workers and honest. Also on another positive note most are anti-Islamic/Turkish.


Does this not breach privacy laws in Australia? If not the privacy act, how about basic human rights not to give personal information unless it's critical?

I know, hey? It strikes me as unusual as there are so many anti-discrimination laws in place and they are allowed to collect info on their backgrounds.

How I wish they could extend this collecting of information to crime reports, births, bank accounts, etc etc. They should list their race, religion and background on everything they do. It would be a lot easier to survey which religions need help where... etc.

Sliverfern
08-01-2008, 03:06 PM
Does this not breach privacy laws in Australia? If not the privacy act, how about basic human rights not to give personal information unless it's critical?


Not in Victoria, as State Government Employees we are on a public data base and need to be accessible to the public.

That is Photo ID, full name, contact details.

Welcome to the government screwing the crap out of you. :bbbat: