The Human Rights Commission has ordered the ANZ bank to apologise to a former armed robber - for not hiring him ! Despite lying about his criminal record on his job application, a background check revealed his past serious offence that included assault and violence.
The HRC said the banks employment refusal constituted an exclusion made on the basis of his criminal record and "had the effect of nullifying or impairing his opportunity in employment ". The bank said " that it didn't think it appropriate that a person convicted of violent armed robbery should work in a bank ".
What seems to have caused the HRC to make this extraordinary finding is the fact that the offence happened thirty-five years ago, and since then the former bandit has held regular employment with major Australian companies and has a number of glowing references. It raises the question of whether a time frame limit should apply to past misdeeds and whether an employer has the right of refusal of employment on the basis of past crime.
In recent times Google has been ordered to delete past histories where these reveal events that people would prefer to "forget " ! It seems that instrumentality's such as the HRC are intruding into the right of employers to make a personal choice when they have a vacancy to fill. A disappointed applicant can drag that employer before a government entity and plead for restitution - and sometimes the demand is for more than just an apology. In many cases what is sought is the payment of damages.
Initially, outfits like the HRC were tasked with rectifying unfair work practices. People who had been denied promotion because of their religion or their gender. In particular, this applied to the public service generally and statutory organizations such as local councils that were employers of big numbers of people in a strictly tiered pyramid. It opened an avenue of redress for those who otherwise lacked the power to question promotional decisions.
It seems that this "third party " decision questioning authority is creeping into the general commercial sphere. In the " real world " - where making a profit decides whether a firm stays in business - hiring a new employee involves many factors not present in government employ. An employer is looking for a person who can do the job required and will fit into the present workforce without discord and disharmony. It usually comes down to personal choice selected from a number of applicants - and now the door seems open to those rejected to involve a distant authority to second guess that decision - and perhaps demand a different outcome.
We seem to be heading into a regime change where the right of a prospective employee to find work totally over rides the decisive choice of the person tasked with filling that vacancy. Many a successful company can attribute it's success to the skill of a manager who managed to put together a team of people who had the skills to do the job required - and the ability to work in harmony with one another. Making that selection would be impossible to put on paper because it involved a variety of parameters, not the least of which would be intuition. Such success can not be replicated by simply applying a formulae where the applicant whose history merely ticks the most boxes gets the job.
We are already seeing the implications of third parties having a say in employment decisions. It has resulted in some people with paedophile convictions being cleared to again work with children and now a bank has been censored for turning away a former bank bandit looking for a job. Does that mean that police recruitment will be forced to take in and train former drug pushers who wish to become uniformed officers ? It certainly has dire implications for the spooks who work in our national security industry - if former affiliations are to be ignored !
No wonder manufacturing industry is in the doldrums and commerce is struggling. We interfere with the right to hire and fire - at our financial peril.
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