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Job applicant at wrong "career stage" wins discrimination claim

A "superior" job applicant was not discriminated against when he unsuccessfully applied for a role, a tribunal has found, but he did suffer gender-based discrimination during the subsequent grievance process.

The Tasmania Police detective senior constable (DSC) had applied to transfer to a country posting, but a female senior constable, some 25 years his junior, was appointed instead. After an internal grievance process didn't resolve the matter in his favour, he claimed he had been unlawfully discriminated against on the grounds of age and gender.

The Tasmanian Civil and Administrative Tribunal found that when senior officers reviewing the DSC's complaint considered the organisational desire to increase the number of women police officers in country stations, the DSC lost the chance to be judged fairly...