Commissioner of Corrective Services v Aldridge (No 2) [2002] NSWADTAP 6

Commissioner of Corrective Services v Aldridge (No 2) [2002] NSWADTAP 6 concerned a complaint of discrimination in employment on the ground of race under the Anti-Discrimination Act 1977 (NSW). It is one of the few workplace racial discrimination cases litigated by Indigenous persons in Australia and, like most, was unsuccessful. Mr Richard Aldridge was a senior manager of the Department of Corrective Service’s Aboriginal Resources Unit and was tasked with leading work to implement the recommendations of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody. Mr Aldridge complained that the Assistant Commissioner, Mr Ronald George Woodham, removed him from his position because he asserted his standpoint as an Aboriginal man. The Administrative Decisions Tribunal upheld his complaint of direct race discrimination. The Department’s appeal to the Administrative Decisions Tribunal Appeal Panel was successful on the ground that Mr Aldridge was not treated less favourably as compared to his white colleagues, as Mr Woodham was ‘equally’ abusive towards all staff members. The judgment has been rewritten as an appeal to the Supreme Court of NSW, allowing the Appeal Panel’s reasoning to be critiqued. It places race at the centre of the judgment and uses critical race storytelling and the Indigenous methodology of yarning to deeply critique, interpret, and reframe the Appeal Panel’s judgment. Specifically, the rewritten judgment reinterprets the events in light of Mr Aldridge’s knowledge and lived experience of racism.