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A religious Canberra cricket coach has tried to sue the school that hosts his cricket club after it offered him a volunteer job coaching a team that only plays on Sundays. The coach told the ACT Civil and Administrative Tribunal the move was a deliberate and discriminatory attempt to exile him from the high school-based club. He suggested members would have known the time clashed with his religious observance. Neither the coach nor the club were named in a recently published ACAT decision. The coach told the tribunal the school had offered him a job teaching the Sunday morning team after he’d tried to stop the club’s “criminal activity” and had exposed its “fraud, tax evasion and tender manipulation”. He said the club relayed his disclosure to Cricket ACT and Weston Creek Molonglo Cricket, and they all worked together to keep him out of the territory’s 2019/20 cricket season. He sought a public apology from the school as well as $23,500 for “serious victimisation and vilification”. He said coaching cricket and helping some players with costs was part of his penance for “activities in my youth”. “Penance is one of the seven sacraments of the Catholic faith and is actively promoted by the [school],” the coach wrote to the tribunal. “This was also consistent with the teachings of Luke (apostle) in so far as treating all parents the same way as we treat our own parents.” The coach said the school had “illegally” removed him from the club’s committee, and club members had tried to “impugn” his character by telling parents he charged for coaching. He tried to sue the school on grounds he was its unpaid employee, but presidential tribunal member Heidi Robinson found that was not the case. She said the club was an unincorporated and volunteer-run association, and a large part of the coach’s case was “doomed to fail”. Ms Robertson ultimately dismissed the coach’s application to have the matter further pursued at ACAT. She said that, while she wasn’t suggesting the coach’s grievances weren’t “genuinely held or without any merit”, she was satisfied his application was lacking in substance. For faster access to the latest Canberra news, download The Canberra Times app for iOS and Android.
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A religious Canberra cricket coach has tried to sue the school that hosts his cricket club after it offered him a volunteer job coaching a team that only plays on Sundays.
The coach told the ACT Civil and Administrative Tribunal the move was a deliberate and discriminatory attempt to exile him from the high school-based club.
He suggested members would have known the time clashed with his religious observance.
Neither the coach nor the club were named in a recently published ACAT decision.
The coach told the tribunal the school had offered him a job teaching the Sunday morning team after he’d tried to stop the club’s “criminal activity” and had exposed its “fraud, tax evasion and tender manipulation”.
He said the club relayed his disclosure to Cricket ACT and Weston Creek Molonglo Cricket, and they all worked together to keep him out of the territory’s 2019/20 cricket season.
He sought a public apology from the school as well as $23,500 for “serious victimisation and vilification”.
He said coaching cricket and helping some players with costs was part of his penance for “activities in my youth”.
“Penance is one of the seven sacraments of the Catholic faith and is actively promoted by the [school],” the coach wrote to the tribunal.
“This was also consistent with the teachings of Luke (apostle) in so far as treating all parents the same way as we treat our own parents.”
The coach said the school had “illegally” removed him from the club’s committee, and club members had tried to “impugn” his character by telling parents he charged for coaching.
He tried to sue the school on grounds he was its unpaid employee, but presidential tribunal member Heidi Robinson found that was not the case.
She said the club was an unincorporated and volunteer-run association, and a large part of the coach’s case was “doomed to fail”.
Ms Robertson ultimately dismissed the coach’s application to have the matter further pursued at ACAT.
She said that, while she wasn’t suggesting the coach’s grievances weren’t “genuinely held or without any merit”, she was satisfied his application was lacking in substance.
The ACAT decision said the coach had long been a volunteer with the school’s cricket club. Picture: Shutterstock
