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A nurse has been stood down from his hospital job in northern WA following an expletive-filled, racist rant on social media that threatened violence against children.
On a Broome community Facebook page on Friday night, nurse Kevin Naughton responded to comments about children breaking into homes in the town.
"Just f***ing bash them within an inch of their useless, worthless lives, they are nothing more than rats or cockroaches," he wrote.
"These c***s rooting their own daughters.
"F*** this do-gooder shit, let's f*** these little c***s up, we've got bull-bars for a reason (haha we all know the joke)"
The 'bullbar' has been interpreted as a reference to the death of Indigenous teenager Elijah Doughty, who was hit and killed last year by a man trying to retrieve his stolen motorbike, an incident that triggered riots in Kalgoorlie and anger nationally.
The following morning Mr Naughton asked the site administrators to publish an apology:
"I apologise sincerely for my disgusting and completely inappropriate comments I posted last night while intoxicated. Reading them back absolutely appals me and are not a true reflection of how I feel or who I am.
"My comments were completely independent from WA Country Health Service and in no way affiliated with Broome Hospital. I sincerely apologise."
The response on social media was fast and fierce, with local Aboriginal people writing of their disgust.
"Broome has historically been a very multicultural community, but no child anywhere should fear threats from an adult," wrote Marlikka Perdrisat.
"I thought that at the least Australia could learn from Elijah's case, but instead people are making jokes and encouraging criminal behaviour in Broome."
Health Department not impressed
The WA Country Health Service (WACHS) was quick to distance itself from Mr Naughton's comments, confirming he was stood down on Saturday morning.
"The comments made on the Broome Community Facebook page by a staff member employed at Broome Health Service are not acceptable to the WA Country Health Service," a spokesperson said.
"Senior Staff at WACHS were made aware of the comments posted on Facebook on Saturday morning, and action was immediately taken by the WACHS Kimberley Regional Director to stand down the staff member pending an investigation.
"These comments contradict the views and values of the WA Country Health Services … WACHS strongly values our connection with Aboriginal communities across the state.
"All staff are bound by the WA Health Code of Conduct and any breaches of this policy may result in disciplinary action."
Kimberley MP Josie Farrer has slammed the nurse's off-duty comments, saying someone holding such views shouldn't be responsible for treating children at the local hospital.
"I honestly believe that if that is the attitude of that person, he should be moved, or moved out of that professional line of work and they should not be employed," Ms Farrer said.
"Such a person, because of the professional duty that they have, has a duty of care for everybody, and that includes black kids as well as non-black kids."
Ms Farrer, herself a Gija woman, said being drunk was no excuse for the comments.
She said there was an ongoing problem with vigilante threats and explicitly racist comments being made on social media pages in the Kimberley.
"I think Aboriginal people are the focal point of a lot of this racial abuse and they experience it everyday," Ms Farrer said.
"At times it's not made public, but this is the kind of thing we shouldn't have to be putting up with."
Social media abuse an increasing problem
Employment law specialist Johnathan Mamaril said the case was typical of the increasing number of workplace problems emerging from social media use.
"It is such a fast-evolving area, but there are quite a few cases of unfair dismissal, general protections or adverse action that involve social media or social media use in the Fair Work Commission at the moment, and in different state commissions already," he said.
He said people did not have to breach laws such as defamation or discrimination to lose their jobs for comments made online, outside of work hours.
So how can people be sure they are not crossing the line when it comes to expressing opinions online?
Mr Mamaril said comments did not need to be as extreme as Mr Naughton's in order to attract disciplinary action or even dismissal.
The key is complying with workplace policies around social media use, and employment contracts, which often contain a catch-all prohibition of negative comments.
"If you have those opinions, that's fine. But when it comes to anything that brings your company's reputation into disrepute, that can be something they'll look at for misconduct, and it's usually a very general term in employment contracts."
"There are quite a few lessons here, but I think the very first one from a practical standpoint is not making social media comments when you're a little bit drunk on a Friday night — that's never very good.
"Negative comments of any sort really on social media that could be perceived as defamatory or discriminatory are not a good thing.
"And for employers it is having a social media policy or guidelines in place, but also letting employees know that they exist and have an understanding of what that policy is about and why it's there."
Topics: indigenous-culture, digital-multimedia, health, broome-6725
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