As an AB supporter I think this is a screw up by NZ admin. They should just apologise for the miscommunication. Sounds like RA knew there was a deadline and couldn’t meet it but that’s no excuse for failing to give em a call or an email and confirm before going to the media. Poor form. I hope they still play in Perth.

Me gusta leer de los pumas aquí. Si quieres ver mal, mira a mi español! 😱

Personally I thought Eddie Jones was an idiot in that respect. I still recall him basically calling the All Blacks cheats in the lead up to a test. As if the AB were not already motivated enough. On the day the All Blacks came out and creamed them. Good one Eddie.

Gotta say I have never liked coaches trying to play mind games before the match. In any case it usually backfires against the team that starts it in that all it does is motivate the opposition even further. Foolish.

How about the Wallabies go to NZ within 7 days. Play 2 tests in NZ. Third test in Perth if the Permier will let them in. (Unlikely). If not 3rd test in Brisbane.

Hopefully the Wallabies believe they can beat the All Blacks. I’d be surprised if they don’t. But one thing is certain, you are sorely mistaken in your claim that the All Blacks don’t believe they can lose to the Wallabies. They absolutely know.

I read that the whole team threatened to strike if the UAR didn’t back down. That’s a team!

He has been pulled from a Test with further disciplinary measures to come. Its already a dent in his career at the very least. Remember that often it is the process which is the punishment in this cancel culture. Look at the UQ students. Careers killed by the process before they had even started inspire of court ruling in their favour.

In other cases their careers have literally been over. I remember the Nobel prize winning Tim Hunt making a joke. Flew back home from Korea. His career was over before he even stepped off the plane. He didn’t even know anyone had taken exception to his joke, let alone get an opportunity to explain the misunderstanding.

Its good I was pure as the driven snow and never did or said anything reckless or stupid or naive as a young adult….. oh wait….

I’m pretty sure that if your grandfather said something foolish when he was 16 then you will lose your career. If it was your great great great grandfather then you get to have a career but you have to live your life in shame and constant atonement. That seems to be how it goes.

It should be the other way around. While racism is always bad. It should be a requirement that you did or said something foolish that you regret as a teenager before you can be considered for captain.

This cancel culture where your career can be ruined by something you said many years ago as a stupid young person needs to stop. We learn from our mistakes. Its all part of the human condition.
Let he who is without sin throw the first stone.

I’m not really sold on Razor yet either. When I think of top coaches I think of where a team was struggling and the coach lifted them up to new performance levels. Brad Thorn has impressed me.

I’m one person who only ever really had Foxtel for the rugby. Even then, I can’t watch every game in every rugby competition and don’t want to. So Foxtel was always poor value and I’ll be dropping it like a hot potato.

Apparently they spent the week deciding of they had any respect for the national anthem and not enough time on how to win against a top team. Perhaps after this record loss the entire organisation will finally put all the virtue signalling nonsense behind them.

Ian it is unfortunate that you have no knowledge about how NZ is being successful because if you did have some of that knowledge then you might realise how and what we could do better.

Yea the Wallabies will be walked all over even by a gutted All Blacks side rebuilding itself. We’ll be lucky to be at the Pumas. But Australia has the most feminist, politically correct and intolerant side so there’s nothing to worry about. Obviously.

I’m no fan of Castle but with these negotiations l’m going to wait and see.

Castle should not have been appointed. She should go for several reasosns but on these negotiations I’m not prepared to judge her performance until the dust settles. It’s always possible for RA to end up with a better deal particularly in terms of reaching a wider audience. Even if Castle has handled this poorly and gets there by accident, the more important thing right now is to see if rugby ends up in a better position for the future.

I think it is unethical for the outgoing chairman and this failing board to basically tie the hands of the incoming chairman. This sort of thing seems to be a reoccurring theme at RA. It means no one needs to take responsibility. We can predict the comment in advance: ‘How can they be responsible when they inherit someone else’s bad decisions?’.

Of course the official statement is going to try and be as rosey as possible. It’s that they believe their own propaganda, while heading into a multi million dollar loss, and falling fan base that has us worried.

“But the Banerji case resulted in somebody being fired for expressing their political opinion, which is explicitly protected.”
This is a bit misleading. In the Banerji case, she was a public servant in the then Department of Immigration and Border Protection. She had frequently posted opinions critical of the Australian Government, its immigration policies, and its treatment of immigration detainees.
That was in direct conflict with an inherent part of her role in an organisation that has an inherent requirement to be politically neutral. Which means she loses her protection in that situation.

Whereas in Folau’s case, his silly views about the afterlife are not inherent to his role as a rugby player. Rugby Australia would have had to argue that (a) Folau has a secondary, yet vital role as a brand ambassador and (b) specific views of the afterlife are inherent to this secondary role. It’s an uphill legal argument.

But then RA would have to argue that views of the afterlife were a OH & S issue. Not likely a winning argument in a court.

What many people fail to acknowledge is that there was no actual discrimination in real life by Folau. It was his view of discrimination in the afterlife. Which a competent manager would have stayed away from.

No you are not understanding what is says in the Act. He is employed as a rugby player. It is not an inherent part of his job that he mustn’t express views of the afterlife. An inherent part of his job would be something that involves playing.

RA could certainly try to argue that being a brand ambassador was an inherent part of IF’s job. This hasn’t been tested, so they might even win that argument. However that seems an up hill argument. To date the courts have strongly favoured the fired employee. Folau’s primary role was playing. I certainly get that he was getting $1m/yr which would help RA’s case to argue he has other duties. However the view expressed was about the afterlife. So it’s asking the court to rule that an employee must not express his views of the afterlife if it is perceived to conflict with a secondary aspect of his role. And to rule that way on the argument that this is an inherent part of his job. And to rule this way in a very high profile, public interest case.
Yes RA can put up that argument, but it would b fighting an uphill battle.

Which brings us to the core issue. It was never a fight worth picking. Particularly for an organisation already in financial difficulties. A competent manager would have handled it another way.

Just to be picky, that not precisely accurate. One could teach any doctrine in a Catholic School as long as it doesn’t conflict with Catholic doctrine. Section 772 allows a termination of employment in some limited circumstances where the organisation is a religious organisation and the termination is ” to avoid injury to the religious susceptibilities of adherents of that religion or creed.”

For example, many Catholics don’t consider much of what is in Buddhism as a conflict with Catholic doctrine (except in matters of the afterlife etc.)

Or another example, would be teaching the theory of evolution would be perfectly fine in a Catholic School.

Anyway it was never a free speech issue. It’s a freedom of religion issue.

Well it’s pretty obvious to us drunks, fornicators and atheists that we are just not considered good enough for the homosexuals. Bloody snobs.
Which based on my personal experience only actually applies to lesbian feminazi types. The gay men I have met seemed not to mind too much about hanging around with us drunks, fornicators and atheists. In fact most of them appeared to me, to one of us. So at least from my perspective, all this outrage and offense taking about the afterlife seems to be purely on behalf of some pearl clutching lesbian feminazi types who didn’t express any concern about what happens in the afterlife until Folau brought the subject up.

Of course I respect that other people may have had different experiences than me and other people are entitled to think that us drunks, fornicators and atheists are just not good enough for any of the homosexuals to hang out with. No problem. have your view. It’s the hypocrisy of proudly calling that snobby attitude “inclusive” when it clearly is not, that rankles a little.

The “wait” is because the problems stem from the current board. So this board wont push her out. The chairman has got the message but is leaving in a way that ties the hands any successor for years to come. As you point out its the same tried and true theme repeating itself. The problems with the current board fester away because the state unions, especially NSW and QLD refuse to act and change course. In fact one speculates if the all powerful NSW union is ultimately at the heart of this, rather than just a passive and inept player.

What is required is a complete change in attitude to refocus the whole administration into a peak performing organisation. But no matter how many times you spell this out the Castle fan club insist that no one offers any constructive suggestions.

Every afterlife that I have ever heard about is discriminatory. What religion includes a non-discriminatory afterlife?

So yes, the religion makes some distinction about who goes where in the afterlife.
And yes on real world factors. (as far as I know of anyway).

“On his list, all the others noted where voluntary behaviours. Being homosexual is not a choice. ”
I am not a Christian but my understanding is that they consider a homosexual act to be a sin, not one’s identity to be a sin. So in their ideology, being a homosexual is not a sin, but acting on it is. Which is to say the behaviour.
That said, I’m no expert on their beliefs. However this isn’t germane to the legal position or the management decision anyway.

I’m not sure this matters too much, because the issue isn’t that we think he said something nice. The issue is the deeply flawed decision to sack him over it.

It is no business of a for-profit employer, what discrimination may or may not occur in some alleged afterlife.
Section 772 subsection 2(b) allows an explicit exception if that employer was part of some religion, etc. Like a Catholic school for example. but otherwise the afterlife is just not any basis to fire someone.