He called them hypocrites, told one to "get on a plane" - then sought millions
Seven weeks after Australia voted on the Voice, a staffroom argument ended a teaching career before it started.
A trainee teacher was eight days into a ten-day practicum at a Canberra school when a lunchtime discussion about Indigenous sovereignty turned hostile. By the end of the afternoon, he had been sent home. Within a fortnight, he had lost his place in the teaching program, his provisional school placement interstate and - by his own decision - his university enrolment.
He claimed the school discriminated against him because of his political convictions under the ACT Discrimination Act 1991 and sought $3.9 million in damages. The ACT Civil and Administrative Tribunal, in a decision published October 30, 2026, found he was not discriminated against. It was his behaviour, the Tribunal held, not his beliefs.
The story behind the staffroom
The trainee was enrolled in a Master of Teaching through the Australian Catholic University and had been recruited into Teach for Australia's Leadership Development Program, which places aspiring teachers in schools serving disadvantaged communities. His practicum school - Namadgi School in the ACT - teaches students from pre-school to Year 10 and has the highest population of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students of any ACT school outside Jervis Bay.
On December 6, 2023 - roughly seven weeks after the Australian Indigenous Voice to Parliament referendum - a discussion broke out in the staffroom. It began when another trainee was reviewing a textbook about First Nations terminology. The conversation turned to land rights, sovereignty and whether land had been "stolen."
The trainee joined in. He told the other trainee he thought the term "unceded land" was "ridiculous." He said that if people believed the land was stolen, they should "buy a one-way ticket out of Australia" or they were hypocrites. He told her - she had referenced her experience working as a lawyer - "You're young, what would you know about this." When she tried to disengage, he told her she was "only leaving because I have won the argument and you have lost."
His supervising teacher tried to shut the conversation down. The Tribunal found that the trainee refused to stop, accused the supervising teacher of "stopping the conversation because you have a difference of opinion" and continued arguing even after the other trainee left the room.
The supervising teacher eventually left too. She told the Tribunal she did not feel comfortable being alone with the trainee in the staffroom.
The principal steps in
The supervising teacher reported the incident to the school principal, recommending the trainee leave. At roughly the same time, the trainee arrived at the front office looking to speak to the principal about what he saw as an unfair attack on his views.
The Tribunal found the trainee was aggressive and combative during the conversation with the principal. He demanded apologies from the other staff. He got close to the principal's face. The principal asked him to go home for the afternoon to let things cool down.
That part is not really in dispute. What happened next is more complicated.
The Tribunal found that after the trainee left, the principal contacted Teach for Australia and asked it to tell the trainee, on the school's behalf, not to return for the remaining two days of the practicum. This happened before 1:20 pm that day - and before the principal had received any written statements beyond his supervising teacher's dot-point email summary.
The principal's testimony that he only sent the trainee home for the day, and that it was Teach for Australia that terminated the practicum, did not hold up. The Tribunal found his evidence on this point "unsatisfactory" and largely reconstructive. Internal file notes and emails contradicted his version. In substance, the Tribunal found, the principal terminated the practicum.
The fallout
Teach for Australia then ran its own investigation. It issued a show cause letter, received the trainee's response - which it said consisted primarily of "broad denials" and "inflammatory comments" - and terminated his participation in the program. That decision was based on what Teach for Australia described as "serious, repeated, and well-documented breaches of expected behavioural standards," covering the staffroom incident and several other complaints about his conduct during the practicum.
The trainee's provisional placement at a regional Victorian school fell away with the program termination. He never obtained the required Permission to Teach from the Victorian Institute of Teaching, and no employment contract was ever signed with the placement school.
On December 20, 2023, the trainee emailed his university to say he was withdrawing from his Masters degree.
He filed a discrimination complaint with the ACT Human Rights Commission in January 2025. After conciliation failed, the matter was referred to the Tribunal.
Opinions or behaviour?
The trainee's case rested on the argument that the school acted against him because of his political opinions about Indigenous sovereignty. The Tribunal accepted those opinions were "political convictions" within the meaning of the Discrimination Act 1991, noting they were expressed in the context of matters caught up in the Voice referendum and related to the relationship between the state and Indigenous peoples.
But having a political conviction and being penalised for it are different things.
The Tribunal accepted the supervising teacher's evidence that her concern was solely the trainee's aggressive demeanour. Three witnesses gave broadly consistent accounts of combative, forceful behaviour. A contemporaneous email from another teacher described the trainee as "aggressive in tone" toward the other trainee and noted she had stated "three times (at least)" that she no longer wanted to participate, but the trainee continued regardless. Internal Teach for Australia file notes from the same day told the same story.
The trainee insisted he was calm at all times. The Tribunal did not accept this. It noted his claim was contradicted by three witnesses, unsupported by any independent source, and undermined by his own admission that he told the other trainee she was "only leaving because I have won the argument."
What the principal really thought
On the more delicate question - whether the trainee's opinions played any role in the principal's decision - the Tribunal engaged carefully with the evidence.
The principal had mentioned to the trainee during their conversation that staff had undergone two years of cultural integrity training and that the school had a high Indigenous student population. The trainee argued this showed the school cared about his views, not his conduct.
The Tribunal examined a contemporaneous file note recording the principal's request to terminate the practicum. It noted the school wished to be "apolitical" on these issues and that staff had reported the trainee "crossed some lines and became heated." The Tribunal found the reference to crossing lines was, in context, about demeanour - not opinions.
Despite having "concerns" about the principal's credibility on several points, the Tribunal ultimately found the trainee's opinions were not a reason for the action taken against him.
A $3.9 million claim that never reached damages
The trainee had sought $3.9 million. Because the discrimination claim failed, the Tribunal did not get to damages. It noted, however, that the trainee's own medical records showed he had been diagnosed with "anxiety/depression/adjustment disorder" as early as September 14, 2023 - some ten weeks before the practicum began - which complicated his claim that the school's actions caused his psychiatric injury.
The Tribunal also found several inconsistencies in the trainee's evidence. He claimed to have been escorted from the school by another teacher, but the Tribunal found he was not. He said the university terminated his enrolment, but he had in fact withdrawn himself. He described himself as calm throughout, but the weight of evidence said otherwise.
The matter has been listed for directions on November 11, 2026, to determine what orders should follow from the findings.
For HR teams, the decision draws a practical line: workers and trainees can hold political views, but workplaces can act on how those views are expressed. The Tribunal treated the distinction between opinion and demeanour as a question of fact - and the written records made on the day of the incident made all the difference.
