Brooke’s Government Work Story | Advocacy Series May 2024 [Video]

Hi, my name is Brooke Pape, this is my sign name. I’m from Canberra.

At the moment, I work three jobs. The first one is in Australian Government Public Service, I also teach Auslan at TAFE and for community courses, and provide disability support for deaf clients. The first job I got was full-time in 2019. Within a month of starting, all staff were required to attend an induction course.

I enrolled, submitted my paperwork. I contacted the facilitator and requested reasonable adjustment: they provide an Auslan interpreter. That was acknowledged, and things went ahead. Two weeks later, I was removed from the course enrolment list. I contacted the manager to clarify what was going on. The manager contacted the course facilitator, and found out that they believed the Auslan interpreter would be a distraction for other course participants. I was shocked, the manager was furious and shocked. He “flipped the table”. There was already discrimination at my new job in less than a month. This was unexpected, …