A customer of Bunnings says she doesn’t have to wear a face mask because it’s her “right to do whatever I want as a living woman.”
Footage of the woman’s altercation with a shop manager, thought to be in Melbourne, is circulating on social media.
A boss called Dan is calmly reacting to claims that three minutes of video asking clients to wear face masks is “discriminatory.”
“We’re not trying to discriminate against anybody, would you please stop filming me?” he says.
She replies: “No you are, no I’m not going to stop.”
He says someone who doesn’t wear a face mask is stopped at the door and told to wear one.
“As I said, it’s just a condition of entry to all customers,” he says.
She retorts: “I don’t care, it doesn’t apply to me.
“It does not because it’s a breach of the Charter of Human Rights.”
Rick Sarre, the University of South Australia’s Adjunct Professor of Law and Criminal Justice, says Australian companies have the right to allow clients to wear face masks.
“Australian law, quite simply, says that private landowners or occupiers can take reasonable steps to protect themselves, their employees and people on their property,” he wrote in The Conversation.
“So it would be legal for businesses – including cafes and supermarkets – to make it a condition of entry that customers wear a mask and sanitise their hands.”
The company said customers shopping in Melbourne earlier this week, that it will allow the Mitchell Shire to wear face masks.
It aligned with the ruling by the state government that masks in the areas were compulsory from Thursday due to a spike in cases of coronavirus.
The message doesn’t seem to get through though.