Australia’s Deputy Chief Medical Officer has slammed the actions of a woman who berated staff at a Bunnings store in Melbourne yesterday after she refused to wear a mask in the store.
In footage released online, the woman confronts mask-wearing Bunnings staff at the store entry.
“You’re discriminating against me because I’m a woman,” the woman tells the staff members, who calmly explain that the masks are required as part of Bunning’s COVID-safe entry requirements for the store.
“It is in breach of the 1948 charter of human rights to discriminate against men and women,” she says, claiming the requirement to wear a protective mask didn’t apply to her.
In an interview on Channel Nine’s Today show, Deputy Chief Medical Officer Nick Coatsworth said the woman’s behavior was unacceptable considering the COVID-19 threat Victoria was currently facing.
Dr Coatsworth said the footage was “very disturbing” and said the Bunnings staff members did “a remarkable job staying calm”.
“What we can take away is that the vast majority of Australians find that unacceptable,” he said.
“We’ve been flooded with messages of support for those staff.”
He said he failed to see how a request to wear a mask was a human rights breach, as the woman claimed in the video.
“It’s such a simple intervention. I can’t see how it takes away someone’s human liberty to wear a mask.”
The woman was arrested by police in the Bunnings carpark but released a short time later.
New footage has also emerged of the same woman berating an Australia Post employee.
In the clip, she can be heard telling the employee – who stays silent throughout the footage – saying she doesn’t need a mask.
“I do not need a mask. If you could stamp that, it would be wonderful,” the woman says.
