A cancer survivor has taken her former bowls club to Victoria's highest tribunal after she was allegedly told that the illness made her unreliable. Darlene Badenoch claims she was sidelined by selectors after the comments which she says breached her human rights. Something which her former club denies.
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00:00 At the height of her cancer, Darlene Badenoch's life was bookended by two things.
00:08 Mondays were for chemo, but Saturdays were for bowls.
00:11 It was the one day a week I could be normal.
00:15 I could play bowls and I was good at it.
00:19 Her team was on track for finals, but late last year the 51-year-old says she was suddenly
00:25 and unexpectedly demoted to a lower division by a selector at the Moonee Ponds Bowling
00:30 Club.
00:31 A formal complaint to the club led to a meeting with the director of bowls where things allegedly
00:36 boiled over.
00:37 I think he just got frustrated and blurted out the real reason.
00:41 Your illness, your cancer makes you unreliable.
00:45 And I was just...
00:48 I didn't know how he could come to that conclusion.
00:52 She's now suing the Moonee Ponds Bowling Club at the Victorian Civil and Administrative
00:56 Tribunal for breaching her human rights and wants an apology and $5,000 in compensation.
01:03 I can't play finals because it's too late.
01:06 They've been and gone.
01:08 I can't ask for anything else.
01:11 But that account has been roundly rejected by the Moonee Ponds Bowling Club, which said
01:16 Darlene Badenoch had been under consideration by selectors and that she was later suspended
01:21 for verbally attacking a senior club official after being dropped to a lower division.
01:27 It said the claims were false and the club would be vindicated by VCAT.
01:32 This is one of hundreds of human rights matters that VCAT hears every year, but the cases
01:36 quickly become about who said what and when.
01:39 Both sides have been ordered to submit their version of events to the tribunal, which will
01:44 make the final call early next year.
01:47 She's now in remission and at a new club, Darlene Badenoch is hoping the bowl will fall
01:52 her way.
01:52 [BLANK_AUDIO]