By Tim Binnall
A government agency in Australia was recently ordered to pay a rather sizeable sum of money to an employee who had been sent home for discussing conspiracy theories at work. The strange case reportedly centered around a child protection caseworker named Jennifer Stefanac who was employed by the country's Department of Family and Community Services. The weirdness began when she was talking to co-workers about her interest in various conspiracy theories and was a bit too enthusiastic about the controversial concepts.
According to a report filed by her colleagues, Stefanac excitedly mused about rumors of a meteorite due to hit the Earth that was being kept secret by the 'powers that be' and how there was a rogue planet which was going to cause a polar shift. She also was said to have pontificated about the possibility that fallen angels had once come to Earth and bred with humans to create a race of giants. These topics apparently caused some alarm among her co-workers, who expressed concern to a supervisor about her mental stability and the fact that she was tasked with working with troubled children.
Amazingly, her manager agreed with the assessment and placed Stefanac on sick leave until she could get a doctor to attest to her mental fitness. As one can imagine, this did not sit well with the displaced worker, who argued that it had all just been an innocent conversation about odd ideas and had no reflection on her capacity to do her job.
Although she was subsequently cleared by a doctor to return to work, Stefanic found the environment there to be so toxic that she soon departed and filed a complaint about her treatment with a government oversight agency. And, in something of a victory for conspiracy theory fans everywhere, she was ultimately awarded $20,000 Australian dollars for what was determined to be discriminatory practices by her employers.