If you've ever been a victim of discrimination of any kind you will know how it can adversely affect many areas of your life. The way you view yourself and the way you view others. Your emotional stability can suffer terribly under the weight of trying to understand how someone could have the power to make you feel like you just don't count. Discrimination may also leave some victims, in some instances, feeling as though they have no support from the community or the legal system in general, depending of course on the individual circumstances. Discrimination in any form is hurtful to say the very least and extremely anti-productive.

I was one of the lucky ones who had never felt the sting of a discriminatory slap in the face. That is... until a few months ago when I was discriminated against due to my age by a very well known bus company. I am a full time student at TAFE and as I filled out the required form for a concession fare for bus travel I read in black and white on the page before me, a list of reasons for which a pass would not be issued. The first few exceptions appeared to be fair enough. If you earned too much money, if you weren't studying for the required minimum number of hours etc...Then I reached the last entry and my jaw dropped. It stated that a student over the age of 30yrs was not entitled to a concession. Why? I wondered. Then I laughed at my own stupidity. Surely that was simply an oversight...some antiquated rule that someone forgot to remove, after all, it's 2006. A company wouldn't blatantly discriminate like that these days...would they?

I decided to ring the bus company and check, feeling sure that I would be told not to pay attention to that rule...the staff member would apologize and promptly let the person in charge know about this unfortunate oversight and the offending rule would be removed.

This scenario, however, was far removed from the reality. The young woman from the bus company informed me that this was in fact, correct. I was stunned! I asked her the reason for this rule and she blurted out some garble which was obviously supposed to sound official and which I believe, she probably, at least in part, concocted at the time. Now I must admit, there are instances when a person's age will factor in the process of deciding their suitability for certain tasks, occupations or benefits, so I decided to find out exactly what constituted age discrimination and this is what I found on an official informational Government Website.

What is age discrimination?

Age discrimination occurs when an opportunity is denied to a person solely because of their age and where age is irrelevant to the person's ability to take advantage of that opportunity. ( 2004 Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission www.hreoc.gov.au/age/index.html#a3) There it was! I had indeed been discriminated against. There is absolutely no logical reason why a 30 yr old (or younger) full time student in the exact situation as I, should be more entitled to a concession simply because of age.

There will be readers who wonder what I'm complaining about. There are worse forms of discrimination than that which I experienced. Those thoughts are well understood... but what we must realize is that discrimination in any form is not acceptable. The level of offense is not the issue. Discrimination is the issue. Turning a blind eye to one instance is opening the door to others. In this case, the discrimination was blatant and carried out by a large, well known company and up to now has gone unchecked.

I admit the affect on me personally has not been life altering and I actually decided to forget about it; however I discovered that I couldn't stop wondering why this rule is in place. "Why"? is the question I will continue to ask and I won't stop asking until I have an acceptable answer.