Aboriginal candidate 'too pale' for job

A new advocacy group established to tackle Aboriginal disadvantage was forced to apologise yesterday to a young woman whose application for a job promoting the organisation was turned down because she was not sufficiently dark-skinned.

Tarran Betterridge, who is studying teaching at the University of Canberra, applied for the post with GenerationOne, a group founded last week by West Australian mining magnate Andrew Forrest, one of Australia's richest men.

GenerationOne asked a recruitment company, Epic Promotions, to find five people of "indigenous heritage" to man a stall at a Canberra shopping centre and hand out leaflets about the organisation.

Betterridge, 24, was interviewed by Epic's general manager, Emanuela D'Annibale, who told her she was "perfect" for the job but said she needed to consult her client because it had specified "indigenous-looking" recruits. When Betterridge - the daughter of an Aboriginal man and a white woman - called the next day, she was told all the jobs had been filled.

The incident has deeply embarrassed GenerationOne, whose stated mission is "to bring all Australians together to end the disparity between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians in one generation - our generation".

Earlier this week, it was revealed that a parallel employment initiative, also involving Forrest, has placed fewer than 3000 Aboriginal people in jobs in the past two years, far short of its 50,000 target.

GenerationOne's chief executive Tim Gartrell said he was "shocked and appalled" to learn about Betterridge's treatment, and that the group had severed ties with Epic Promotions.

Before going to ground, D'Annibale defended herself to the Sydney Morning Herald. "If you're promoting pasta and you put Asians there, how's that going to look?" she asked. "Wouldn't you pick an Italian to promote the Italian pasta?"

Betterridge wrote on the ABC blog site The Drum that the experience had left her feeling "useless" and humiliated.