Jeremy Fernandez

Jeremy Fernandez is an Australian journalist and a television news presenter with ABC News 24. Fernandez joined the Australian Broadcasting Corporation in 2000 working as a producer for ABC Local Radio. He has presented programs on Australia Network and has worked as a voice-over artist for Seven Network. He has worked with CNN International in London, UK as a writer and a producer before joining ABC again in 2009, where he continues to work at the network's Sydney bureau.
He grew up in Malaysia before his family migrated to Australia when he was 13.

Racial abuse incident, February 2013

In February 2013, Fernandez was racially abused by a female fellow passenger on a Sydney bus for about 15 minutes, while taking his two-year-old daughter to child care. One other passenger intervened, but was the recipient of remarks by the abuser. Fernandez says that the woman's daughter had been physically abusing his daughter.

The woman's daughter had been flicking and pinching my daughter from behind. It was harmless child's play, but it made my daughter uncomfortable and confused. So I put my arm around her as protection. The little girl kept clipping my arm. I turned and told her softly, "That was my arm."
The girl's mother asked what was going on, and I told her what had happened. She denied her daughter had even touched me.
What happened next took me by surprise.
She began hurling abuse and accused me of reaching behind our seats and touching her daughter. Of course, I had not done anything of the sort. This accusation hit me pretty hard.
At this point, I considered moving to another spot on the bus. However, the woman then launched into a racist rant that continued for the longest 15 minutes of my life. I thought to myself, "What would Rosa Parks do?" She would stay put. So I did, especially since it is 2013.

— Jeremy Fernandez, My Rosa Parks moment in Sydney 2013

Fernandez says that, after the woman and her children left the bus, other passengers offered him their names and contact details as witnesses to the incident. Fernandez later talked to the bus driver, who said he should have moved. Fernandez has described this incident as his "Rosa Parks moment".