RELATIONSHIPS Australia WA felt it unsafe for one of its experienced counsellors to work with clients because his views on domestic violence clashed with their own.

RAWA staff were alarmed by articles Rob Tiller shared in emails to a network of male counsellors, a Fair Work Commission hearing was told.

Mr Tiller, pictured, appeared before Commissioner Bruce Williams on Monday, claiming unfair dismissal from his job at RAWA where he worked from 2010 until March.

His lawyer Jason Raftos said it was a “resign or be fired scenario” when Mr Tiller was called to a meeting with RAWA chief executive Terri Reilly and executive director Susan Visser on March 14.

The commission heard some of Mr Tiller’s emails to the Men’s Focus Group had been forwarded to RAWA management. The emails had been sent from Mr Tiller’s work email account.

They included an email that shared an article written by social commentator Bettina Arndt in The Weekend Australian challenging the “feminist-framed” policy on gendered domestic violence, which is supported by a range of organisations including RAWA. Ms Arndt said domestic violence was a two-way street, with male victims in some cases.

Mr Tiller told the commission Ms Arndt’s findings matched some of his professional observations. He said the emails that landed him in hot water were “cherry picked”.

Under cross examination by Mr Raftos, Ms Reilly confirmed RAWA’s policy acknowledged female-to-male violence in some cases.

Ms Reilly said the meeting with Mr Tiller was to establish whether Mr Tiller’s views were consistent with RAWA’s “critical” policy on family and domestic violence: “I asked if he agreed with the views of Bettina Arndt. He said he absolutely did. It became clear to me that he did have views that breached our policy.”

Ms Visser denied Mr Tiller had been told he had to resign.

“In the meeting, on a couple of occasions, he said he was going to resign ... We said, ‘Where to now Rob’, and he said, ‘I guess I will have to resign’.”

Ms Visser said Mr Tiller had been under performance management, but RAWA’s human resources manager Larry Chew said he wasn’t aware of any performance issues.

The commission also heard of RAWA’s concern that posts and cartoons on Mr Tiller’s personal Facebook page breached RAWA’s social media policy. Mr Raftos claimed some of them were obviously jokes referring to Texas-raised Mr Tiller’s use of the Dirty Harry quote, “Go ahead punk”, when sharing an article about Texans being able to shoot people vandalising monuments.

Mr Raftos asked Ms Visser if it suggested Mr Tiller supported violence. She replied: “That’s how I would read it.”

Lawyer Robert Greig for Relationships Australia said the facts pointed to resignation, not dismissal.

Mr Raftos said Mr Tiller had been an asset to RAWA: “He lost his job because of what he thought, not what he did.”

Commissioner Williams reserved his decision.