Australian Public Service Agencies are to have a new duty to eliminate gender discrimination, sexual harassment and victimisation in their workplace following a new law that has passed the Parliament.
Announced by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, the Anti-Discrimination and Human Rights Legislation (Respect@Work) Bill 2022 places a positive duty on employers to take reasonable and proportionate measures to eliminate discrimination based on gender as well as harassment and victimisation.
Mr Albanese said the legislation closely followed the recommendations of Sex Discrimination Commissioner Kate Jenkins in her Respect@Work report.
“Sexual harassment is not inevitable – it is preventable,” Mr Albanese said.
“This historic Respect@Work legislation significantly progresses gender equality by ensuring women are able to earn a living in safe, sexual harassment-free workplaces,” he said.
“Everyone has the right to a safe and respectful workplace and the fact that workplaces have not been safe or respectful for so many Australians is unacceptable.”
The Prime Minister said the Bill also strengthened the Australian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) with new functions to assess and enforce compliance with the positive duty requirement, including the capacity to give compliance notices to employers who were not meeting their obligations.
Mr Albanese said it expressly prohibited conduct that resulted in a hostile workplace environment on the basis of sex.
He said the Bill ensured Commonwealth Public Service organisations were also required to report to the Workplace Gender Equality Agency on its gender equality indicators.
The Bill’s passage was welcome by the AHRC with Commissioner Jenkins calling it a “major achievement” that fundamentally changed how Australia protected people from workplace sexual harassment.
“It changes our settings from being reactive to also being proactive, so that employers are required to take meaningful action to prevent harassment from occurring,” Commissioner Jenkins said.
“It shifts the emphasis from a complaints-based model to one where employers must take action, and continuously assess and evaluate whether they are meeting the requirements of the duty.”
Although there will be a 12-month transition period before the duty becomes enforceable, she urged workplaces to implement their change now.
“These important reforms are timely and should be considered by State and Territory Governments to achieve greater harmonisation of sexual harassment legislation as part of any upcoming legislative reviews,” Commissioner Jenkins said.
