The Human Rights Commission is holding six formal inquiries into employers' conduct to examine whether they are complying with the positive duty to eliminate s-xual harassment and is monitoring another 18, while it has received 143 complaints of positive duty breaches since December 2023, according to the s-x discrimination commissioner.
S-x Discrimination Commissioner Anna Cody and Working Women's Centre chief Abbey Kendall have told an international conference that Australia needs national laws to stop non-disclosure deals silencing victim-survivors of workplace harassment and discrimination, as a campaign urges the Albanese Government to go further than Victoria's imminent regime.
Workplace s-xual harassment remains rife, with victims just as likely to be punished as perpetrators are to face employer disciplinary action, according to new Diversity Council data.
Australian workplaces are failing to cope with the rise in racism since the Hamas October 7, 2023 attack on Israel and that nation's subsequent retaliation, with HR processes seen as "ineffective or biased", a new Human Rights Commission report has found.
The Albanese Government should expand the existing positive duty to compel employers to prevent discrimination on the basis of s-xual orientation or gender identity, the Australian Human Rights Commission has recommended in a report released on the transgender day of visibility.
Universities should be required to set targets and report on measures to boost diversity in leadership and governance roles, with "cultural load" allowances also recommended, in a major AHRC study revealing one in five academic staff have suffered direct racism.
The UTS Centre for Indigenous People and Work has joined forces with the AEU to develop a best practice bargaining framework, with the aim of incorporating anti-racist and cultural recognition clauses in agreements.
The Queensland IRC has rejected a claim that the State health deparment's promotion and interview process indirectly discriminated against neurodivergent people because of systemic barriers that prevented them fully participating, but has suggested it provide further training for selection panels.
More than half of respondents to an "ethical bystander" survey witnessed s-xual or gender-based harassment in the previous 12 months, and more than a quarter several times a year, according to Unions NSW's new Ready, Willing, Unable report.
The gender pay gap has narrowed by 0.7 percentage points to 21.1% over the past 12 months, driven by a larger increase in women's average base salary (up $3,419 or 4%) than achieved by men ($2,895 or 2.8%), the annual WGEA Gender Equality Scorecard reveals.
