Page 1474 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 1 June 2022
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These amendments will streamline the exceptions in the Discrimination Act and build in human rights considerations.
The final and significant change the consultation draft bill proposes is to introduce a positive duty to eliminate discrimination, sexual harassment and unlawful vilification. Earlier this year, the Minister for Industrial Relations and Workplace Safety spoke in this place about the risks of psychosocial hazards in the workplace. We know that those hazards, including discrimination, have a substantial impact on the health, wellbeing and financial security of workers and their families.
Similarly, having undertaken her national inquiry, the Australian Sex Discrimination Commissioner recommended in the Respect@Work report that the federal Sex Discrimination Act introduce a positive duty on all employers to eliminate sexual harassment and victimisation. The ACT government’s draft bill goes further and extends this to all public authorities and organisations with obligations under the act.
A positive duty will encourage a proactive approach to preventing discrimination. By requiring organisations to take steps to eliminate discrimination, sexual harassment or vilification before it happens, it will shift the responsibility away from individual complainants, it will help tackle systemic discrimination and it will reduce the risk of psychosocial hazards at work and in the community.
Complainants will be able to raise concerns about a breach of positive duty as part of their discrimination complaint, and the Human Rights Commission will be able to ask for information about what steps have been taken to meet the positive duty. The bill proposes that this new duty applies to public authorities initially and to other organisations after three years to ensure that there is enough time to provide education and support.
We are seeking further community feedback on this consultation draft bill and how our proposals can be further refined to better protect Canberrans against discrimination. This feedback will inform a bill that I will present to the Assembly later this year.
My sincere thanks go to everyone in the community who has shared their expertise, knowledge and lived experience so far and to the team in the Justice and Community Safety Directorate who have worked incredibly hard, and incredibly sensitively, in bringing forward these significant reforms for consideration by the community.
I encourage the community to make a submission via the YourSay website. I look forward to receiving further feedback about the government’s proposed reforms to discrimination law so that we can make Canberra an even more inclusive, equitable and respectful community. I present the following papers:
Discrimination Amendment Bill 2022—
Exposure draft.
Consultation draft—Ministerial statement, 1 June 2022.
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