Australia’s sex discrimination commissioner is set to reveal her perspective on the nation’s progress towards eliminating workplace sexual harassment and improving gender equality.
Kate Jenkins will deliver a speech to the National Press Club on Wednesday as she prepares to step down from the role she has held since 2016.
Ms Jenkins is expected to reflect on her seven-year term and discuss Australia’s progress in addressing workplace sexual harassment.
She will also present the results from the fifth national survey on sexual harassment in Australian workplaces.
In 2020, her investigation into Australian workplaces revealed widespread sexual harassment and her subsequent Respect at Work report provided key recommendations to the federal government for reform.
On Monday, those recommendations became law and from next year Australian workplaces will be required to have protections against sexual harassment and ensure gender equality.
House Speaker Milton Dick said the bombshell revelations were unacceptable.
“We all have an ongoing responsibility to creating an workforce and a workplace that attracts and supports the best people our country has,” he told parliament on Wednesday.
“We all have a responsibility to display exemplary individual leadership.
“We all have a role to play to set the standard for an inclusive, respectful and professional workplace here.”
The new laws were welcomed by leading Community Legal Centres who said it would have a “profound impact” on the lives of many workers in Australia.
Kingsford Legal Centre director Emma Golledge said the laws mean employers would have a legal obligation to take action to make workplaces safer and free from sex discrimination.
“This will have a cultural and systemic impact with the burden of preventing and addressing sexual harassment being shifted to those in positions of power,” she said.
Ms Jenkins’ landmark Set the Standard report outraged the nation last year when it revealed bullying, sexual assault and sexual harassment was rife in parliamentary workplaces.
A survey of Parliament House employees revealed one-third of respondents had been sexually harassed at work, but only 11 per cent reported it.
About a quarter of people said they had been harassed by a parliamentarian.
The report made 28 recommendations including for gender targets among politicians and an independent commission to oversee parliamentary standards.
Parliamentarians have been urged to adopt a workplace code of conduct as recommended by the report to lift standards of behaviour and ensure the values of integrity, respect and professionalism are upheld in Commonwealth workplaces.
– AAP
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