Beth Gaze
Attorney-General Michaelia Cash and Prime Minister Scott Morrison. Source: AAP/Mick Tsikas
It’s been over a year since Sex Discrimination Commissioner Kate Jenkins’ report on sexual harassment in the workplace in Australia, [email protected], was released.
After a long delay, the Morrison government published its response to the report in April, and followed up by quietly introducing a bill to legislate some of these changes last week.
The bill proposes changes primarily to the
Sex Discrimination Act and the
Fair Work Act. While some of these changes are welcome and long overdue, the bill doesn’t go nearly far enough to protect women or prevent harassment at work.
Attorney-General Michaelia Cash and Prime Minister Scott Morrison. Source: AAP/Mick Tsikas
It took more than a year but the government has finally decided to respond to Australia’s landmark workplace sexual harassment [email protected]report released by Sex Discrimination Commissioner Kate Jenkins in early March 2020.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced with Attorney-General Michaelia Cash yesterday that the government would accept all of the report’s 55 recommendations “wholly, in part, or in principle” through a “roadmap to respect”.
The goal is to introduce legislative changes before the next budget to simplify and streamline sexual harassment legislation.
Morrison continued to blame the pandemic for not responding to the [email protected] report sooner, pointing to (paltry) funding made available to domestic violence organisations as “action”. He again blamed social media for a lack of respect among Australians.