Mark Dreyfus (Isaacs, Australian Labor Party, Cabinet Secretary) Share this | Hansard source

These amendments that are moved by the member for Wentworth propose to extend the hostile workplace environment, sex based harassment and positive duty provisions to all of the protected attributes under the Sex Discrimination Act. While I can understand the sentiment that lies behind the amendments that the member for Wentworth has moved, it is the government's position that this is not the time—that is, the context of this bill—for these particular expansions of a whole range of provisions in the Sex Discrimination Act.

The government's focus in bringing this bill to the parliament was to ensure alignment with the recommendations of the Respect@Work report. That report—sadly, ignored for more than a year by the former government—was delivered by the Sex Discrimination Commissioner following a very broad national inquiry, one of the largest inquiries ever conducted by any commissioner at the Australian Human Rights Commission. It was a broad national inquiry that many hundreds of Australians made detailed submissions to, with many public sessions conducted by Kate Jenkins, the Sex Discrimination Commissioner, and it produced, as we all now know—I think the former government would have preferred that we knew nothing about the excellent Respect@Work report, because they sat on it for more than a year. But, as we now know, here's this major inquiry. The former government's response to it was to say that they were going to implement all of its recommendations, and when it came to it, in August 2021, and the government did bring a bill to the parliament we saw that they had no intention of implementing all of the recommendations of the Respect@Work report.

What our government has done, having made the clearest of clear commitments at the election, was to consult with a very broad range of stakeholders on the provisions that the House can see are now in the bill that is before the House. These provisions build on the extensive consultation that underpin the Respect@Work report. As I have said in my second reading speech and in my summing-up speech, this bill implements the remaining recommendations of the Respect@Work report, which is what this House should be engaged in.

Expanding the bill, as the member for Wentworth's amendment would do, beyond what was recommended in the Respect@Work report would require further consultation with all of the stakeholders that the government has consulted with in relation to the provisions of the bill. It's our view that this is the appropriate time for honouring the commitment that we took to the election, which was to pick up the remaining recommendations of the Respect@Work report and bring them to the parliament. That's what this bill does. Significant time has passed since the Respect@Work report was released by the former government in March 2020. The former government of course had had the report for some months before then. The further consultation that would be required to go through the quite complex, albeit very well-intentioned, amendments that the member for Wentworth brings to the parliament would delay the passage of this bill.

See this speech in context