Jenny McAllister (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Cabinet Secretary) Share this | Hansard source

Labor supports this amendment to the Sex Discrimination and Fair Work (Respect at Work) Amendment Bill 2021. Significant concern has been raised by the requirement that conduct be 'seriously demeaning'. The word 'seriously' in this context creates too high a threshold. Surely it is sufficient for this form of harassment to be made out that a person engaged in unwelcome conduct that was demeaning. Is it not enough to merely demean someone? Must you seriously demean them before you're in contravention of this provision?

Our concern is that requiring a threshold this high will deter some people from making complaints. They will feel that the very first hurdle will be an assessment of their character based on an assessment of whether or not the unwelcome conduct, which they felt demeaned them on the ground of sex, was sufficiently serious. This is the entire cultural problem that we are trying to grapple with. In the Senate inquiry the Human Rights Commission made a submission expressing their concerns about the way the government has approached the drafting of this provision. They said that they were concerned that the threshold of 'seriously demeaning' set the bar too high.

I repeat my observations from earlier. This government should listen to experts rather than arrogantly presuming that it knows better. In this case, they should listen to the views of the commission to determine what constitutes sex based harassment rather than being guided by their own internal culture with respect to the kind of conduct that they consider acceptable.