The Human Rights Commission's latest survey of workplace sexual harassment shows little change in incidence over the past four years, while only two-thirds of workers reported their employer had anti-harassment policies and just one third had received training, Sex Discrimination Commissioner Kate Jenkins told the National Press Club yesterday in a speech that also marked the first anniversary of her "Set the Standard" report on federal parliamentary workplaces.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has highlighted the positive duty imposed on employers to take reasonable and proportionate measures to eliminate sex discrimination, sexual harassment and victimisation under its Respect@Work legislation, which passed Parliament this afternoon.
The Albanese Government had dropped contentious "cost neutrality" provisions from its Respect@Work Bill and will refer the matter to the Attorney-General's Department, which will conduct a review.
Following a FWC decision to pay an interim 15% rise to some aged care workers, a reconstituted bench has laid out a provisional schedule to consider phasing it in, to see whether extra increases are justified and if workers who are not directly engaged should also get a pay boost.
A stone benchtops company ordered to pay $163,000 in compensation and damages to a veteran stonemason dismissed because of his work-related silicosis must now pay him a further $76,000 in fines for unlawful and discriminatory adverse action.
The Federal Court has refused an extension of almost three years for a former Cricket Tasmania receptionist to pursue allegations that former Australian test cricket captain Tim PaineĀ and other Cricket Tasmania employees s-xually harassed her between 2015 and 2017.
S-x Discrimination Commissioner Kate Jenkins has defended a proposed shift to "cost neutrality" in s-xual harassment cases, where there is a default position for the parties to pay their own legal costs.
The Albanese Government's Secure Jobs, Better Pay Bill, introduced today, ushers in a new multi-employer bargaining regime, but with safeguards that will bar participation by unions with a record of flouting workplace laws, limit industrial action to those in a "supported bargaining stream" and exclude the commercial construction sector.
The Albanese Government's first major tranche of IR legislation beefs-up workers' rights to secure flexible working arrangements and empowers the FWC to arbitrate if conciliation of a refused request fails.