TRANSCRIPT
New laws have come into effect aiming to prevent sexual harassment in workplaces.
Dr Anna Cody, from the Australian Human Rights Commission, says the new laws will force employers to be proactive on the issue.
"The Australian Human Rights Commission has developed some guidelines which has seven key areas which employers must take action and there's four principles that they need to use to guide those actions."
These changes in the Federal Discrimination Law will shift responsibility for sexual harassment prevention to employers.
They are a result of the recommendations made by a landmark report handed down by the former commissioner Kate Jenkins.
But Australian Institute of Company Directors General Manager Louise Petschler says not everyone is prepared for these changes.
"A majority of directors and particularly a significant number of women directors feel that their boards really aren't in a position to have an adequate understanding of the issue."
The threshold for defining sex-based harassment has also been lowered, now requiring the conduct to be "demeaning", rather than "seriously demeaning".
The new laws also give power to the Commission to investigate if companies and employers are taking proactive steps to make workplaces safer.
Dr Anna Cody explains the steps that can be taken if a company is failing to comply.
"If we see that employers aren't cooperating with us then we can issue a compliance notice and if they don't comply with that then we can go to the Federal Court to get an order from the Federal Court and ultimately there can be financial penalties that are involved."
A statement from Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus says the changes seek to prevent sexual harassment from happening in the workplace, rather than have workplaces react to it taking place.
According to the latest data by the Australian Bureau of Statistics, 1.7 million people experienced sexual harassment between March 2021 and May 2022.
Around 76 per cent - or 1.3 million - of them were women.
One of those victims is Jessica, who spoke to SBS about her experiences with workplace sexual harassment and gender discrimination.
"The language being used on the call was incredibly blokey, masculine, boys' culture kind of talk. There were no other woman on the call, they were talking about using women to bring people into projects, talking about the attractiveness of certain women, and the most disturbing thing was when they were talking about data, they used a woman's body part to describe that data point."
Overhearing these comments by some male executives, Jessica's career took a swift turn.
"I was shut out of things. I was removed from programs and special projects, exposure to the other executives became limited and I was offered a redundancy, and when I had brought up what had happened and my complaint I was offered a nominal amount of money to sign an NDA (non-disclosure agreement) and silence me."
The Attorney General says the Human Rights Commission will receive $5.8 million over four years to carry out the enforcement work.
A majority of board directors say they recognise the new laws will improve their workplace culture.
