Zoe McKenzie (Flinders, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Anti-Discrimination and Human Rights Legislation Amendment (Respect at Work) Bill 2022. This is the second piece of legislation in this place to implement recommendations made in the Respect@Work report. The report was the culmination of the landmark national inquiry, which took place under the former coalition government, into sexual harassment in Australian workplaces. The first piece of legislation went through the 46th Australian Parliament in the winter of 2021. In the main, the Sex Discrimination Fair Work (Respect at Work) Amendment Bill 2021 implemented those recommendations in the Respect@Work report that were within the purview of the Australian government.

As the Attorney-General, the member for Isaacs, rightfully said in his second reading speech last month:

The Respect@Work report was a watershed moment in recognising the impact of sexual harassment in Australian workplaces …

That report found that one-third of all people had experienced workplace sexual harassment in the preceding five years, and, in the case of women, that was around 40 per cent. As my friend the member for Berowra said in the debate on Tuesday, the latest national survey on sexual harassment will be released within weeks and we can only hope, given the national attention that has rightly been paid to this issue in recent years, that the statistics will show some sign of improvement.

But, of course, sexual harassment in the workplace is not an affliction of recent years. Any woman in this place will be able to recite at least one or two stories of unwelcome physical interest, inappropriate conversations, the well-meaning but slightly leering affection. For many in this place, as well as others outside this place, it can be a daily occurrence. It is not always physical. Sometimes it is situational: sexually explicit posters on the wall or suggestive pictures on a screensaver. Sometimes it is clothed in jest, as though that makes it less offensive, suggestive comments and poorly worded jokes of a sexual or intimate nature.

It took the Respect@Work report and a series of public and private debates both external to and within this place to galvanise support across the parliament to implement the 55 recommendations of the report. The report was released in March 2020 and by March 2021 we had all had a gutful, as the member for McPherson so succinctly put it around that time. It was a time for change and the work of the Sex Discrimination Commissioner, Kate Jenkins, and her team at the Australian Human Rights Commission was to be the agent for change.

There is possibly no more capable captain of change than Kate Jenkins. I first met Kate 25 years ago, and I consider her a friend, a mentor and an inspiration. At that stage, Kate was a young partner at Freehill, Hollingdale and Page, and had built a significant commercial legal practice from scratch in equal opportunity law, among other areas, related to employment. Kate was, in this respect, as were many others, ahead of her time. A number of Australia's leading law firms set up similar practices in years to follow, but never to the same level of success and respect that Kate had achieved in corporate circles by the mid-1990s.

After 20 years in legal practice, where she could see the impact she had had across so many of Australia's ASX 200 companies, Kate took some persuading to leave the private sector to take up the stewardship of Victoria's Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission. In that capacity she led the independent review into sex discrimination, sexual harassment and predatory behaviour within the Victoria Police.

As an aside, I reflect on a meeting I had a few weeks ago in my electorate at the beautiful mechanics hall in Somerville with a remarkable group of people from across the Mornington Peninsula to discuss issues of family violence and sexual assault. This group included members of No to Violence, Sexual Assault Services Victoria, and Safe and Equal. I'm greatly indebted to them for the time that they gave me and the passion and determination with which they described their work with their clients, and the broader community involved in addressing sexual assault and family violence across my electorate. In this regard I'm also indebted to Rosie Batty, with whom I spent a few hours recently in my electorate office. Rosie is a powerful advocate with an acute understanding of disadvantage and the barriers many women face in getting the help that they need.

Over those few hours at the mechanics hall I talked at length with our local support professionals and counsellors about the experience particularly of women navigating a complicated group of services, as well as the persistent unmet needs for services that assist families suffering from violence and the victims of sexual assault. However, one remarkable observation from all in the room was that, while things were not perfect, their experience with the Victorian police had been exceptionally positive. The training that the police get is excellent. It has improved out of this world. I heard it said over and over. This is in part due to Kate Jenkins's work during her time at the Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission.

After a few years in Victoria Kate joined the Australian government, taking up the Sex Discrimination Commissioner role at the Australian Human Rights Commission in April 2016—again not without some encouragement perhaps, because she felt there was still more to be done in Victoria. In taking up this national role she followed in the steps of a string of great Australian women, leaders and reformers in their field—among them household names: Elizabeth Broderick, Pru Goward and Quentin Bryce—but I suspect Kate's legacy will be the one we talk most about in this place, in the Australian media, in our workplaces and in our universities for decades to come.

Kate's work on the National Inquiry into Sexual Harassment in Australian Workplaces and her report Respect@Work will stand the test of time. Her subsequent work in this place through her direct engagement, as well as her team's, with leaders, members of parliament, members of parliament staff, as well as the thousands who work—some might say live—in this place, in this system, has been nothing short of revolutionary.

We all owe Kate a debt of gratitude, and none so more than I do. You see Kate taught me how to be an employment, industrial relations and equal opportunity lawyer. In early 2001, after a somewhat colourful departure from this place, Kate brought me into Freehills and shared with me the already substantive knowledge and wisdom she had garnered not just in equal opportunity law but also in legal practice, industrial relations, employment law and building a business from scratch. There was no better boss, no better backer and no better buddy. So there are few in this place more proud than I am to see the stamp that Kate Jenkins will leave on Australian public life and, more importantly, in each and every workplace.

What Kate taught me as a leader and equal opportunity lawyer at that time served me well in the many years I would later spend in senior public policy roles and political life, both in this place on the blue carpet and in government in Victoria. Every time I encountered an unwelcome yet hopeful advance, an inopportune declaration of affection, I had Kate's annual Freehills Christmas party instructions, as well as a ready-to-hand lecture on the ill-advised nature of a relationship between superiors and subordinates, which I have applied liberally since.

This brings me to the provisions of this bill and our debate in this place today. As with much of the good legislation coming before us in this place at this time, this bill follows the work of the former coalition government, particularly under the early stewardship of my friend the former member for Higgins, the Hon. Kelly O'Dwyer. The bill implements the seven remaining recommendations of the Respect@Work report that were not fully implemented in the Sex Discrimination and Fair Work (Respect at Work) Amendment Bill 2021. In February this year the coalition had started consultation on the outstanding recommendations, so the bill should not be scratched up just on the list of achievements of the new government. This is one we share, and in that I'm being generous. So the bill comes to this place with the support of the coalition in many—indeed, most—aspects. The member for Berowra has flagged a small number of amendments, largely designed to ensure that Australia's small businesses are able to understand and comply with their obligations under the act once operational.

The bill requires workplaces to proactively create an environment in which sexual harassment and discrimination is not tolerated. Workplaces need to actively make sure they provide a safe environment for their employees. The bill requires employers to take reasonable and proportionate measures to eliminate unlawful discrimination on the basis of sex, including sexual harassment. Importantly, the bill also includes a 12-month delay in the commencement of enforcement provisions in relation to the positive duty to avoid a workplace environment which is hostile on the ground of sex. While we are all impatient to see a hostility-free workplace, this 12-month period is necessary to ensure businesses across the breadth of the nation can be informed of their responsibilities and take the necessary action to meet them. While we have all now been trained to within an inch of our political lives in this place about our workplace responsibilities, and not before time, this work has not occurred to the same extent outside this building. We cannot assume such training and preparedness forms part of business as usual across the Australian small business ecosystem.

In my own part of this great nation, the Mornington Peninsula, businesses are running hard. Most are operating at 50 to 60 per cent of their capacity due to a lack of staff. Many of them are in bringing workers from overseas for our summer season, which sees our population surge by around 100,000 residents over January. Our busy working summers are a beautiful melting pot of different employment experiences and, in some cases, practices. Our small business sector will need time to ready itself for the new positive duty.

This bill is the subject of a Senate committee inquiry which will report next week. No doubt the needs and preparedness of business, especially small business, will be examined in full by that committee. Our modest amendments go to ensuring the bill's new provisions can be implemented with best effect to remove hostility from all workplaces.

I thank the member for Berowra for the time he has given me in discussing the intent, impact and operation of the coalition's amendments. As he said in his second reading speech on this bill earlier this week, 'There is no place for sexual harassment in Australian society or Australian workplaces.' I add it has been thus for decades, since women took their place in the Australian workforce. There is no excuse anymore. We have all been through too much.

See this speech in context