Qld government suspends workplace sexual harassment reforms indefinitely

The Queensland government, led by Premier David Crisafulli, has paused significant reforms to anti-discrimination legislation that would have required employers to take proactive measures to prevent workplace discrimination.

The Crisafulli government’s decision to pause the implementation of “positive duty” for employers to take proactive measures in preventing discrimination has been met with staunch outrage.

Former political adviser and women’s advocate, Brittany Higgins, said that the decision by the Crisafulli government showed their lack of concern for women across the state.

“The Queensland Government has indefinitely paused the state’s workplace sexual harassment reforms that were set to come into effect this year. This shouldn’t be a partisan issue,” said Higgins on LinkedIn.

“There has been extensive community consultation over years – (it started in 2021). By pausing this legislation indefinitely, without any clear explanation, just further proves that the government isn’t taking the concerns of the women in their state seriously.”

HR Leader reached out to Hamilton Locke partner Timothy Zahara, who broke down the reforms that were supposed to come into place on 1 July.

“The reforms to the Anti-Discrimination Act 1991 (Qld) were set to introduce a legislated positive duty on businesses operating in Queensland. This duty would have required employers to take proactive measures to prevent discrimination, sexual harassment, sex-based harassment, or other objectionable conduct,” said Zahara.

“This would have gone further than any State or Federal anti-discrimination legislation, with no other regime imposing a positive duty that extends to all forms of discrimination. In contrast, the Respect@Work amendments implemented in 2022 imposed a positive duty which only extended to sexual harassment and sex-based discrimination.”

Zahara touched on how the new changes will also delay expanding the scope of protected attributes in relation to discrimination.

“In addition to the positive duty to prevent all forms of discrimination, the QHRC was also due to receive new enforcement powers, with respect to the new positive duty, to conduct investigations into alleged systemic contraventions of the Queensland legislation,” he said.

The changes now delay expanding the scope of protected attributes to prohibit discrimination on the basis of the following, according to Zahara.

• Expunged convictions

• Homelessness

• Irrelevant criminal record

• Irrelevant medical record

• Physical appearance

• Subjection to domestic or family violence.

Despite the changes, Zahara said that Queensland employers are still required to follow existing workplace safety laws pertaining to discrimination in the workplace.

“Notwithstanding the Government’s decision to delay amendments to anti-discrimination legislation, employers are still required to comply with existing anti-discrimination and workplace safety laws,” said Zahara.

“This includes recently introduced measures under Queensland’s work health and safety legislation, enforced from 1 September 2024, to implement and maintain a gender and sexual harassment prevention plan and proactively manage the risk of workplace sexual harassment through risk assessment measures, as well as a positive duty imposed by the Federal sex discrimination legislation.”