Anti-Discrimination
Australian employers actively support workplace diversity, and businesses of all sizes are successfully harnessing the talents of Australia’s increasingly diverse labour force. There is no place for unlawful discrimination in our workplaces and all Australians should be able to seek work, and be employed free from discrimination, prejudice or harassment.
Anti-discrimination laws should be practical and easy to follow. They should not impede genuine and necessary business decision making. These include decisions to employ or not employ, to advertise for employment, to discipline or terminate employment on lawful grounds, to undertake redundancies and restructuring and to measure or reward employee productivity or performance.
Our Policy Objectives:
- Emphasis on promotion, education and problem-solving rather than prosecution.
- Clearly expressed anti-discrimination laws that support and encourage compliance.
- Reduced regulatory overlap between anti-discrimination laws and jurisdictions.
- Protection of employers from ‘double jeopardy’ and forum shopping.
Our Policies:
- Anti-discrimination laws should have a clearly delineated scope of operation, and provide specifically identifiable obligations and avenues for redress.
- Guidelines should be used rather than mandatory codes of practice, and best practices should be promoted.
- Anti-discrimination law should not permit multiple claims in different jurisdictions based on the same or similar conduct.
- Federal and state anti-discrimination laws should be consolidated, without increasing imposts on business/business liabilities.