News
Age Discrimination
International Day of Older Persons
The International Day of Older Persons is an opportunity to consider the contribution made by older Australian workers and the importance of creating age friendly workplaces. The percentage of Australians aged 65 and over in the labour force doubled between 2000 and 2015 - and 20% of people over 70...
Leadership Recipes
Defence Estate and Infrastructure Group Annual Leadership Conference Canberra Emeritus Professor Rosalind Croucher AM President, Australian Human RIghts Commission Acknowledgement I first wish to acknowledge the Ngunnawal people who are the traditional custodians of this land, and to pay my respects...
Sex Discrimination
Workplace Sexual Harassment Inquiry - Call for limited waiver of NDAs
Former Australian Sex Discrimination Commissioner, Kate Jenkins, is calling on Australian employers to issue a limited waiver of confidentiality obligations in non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) for the purpose of allowing people to make a confidential submission to the National Inquiry into Workplace...
Age Discrimination
Too old to work at 50: Survey
A new survey on attitudes to employing older workers has found that up to 30 per cent of Australian employers are still reluctant to hire workers over a certain age, and for more than two thirds of this group, that age was over 50. The survey of more than 900 human resource professionals was...
Commission – General
Criminal record discrimination
This article by Commission President Emeritus Professor Rosalind Croucher was published in the Australian July 4, 2018 I recently provided a report to the Attorney-General about a man who claimed that he had been refused a job because of his criminal record. The criminal record was very serious. ...
Sex Discrimination
Fourth National Survey on workplace sexual harassment
The Australian Human Rights Commission has begun the fourth national survey into workplace sexual harassment. The Commission has undertaken regular surveys on workplace sexual harassment since 2002. The Sex Discrimination Commissioner Kate Jenkins said the next iteration of the world-leading survey...
Disability Rights
25 years of the Disability Discrimination Act
It was 25 years ago this month that the Disability Discrimination Act 1992 (Cth) (the ‘DDA’) commenced operation. On 1 March 1993, Australians with a dis¬ability had a national law that was designed to provide them with equality in many areas of life. Over the past quarter of a cen¬tury, the DDA...
HR Leaders Forum
Rights and Responsibilities: Creating Better Workplaces for all Australians
Race Discrimination
Forty years of the Racial Discrimination Act
In October 1975, at a ceremony for the proclamation of the Racial Discrimination Act, then Prime Minister Gough Whitlam described the legislation as ‘a historic measure’, which aimed to ‘entrench new attitudes of tolerance and understanding in the hearts and minds of the people’.(1) The Act was...
Disability Rights
Australian Association of Graduate Employers Conference (2012)
Australian Association of Graduate Employers Conference Graeme Innes AMDisability Discrimination CommissionerAustralian Human Rights Commission Friday 16 November 2012 I acknowledge the traditional owners of the land on which we meet today. Can you - as an employer - discriminate in favour of people...
Disability Rights
Reasonable adjustment
It's important for us all in talking about reasonable adjustment not to appear to present employing people with disability as something new or exceptional being asked of employers.
Disability Rights
The DDA and employment of people with a disability
The standard sort of speech that is often delivered by people in my sort of position at this sort of event is a combination of pep talk and pamphlet, with some bits of a law lecture thrown in: telling people with a disability and their advocates that they have rights under discrimination law, and telling employers that they have responsibilities, and attempting to set out the terms and the effect of the provisions of the Disability Discrimination Act (or "DDA").
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