Make no mistake:history will remember this moment as a key milestone in Australia’s #MeToo journey – and Prime Minister Scott Morrison and his newly minted taskforce for women will prove to be on the wrong side of that history.
The government also joined with One Nation to block other amendments to the Sex Discrimination and Fair Work (Respect at Work) Amendment Bill. These would have changed workplace laws to ban sexual harassment,protected victims of sexual harassment from massive legal bills,and reviewed the Fair Work system to ensure that sexual harassment – using the definition in the Sex Discrimination Act – was expressly prohibited.
This was a significant missed opportunity. When the “world first” sexual harassment inquiry led by Jenkins was commissioned by the Coalition government in 2018,in the heady days after #MeToo first went viral,it was informed by an epic 60 consultations and drew on 460 submissions from legal services,unions,women’s services,academic experts and,most importantly,victims.
And when the final report’s recommendations were released in early 2020,they were described as “revolutionary”,covering everything from a more robust legal and regulatory framework to more holistic support for survivors.
The report’s central recommendation of a “positive duty” on employers to prevent sexual harassment from happening in the first place was billed as a potential “game changer”,taking the burden off victims (who,as the last four years have shown,pay a great price for coming forward) and placing it firmly on the shoulders of employers to take more steps to prevent it from happening.
Now,four years later,I am profoundly disappointed this is where we have landed in Australia ... and not for lack of trying:I refer you to those 60 consultations and 460 submissions. Not to mention a historic women’s March 4 Justice earlier this year.