AHRC launches Positive Duty animations

Under the Sex Discrimination Act 1984 (Cth), organisations and businesses now have a positive duty to eliminate, as far as possible, the following unlawful behaviour from occurring:

• discrimination on the grounds of sex in a work context

• sexual harassment in connection with work

• sex-based harassment in connection with work

• conduct creating a workplace environment that is hostile on the grounds of sex

• related acts of victimisation.

The Commission refers to this conduct as ‘relevant unlawful conduct’.

The Australian Human Rights Commission released new animations around Positive Duty for businesses and organisations to understand their requirement in preventing sexual harassment in their workplaces (new update to Sex Discrimination Act). 

The animations are available in English, Arabic and Chinese and via the webpage there is a range of resources, including translated guides of compliance in Vietnamese, Italian, Punjabi, Greek, Chinese Simplified and Traditional, and Arabic at the bottom.

Small businesses have a specific resource guide, with examples and case studies - resource_for_small_business_on_the_positive_duty_2023.pdf (humanrights.gov.au)