Protecting Against Unwanted Sexual Advances at Work The definition of a workplace might seem relatively simple – the office, the work site, the place where you carry out your duties of employment. Yet a recent finding of the Full Federal Court has affirmed one judge’s ruling that the workplace can quite often extend beyond the […]
A recent ruling by the Federal Circuit Court found that a law firm hadn’t taken adverse action against one of its solicitors after she complained of bullying and sexual harassment in December 2011. Emails sent from the solicitor to the firm where she stated that she wanted to consider how to part ways amicably and […]
In a recent court ruling the Industrial Relations Commission of NSW decided that a NSW public servant who was dismissed for inappropriate touching should be given his job back. The policy officer for the NSW Attorney General and Justice Department lost his job in 2012 after touching the breasts of five women during a […]
On March 25th, an application against Energy Australia made by a former director of corporate affairs was dismissed at the Federal Court by Justice Julie Ann Dodds-Streeton. Former Energy Australia employee Kate Shea claimed that she had been made redundant in 2012 as retribution for sexual harassment complaints made previously and this was found […]
What is “sexting”? “Sexting”, (the creation, possession and transmission of sexually suggestive or explicit messages or images), is all the rage with seemingly even the most conservative of your employees potentially drawn into seductive messaging over their phones. However, employers who employ young people may need to consider the potential criminal ramifications when they are […]
By ALISON PAGE, Legal Counsel Often it’s not a one-off event; investigations into alleged sexual harassment frequently reveal that on previous occasions the respondent has faced other accusations of inappropriate conduct against fellow employees. This evidence is traditionally known as “similar fact evidence” or “tendency evidence”. When the investigator considers each alleged incident in […]
By ALISON PAGE, Legal Counsel – Earlier this year, the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal determined a sexual harassment case in which the Tribunal member described the employer’s initial investigation as ‘bungled’.* The Tribunal accepted that the HR department was hard pressed, understaffed and overworked. However, the cautionary tale from this case is that this […]
Even though the Sex Discrimination Act was introduced in 1984, AHRC’s recent report on its survey on the prevalence of sexual harassment in the workplace, shows that sexual harassment remains widespread and efforts to curb this behaviour have stalled. AHRC’s report Working without fear: Results of the sexual harassment national telephone survey 2012 shows that […]