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Material - Discrimination Support
Material - DiscriminationAnti-Discrimination laws
Both federal and New South Wales laws say that it is against the law to discriminate against people, or treat them unfairly, in various areas of public life. One of these areas is employment.
These laws are the New South Wales Anti-Discrimination Act 1977, Commonwealth Racial Discrimination Act 1975, Sex Discrimination Act 1984, Disability Discrimination Act 1992, Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission Act 1986.
This means that in New South Wales all employers and supervisors must generally treat all their employees, and anyone who applies for a job with them, fairly. In particular, they must not treat them unfairly, or harass them, because of their, or any of their relatives', work colleagues' or friends':
- carers' responsibilities (from 1 March 2001, in employment only)
- sex (including pregnancy)
- race, colour, ethnic or ethno-religious background, descent or nationality
- marital status
- disability (including past, present or future physical, intellectual or psychiatric disability, learning disorders, or any organism capable of causing disease - for example, infectious diseases and HIV/AIDS)
- homosexuality (male or female, actual or presumed)
- age (including not forcing them to retire at the old retirement age).
- transgender (commonly known as transsexuality)
In general, therefore, employers and supervisors must treat people fairly, whether they, or their relatives or associates, are male or female, from one ethnic group rather than another, married or not, older or younger, and so on. They must not allow any prejudices or stereotyped views that they have about people of a particular sex, race, age and so on to influence them in relation to who they hire, how they treat people while they are working for them, or who they dismiss or make redundant.
They must also be careful not to indirectly discriminate against people - that is, they must not have any requirement, rule or policy that results in disadvantaging one sex compared with another, one ethnic group compared with another etc - unless they can show that the particular requirement, rule or policy is "reasonable in all the circumstances". For example, an employer who says that they need a person over 180 cm tall to do a job is likely to end up discriminating against women and some ethnic groups. This is because women and people from some ethnic groups are less likely to be this height than men or people from other ethnic groups. If it is possible to show that the job does not need someone 180 cm tall, or that it could easily be adapted to suit people who aren't that tall, then they could claim indirect sex discrimination or indirect race discrimination.
In effect, employers must give everyone an equal opportunity.