We are in a declared “national crisis” of gender-based violence. Aligning Work Health and Safety (WHS) laws with equality law is part of the solution. It would mean no more waiting, no more silence, no more treating harassment as inevitable.
One in five Australians experience sexual harassment at work each year. But fewer than one per cent ever report it.
The issue is not because the harm is minor. It is because our systems wait. They wait for complaints. Those complaint mechanisms depend on individual workers taking personal and professional risks to seek justice. Confidential conciliation may resolve one case quietly, but it does little to challenge the entrenched power imbalances that drive harassment across workplaces.
It is time to reframe sexual harassment and other gendered violence at work as what it truly is: a preventable safety hazard.
We don’t treat faulty scaffolding or asbestos in this manner. We don’t wait until someone is injured to act. We prevent. That’s what WHS laws are for. Only recently have we, as a nation, begun to talk seriously about prevention, but it remains far from embedded in day-to-day workplace culture.
Harassment is about power
At its core, workplace harassment is about power. Men remain overrepresented in management roles, with women comprising around 42–43% of managers in Australia (3). Women are clustered in insecure jobs. Migrant women, Aboriginal women, women with disability and LGBTIQA+ workers face higher risks (4).
The most common form of harassment isn’t sexual advances. It’s gender harassment: put-downs, exclusion, hostility. It’s about keeping women, and anyone who doesn’t conform, “in their place.”
These patterns reflect deep inequalities in our workplaces. And they explain why the burden of harm is not evenly shared.
Why complaints are not enough
In theory, workers can complain to HR, the Human Rights Commission, or the Fair Work Commission. In practice, almost no one does. In 2023 - 2024, the Australian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) resolved just 314 sexual harassment complaints (5). Compare that to the estimated 2.7 million Australians affected (6).
The solution isn’t to abandon anti-discrimination protections. It’s recognising that complaints alone cannot prevent harm. Relying on complaints means waiting until someone is already harmed and then asking them to shoulder the burden of proving it, often against an employer with far more resources. It is a structurally flawed remedy.
That’s where WHS frameworks come in. They already impose proactive duties on employers to eliminate hazards, consult workers, and take steps before injury occurs.
The problem is that this power has not yet been fully utilised for harassment. Regulators have strong tools such as site inspections, improvement notices, prosecutions, and unions also hold important rights under WHS laws to raise safety concerns on behalf of workers. Unions take action to protect their members, providing another avenue for workers’ voices to be heard and acted on. This proactive enforcement culture is why Australia has made progress on physical safety at work. But harassment is still not explicitly recognised as a WHS risk in most jurisdictions.
Updating and strengthening enforcement of WHS laws would shift the burden from individuals to organisations. It would mean inspectors could intervene even when no complaint is made. It would also strengthen unions’ role in raising safety concerns, representing workers collectively, and taking action when risks are identified, particularly in workplaces where individual workers may feel unable to speak up. It would make harassment prevention a collective workplace obligation, not a private battle.
What change could look like
Trade unions, Working Women’s Centres, employers, academics, women’s organisations and many others from across the country have made submissions to SafeWork Australia as part of the review process. Reform does not mean creating a whole new system. It means modernising the WHS framework, providing improved powers to enforce and address harassment as a workplace hazard.
The next step will be the publication of SafeWork Australia’s recommendations. We hope gender equality at work is central to those recommendations. Once released, there will be a critical window for governments to act.
- Amendments to model WHS regulations could require employers to:
- Expressly recognise sexual harassment as a WHS hazard, giving it the same weight as physical risks.
- Conduct intersectional risk assessments, identifying power imbalances, insecure work and workforce gender segregation.
- Develop written prevention plans in consultation with workers and their union.
- Address systemic risks such as lack of diversity in leadership and unsafe work events.
- Be held accountable, with regulators empowered to inspect, issue notices and prosecute breaches.
This is where the contrast with anti-discrimination frameworks matters most. The Sex Discrimination Act allows redress only when a worker is willing to complain. WHS regulation, if properly applied, could compel prevention and accountability even where no complaint has been made.
We have an opportunity to modernise Australia’s approach to gendered violence at work. I see the Best Practice Review as a vehicle to make progress, because no worker should have to choose between their safety and their livelihood.
Sexual harassment at work is not inevitable. It is a risk that can and must be prevented.
WHS laws have proven that prevention works. When hazards are taken seriously, lives are saved.