WARNING: THIS WEBSITE MENTIONS SEXUAL HARASSMENT. IF YOU ARE TRIGGERED BY ANY OF THIS CONTENT AND ARE LOOKING FOR SUPPORT, CLICK HERE

WARNING: THIS WEBSITE MENTIONS SEXUAL HARASSMENT. IF YOU ARE TRIGGERED BY ANY OF THIS CONTENT AND ARE LOOKING FOR SUPPORT, CLICK HERE

CEW member talking points

About CEW 

  • CEW is a community of 1000+ prominent and influential women leaders from diverse industries such as the corporate, public service, academic, and not-for-profit sectors.
  • Our members oversee more than 1.3 million employees and $749 billion in revenue. These organisations have a combined market capitalisation greater than $1.144 trillion and contribute in excess of $249 billion to Australia’s GDP. 

About CEW’s policy & advocacy positions

  • Putting women’s leadership and workforce participation at the forefront of the nation’s economic plan will help drive productivity and ensure Australia’s economic prosperity.

  • We know gender equality boosts productivity:

    • Deloitte’s recent report ‘Breaking The Norm’ found that more flexible ideas around gender could lead to an additional $128 billion each year for Australia’s economy and 461,000 additional full-time employees.

    • CEW and Impact Economics and Policy  research found that engaging women in paid work at the same rate as men could unlock an additional one million full-time skilled workers in Australia.

  • Making workplaces safe from sexual harassment is one of our six policy recommendations (see here for all) to the Australian Government, and is a critical element to advancing women’s leadership and enabling women’s full workforce participation. 

About sexual harassment in the workplace

  • Workplace sexual harassment is primarily caused by imbalances in power between different people in the workplace. These power imbalances stem from many different factors, including personal characteristics, position in the workplace, economic vulnerability etc. 

  • In Australian workplaces, the main power imbalance is gender inequality. This partially explains why women are more likely to be sexually harassed than men.

About the amendments to the Sex Discrimination Act by the Respect@Work legislation (Anti-Discrimination and Human Rights Legislation Amendment (Respect at Work) Act 2022)

  • On 13 December 2022, the Anti-Discrimination and Human Rights Legislation Amendment (Respect at Work) Act 2022 introduced a new Australian positive duty on employer and persons conducting a business or undertaking. The duty is to take reasonable and proportionate measures to eliminate, as far as possible, sexual harassment, harassment on the ground of sex and hostile workplace environments.

  • The new law is a game changer. The positive duty compels organisations to reform their culture, transitioning from ‘zero tolerance’ (a reactive, complaints-based approach’) to ‘zero harm’ (proactively taking steps to prevent sexual harassment and related inappropriate conduct).

  • It is now unlawful to subject another person to a workplace environment that is hostile on the ground of sex because these harmful environments enable sexual harassment to occur.

  • These changes ultimately mean an organisation must actively prevent its workers and the organisation itself from engaging in and encouraging instances of conduct such as sexual harassment, sex based harassment, and discrimination.

About Respect is Everyone’s Business

  • To help equip CEW members, their boards and leadership teams, and the broader public with the tools and confidence to appropriately prevent and respond to sexual harassment in the workplace, a small group of CEW member have come together to form a working group.

  • The Working Group is driven by active and passionate CEW members supported by the CEW team and generous pro bono work by MinterEllison.

  • The Working Group hopes that everyone will make it their business to create and maintain a safe and respectful culture at their workplaces, using these resources. (insert hyperlink once ready)

About key messaging

  • 77% of Australians aged 15 or older have experienced sexual harassment at some point in their lives (89% of women and 64% of men). But fewer than 1 in 5 (18%) made a formal report or complaint about sexual harassment at work.

  • Young people under 30; Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people; those living with disability; and people with diverse sexual orientations, gender identities, or gender expressions, are more likely to experience sexual harassment.

  • According to Deloitte Access Economics, sexual harassment is estimated to cost the Australian economy $3.8B in 2018.
  • The introduction of a new positive duty into the Sex Discrimination Act 1984 means all organisations must actively prevent sexual harassment at workplaces. This duty came into effect on 13 December 2022.  From 12 December 2023, the Australian Human Rights Commission will also have a full suite of compliance powers to enforce the positive duty and to investigate systemic discrimination.

  • There is no time to waste.

  • Check out our resources and learn how you can make your workplaces safe from sexual harassment today.

  • We, CEW members, can step up as leaders – not just to comply with the new positive Australian duty, but to create and maintain a safe and respectful culture in workplaces where everyone can thrive. This will assist in building psychological safety and trust that an organisation is committed to preventing and appropriately responding to harmful behaviour so that these behaviours do not happen in the first place.

When we talk about women, we include anyone who identifies as a woman. 

Thanks to MinterEllison for their generous pro bono support for content and Mahlab for website development.

Twitter Linkedin-in Youtube Phone-alt

Respect toolkit

Other

Acknowledgement of Country

Chief Executive Women acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of Country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea and community. We pay our respect to their Elders past and present, and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. We especially recognise the women who have been the strength of their communities for thousands of years.

© 2023 CEW. All Rights Reserved.

Privacy Policy

Terms of Service

Scroll the text
below to read more

We need to set the tone and lead from the top. With this in mind, here are examples of some things we should never say or accept from others:

  • A bullying and harassment policy should be enough to deal with sexual harassment and related inappropriate conduct.
  • We have low report rates of sexual harassment and related inappropriate conduct, so it’s not a problem at this organisation.
  • We have a reporting hotline which is well publicised, but we don’t get many calls about sexual harassment or related inappropriate conduct, so it’s not an issue here.
  • I have been in this industry for decades and I have never seen it, so it mustn’t be happening.
  • That’s the remit of our HR team. If there were ever a big issue, they would escalate it to us.
  • Our staff engagement scores are terrific and there is no indication of there being a sexual harassment problem here. That means we’re doing enough.
 
Most cultural issues aren’t hiding in plain sight. Often, it’s the things that aren’t being talked about that we need to be concerned about. Research tells us that sexual harassment is common and that it’s significantly under reported. In fact, increased reporting can indicate greater psychological safety and a culture of trust that the organisation takes sexual harassment seriously. We have a positive duty to prevent sexual harassment and related inappropriate conduct, and to continuously assess and evaluate whether we are meeting the requirements of the duty. 
 

We need to ensure our people feel safe to come forward and report instances of sexual harassment or related inappropriate conduct in the workplace. The only way they’ll do this is if they can see that leadership takes this issue seriously.

Copy this text

Scroll the text
below to read more

We take the health and wellbeing of our people very seriously. We work hard to improve our safety outcomes and reduce injuries, and overall we do a good job of preventing physical harm to our people.

As we have seen in many other organisations, sexual harassment is more prevalent than a lot of people think. This represents a real risk to keeping people safe in the workplace, and to our people’s wellbeing and productivity.

It can also cause significant damage to our reputation, our brand as an employer of choice, lost business, and to our corporate standing. If we fail to take steps to address this conduct, we may be subject to enforcement action and/or civil penalties. Our organisation may also be held liable for inappropriate conduct committed by our employees unless we took all reasonable steps to prevent the conduct occurring. 

We need to make it crystal clear to everyone in the organisation that we have zero tolerance for any form of sexual harassment. We will always take appropriate action when sexual harassment or related inappropriate conduct occurs. We seek to prevent these unlawful behaviours and to have a zero-harm workplace. We welcome the new Australian positive duty placed on organisations by the Anti-Discrimination and Human Rights Legislation Amendment (Respect at Work) Act 2022 and commit to implementing its provisions in a timely fashion and demonstrating our leadership. 

We need to treat sexual harassment and related inappropriate conduct risks as we would any other physical or psychological risk in the workplace. We already have existing systems and processes in place for identifying and mitigating workplace health and safety risks and hazards, and for defining our desired safe and respectful culture. 

We need to embed these sexual harassment response frameworks into our existing risk reporting practices and organisational culture, so all forms of sexual harassment and related misconduct are eradicated.

We can’t afford to wait on this; we need to act urgently. 

Copy this text

Sexual harassment is any unwelcome sexual advance, request for sexual favours or other conduct of a sexual nature. It’s not only a human rights issue, which is unlawful under the Sex Discrimination Act, but also a workplace health and safety (WHS) risk which can cause significant psychological, physical, reputational and financial harm.

Existing systems and processes for managing WHS risks and hazards should be used to eliminate the risks and control the likelihood of sexual harassment occurring in the workplace.

Board members and senior executives have a duty to address this. Everyone deserves to work in a safe, respectful and inclusive environment. Respect is everyone’s business.

Sexual harassment is any unwelcome sexual advance, request for sexual favours or other conduct of a sexual nature. It’s not only a human rights issue, which is unlawful under the Sex Discrimination Act, but also a workplace health and safety (WHS) risk which can cause significant psychological, physical, reputational and financial harm.

Existing systems and processes for managing WHS risks and hazards should be used to eliminate the risks and control the likelihood of sexual harassment occurring in the workplace.

Board members and senior executives have a duty to address this. Everyone deserves to work in a safe, respectful and inclusive environment. Respect is everyone’s business.