Our national inquiry
found that the key driver
of sexual harassment
were power imbalances
or abuse of power.
And currently the main power imbalance
or inequality in the workplace
is gender inequality.
So how that plays out in practice
is that you have
sort of power or resources
favoured to one group and generally
speaking, in the workplace
and in society, women
are at a disadvantage.
So to cure or to really eliminate
the drivers of sexual harassment,
gender equality is
a significant part of the solution.
Well of course
everyone has a role to play
in preventing sexual harassment.
We're all obliged to not engage
in sexual harassment
and support others
who might experience it.
But because power is such
a key driver behind sexual harassment,
without doubt our inquiry
found that leaders, boards, leaders
and people managers
have the biggest responsibility.
So workers told us that they felt safer
when they knew that their leaders
were supportive;
where they role modelled
appropriate behaviour;
where they held people accountable
for inappropriate conduct;
and where they did more than
just give a passing reference
to the idea of a safe
and respectful workplace.
One thing we found in our
consistent research
over 20 years is
Australians in particular
don't report sexual harassment
even when it happens to them.
And so the recent survey told us
that only 17% of people have reported.
When we asked, what we heard from people
who'd been harassed,
was that they feared
negative consequences.
They feared losing their jobs,
they didn't want to,
they wanted to be believed.
They weren't confident
their leaders would respond well.
But they also didn't
want to affect their ability
to work harmoniously
with their co-workers.
And in fact, our research
told us that of those people
who did complain, around
50% of them said they in fact
did suffer negative consequences.
So it really told us that
that fear is real.
Which is why our Respect@Work
inquiry really emphasised prevention.
We shouldn't be expecting
the bravery of victims
to risk losing their jobs,
to be the trigger
for us to act to prevent
sexual harassment.
As a lawyer who's practised
in this area for sort of 25, 30 years,
the question that's most
commonly asked to me is
what do I do if someone comes to me
and complains of sexual harassment,
even when I'm asking them
to think outside of that
and to think about prevention?
So the first answer is that
you need to listen
to the wishes of the victims.
First and foremost
is the welfare of the victim, to make sure
that you are not taking steps
to cause further harm.
Second comment is that usually people
are saying that not because
they don't want anything to be done,
but because in fact they fear
that they will experience consequences
as a result of that.
And I think, as I've told many people,
there is a real fear around that.
So if you're the leader
and a person has come to you,
listen to them, try and understand
what their fears are.
See if there's anything you can do,
but there's plenty of steps
that leaders can take
that don't involve a specific individual
investigation into a specific incident.
So the kind of thing we would
generally recommend
is look at other data.
Know about your staff surveys.
Have general conversations about
what are the drivers
and risk factors in the workplace.
Because even if an individual
doesn't want action taken,
it might be
there are other indirect things
that you as a leader
can do to prevent that conduct
and make sure that the workplace is safe.
And in the longer term,
that worker might feel more confident
to come forward as well.
Australia was leading.
In 1984, Susan Ryan,
the amazing pioneer established
the Sex Discrimination Act
and we were one of the first countries
in the world to define
and outlaw sexual harassment.
So, in short,
unwelcome conduct of a sexual nature
that happens at work
and that is offensive,
humiliating and intimidating.
That has been unlawful
for a very long time.
However, our laws
have really only come into force
when someone brings a complaint.
When those laws were passed,
there was no obligation put on employers,
but there was an ability
for an individual to complain.
So since 1984, for now,
I think we thought this would work.
But in practice,
what it's meant is sexual
harassment is really
only addressed under the law,
if a person has the
courage to come forward
and bring a complaint.
And what people have learnt over time
is that there's huge
personal risk in doing that.
So we're at a turning
point to realise
that we need to shift
our responses from responding
and only acting when we hear
of an actual incident
of sexual harassment,
to prevention,
like we have done with safety.
We don't wait for someone to be injured,
to take steps to stop them being injured.
This is another safety risk,
as well as a human rights
issue, and workplaces
should be taking steps
to make sure people
are not sexually harassed,
rather than waiting
until someone comes forward
to act on the issue.
We noticed in the
National Inquiry
that men were less confident
to engage in the focus groups
and we in fact held
some focus groups just for men alone.
What I observed in
the inquiry is while men want to help
reduce sexual harassment,
they were far less confident
in talking about the topic,
and particularly in mixed groups
where women I think
demonstrated that
they're quite nuanced
and have a sophisticated understanding
of what sexual harassment is, probably
because they've experienced it.
A lot of men were still confused
about the definition,
what it was, what it included,
and fearful
that they might put a step wrong.
We know, however, that
whilst four out of five
harassers are men, that 26% of men
had experienced sexual harassment
in the previous five years
in our last survey.
So we know high rates of, really that's
quite high rates of men
experiencing harassment.
Particularly we noticed LGBTI
communities experienced
high rates of sexual harassment
and different forms of sexual harassment.
And we also know that men still,
are quite often CEOs, they're leaders,
they're managers of people,
they're brothers and they're co-workers.
And so if they're not
engaging in prevention
of sexual harassment,
then we have got a real problem.
And their engagement
is a really big part of the solution.
So my conclusion was
we need to better
educate and engage with men,
but we also need
to both ask men to engage
and be prepared for them
to not get it right all the time.
But them engaging
will be a very important
part of the solution.
As someone who's been
working on sexual harassment cases
since the early nineties, I thought I had
heard and understood most issues
about sexual harassment.
I certainly acted in cases
where complaints were made
frequently, and I would say one thing
that didn't surprise me
in the national inquiry
was that many of the examples
we're hearing today
are ones that
I've been hearing for decades,
and that is concerning.
But the one thing that really struck me
that I didn't expect
and probably surprised me most
was the long tail of harm,
particularly for women
of sexual harassment.
It's not just the
psychological harm, it's
also the economic harm.
So I could be talking in our focus group
with people who had
been sexually harassed
in an industry 20 years ago.
They would talk about it
as if it had happened
just recently,
but also that it had
really made them fearful
about working in the industry
that they'd loved
and that they trained for.
So quite often people leave a workplace,
but they leave an entire industry,
and what that means
is that they can no longer
achieve the economic outcomes.
So they're both personally harmed,
but they're also economically unable
to achieve their full potential.
And I didn't really understand that.
I think we all...
the narrative in Australia is
get over it, get on with it.
I think everyone thinks
the sexual harassment
issue is something
that just happens in a time
and then it's finished
and even if it isn't well resolved,
we put it behind us.
The reality is
it has huge impact on individuals
and actually it also has
huge impact on our economy.
So that was probably
the most surprising thing.