Commonwealth Anti-Discrimination Law Exposure Draft to be Amended

The Courier website is today reporting that the Federal Attorney General while defending the process of overhauling and consolidating federal anti-discrimination legislation is set to “remove [the] controversial section that prohibits conduct that offends, insults and intimidates” from the final proposed legislation.

The Courier further reports that almost 600 submissions have been made to the senate committee on legal and constitutional affairs and that the controversial s 19(2)(b) has “attracted criticism from the opposition and from legal and human rights experts”.

To recap, the Bill was released as Draft Legislation consolidating the five separate Federal anti-discrimination laws into a single Human Rights and Anti-Discrimination Bill 2012 towards the end of last year. Although this Bill is yet to be introduced into Parliament, consultation has been ongoing and response very forthcoming. Essentially the Bill seeks to consolidate the following areas into one piece of legislation:

• Differing levels of protections to the highest current standard, to resolve gaps and inconsistencies without diminishing protections.

• Clearer and more efficient laws provide greater flexibility in their operation, with no substantial change in practical outcome.

• Enhancing protections where the benefits outweigh any regulatory impact.

• Voluntary measures that business can take to assist their understanding of obligations and reduce occurrences of discrimination.

• A streamlined complaints process, to make it more efficient to resolve disputes that do arise.

No doubt the debate will continue and it will be interesting to watch in this election year as and when the Bill reaches parliament and is debated.

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