Page 516 - Week 02 - Tuesday, 23 February 2010
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I note that, in responding to the bill today, members have reflected on the issues concerning discrimination based on a person’s gender and also discrimination in relation to industrial activity. I would like to briefly comment on each of those.
Under the bill, there are updates to the Discrimination Act, under which the commission, through the Human Rights and Discrimination Commissioner, handles complaints. Under the Discrimination Act, it is unlawful to treat individuals with certain protected attributes unfavourably in public life. These amendments modernise and update the existing protected grounds of transsexuality and membership or non-membership of an association or organisation of employers or employees. These grounds are renamed “gender identity” and “industrial activity”.
The term “gender identity” is a better, more modern term to describe the type of discrimination that the act is intended to prevent. Members would be familiar with the advocacy work of A Gender Agenda, an ACT-based group which lobbies for the rights of transgender, intersex and other gender-diverse people and their supporters. With this amendment, it will be clear that those who identify as another sex, and also people who are of an indeterminate sex, are protected from discrimination.
This definition better recognises the protection that was intended to be given in the Discrimination Act. The amendment does not just change the name of the protected attribute from “transsexual” to “gender identity”; it also seeks to improve the definition of that term. The government is mindful of its obligation to ensure that transgender, intersex and other gender-diverse people are not only protected in the legislation but also recognised as members of the community. The new term is more inclusive and better recognises the members of our community who are protected under these provisions of the Discrimination Act.
The amendments ensure that this new terminology is also used in relation to vilification and serious vilification on the basis of gender identity. Currently the act provides the additional protection from vilification on the grounds of race, sexuality and HIV/AIDS status, as well as gender identity. Vilification occurs when a person, by a public act, incites hatred towards, serious contempt for or severe ridicule of a person or a group of people on one of those four grounds. This can include, for example, wearing a racist T-shirt or giving a hate speech in a public place. Serious vilification provides additional criminal protection where a person intentionally or recklessly commits vilification in a threatening way, for example by intentionally threatening physical harm to members of a group.
The other protected attribute, which members have raised in the debate today, is the term “industrial activity”. The proposed wording brings the ACT Discrimination Act into line with the commonwealth’s Fair Work Act 2009 and the term used to describe this same issue in equality legislation in other jurisdictions. The attribute’s definition is also updated to better recognise the types of industrial activities that need to be protected, including participating or refusing to participate in industrial action.
To clarify, this bill does not add additional grounds to those currently listed, but merely modernises the words used to describe two existing grounds. The changes bring the territory into line with contemporary practice adopted in other jurisdictions, including in Victoria and the commonwealth.
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