This seminar marks the publication of a Special Issue of the Australian Journal Human Rights Vol 31(3) (2025) in Honour of Prof Beth Gaze (Melbourne Law School), edited by Prof Alysia Blackham (Melbourne Law School), Prof Dominique Allen (Monash University) and Dr Adriana Orifici (Monash University).
SPEAKERS
Dr Niki Vincent, Public Sector Gender Equality Commissioner for the State of Victoria Despite decades of anti-discrimination legislation, persistent gender inequalities remain embedded in Australian workplaces. Professor Beth Gaze’s scholarship has been influential in explaining why: traditional complaints-based approaches place responsibility on individuals after discrimination has occurred, while often failing to address the systemic, interconnected and deeply embedded structures that produce inequality.
This presentation will consider Victoria’s Gender Equality Act 2020 through the lens of Gaze’s scholarship and ask whether a proactive model of equality law focussed on addressing systemic discrimination can better deliver on the promise of substantive gender equality. Drawing on the experience of implementing the Act across approximately 300 Victorian public sector organisations, universities and local councils, it will explore three features of this regulatory approach: a positive duty to advance gender equality; interconnected obligations requiring organisations to measure, plan for and demonstrate progress across workplace gender equality; and gender impact assessments designed to identify and address gender inequality in policies, programs and services before harm occurs.
The presentation will consider both the potential and the practical challenges of translating ambitious equality legislation into organisational and cultural change. It also examines the critical role of transparency, organisational leadership, regulatory oversight and an independent Commissioner with meaningful enforcement powers.
Five years after the Act commenced, the Victorian experience provides an opportunity to consider what it takes to move equality law beyond responding to individual discrimination and towards changing the systems, structures and norms that reproduce inequality.
Melanie Schleiger, Melanie Schleiger LegalMelanie’s paper explores the creation and impact of the Power to Prevent coalition (‘P2P’), a collective of over 80 grassroots organisations from the legal assistance sector, sexual assault services and trade unions, and academic experts. This coalition was a key advocate for reforms to prevent and address workplace sexual harassment, promoting solutions developed through its national, cross-sectoral collaboration and dialogue. Melanie collected data through participatory observation, interviews with activists, and analysis of law reform consultations and inquiries, with a focus on costs protection reform in federal discrimination law proceedings. Drawing on this data, her paper reflects on how P2P contributed to legislative reforms that have improved access to justice.
Dr Adriana Orifici, Monash University, and Secretary of ALLA, will be chairing this webinar.
Download a copy of the event flyer here.
The conference theme is: ‘Welcome to the Future: New Ways of Working and Regulating Work’.
The regulatory landscape and governance of work has seen a marked emphasis on compliance-oriented and future-focused regulatory reform in areas, such as work health and safety, workplace equality, and wage theft.
Long anticipated technological and social changes and challenges are impacting work and posing questions about the efficacy and adaptability of current regulatory frameworks. This ranges from the rapid transformations in the context for and content of work by AI, to the shifting boundaries between working and private lives, and the prevalence of the gender wage gap.
Please join us for what is set to be a conference featuring analysis and debate on the future-focused world of working and workers in Australia.
alla@austlabourlaw.asn.au
Australian Labour Law Association
