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).
This webinar will drawing together regulatory, academic and, law reform perspectives on equality at work in Australia. We have three speakers lined up – Dr Niki Vincent (Public Sector Gender Equality Commissioner for the State of Victoria), Dr Emma Graham (Queensland University of Technology) and Ms Melanie Schleiger (Melanie Schleiger Legal) - who will each discuss their respective contributions to the Special Issue.
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.
Dr Emma Graham, Queensland University of Technology
Twenty years ago, Professor Beth Gaze exposed the failure of Australia's industrial and anti-discrimination laws to guarantee working parents access to quality part-time work. In the intervening two decades, we have seen significant legislative change and greater policy focus on the importance of advancing gender equality at work. Despite this shift, work-care pathways for parents in Australia continue to be highly gendered, with mothers overrepresented in casual and part-time work and often forced to trade job security, decent remuneration and status to access reduced working hours. Through an analysis of statutory entitlements and caselaw, this article examines the effectiveness of current legal avenues available to parents seeking to access quality part-time work. The author argues that, despite reform, neither industrial law nor anti-discrimination law has managed to dislodge the primacy of the ideal worker norm or significantly improve conditions for mothers in part-time employment. The paper concludes with an examination of why quality part-time work remains unattainable for many parents and the persistent barriers that law reform will need to address if it is to be effective.
Melanie Schleiger, Melanie Schleiger Legal
Melanie’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.
