Anti-discrimination laws are the laws that are intended to offer protection from discrimination or bias against a particular individual, religious group or people of ethnic origin based on sex, race, age, class, creed, colour or financial background etc. These laws make it unlawful to treat a person less favourably or deprive someone based on particular protected attributes. These include age, race, sex, disability, education, employment, financial background and more.

Anti-discrimination laws in Australia have been enacted in both federal and state and territory levels. Apart from federal legislations, every state and territory in Australia has equal opportunity and anti-discrimination agencies with statutory responsibilities. Federal anti-discrimination laws operate simultaneously with state or territory governments.

Over the past 30 years, both the Commonwealth Government and the state and territory governments have introduced several anti-discriminatory laws to outlaw discrimination in several areas of public life.

Australian Human Rights Commission has statutory authorities in cases of laws enacted at federal level while in cases of laws operating at a state or territory level, the state and territory equal opportunity and anti-discrimination agencies have statutory authorities.

Federal laws

The Parliament of Australia has enacted the following anti-discrimination laws based on the external affairs power of the Constitution of Australia. Australian federal laws offers protection to people from discrimination and Australian Human Rights Commission have responsibilities under the laws to examine and conciliate complaints related to discrimination. Complaints for unlawful discrimination under any one of the federal laws can be filed to Australian Human Rights Commission under Australian Human Rights Commission Act 1986. The five federal laws covering anti-discrimination in Australia are:

Age Discrimination Act 2004

Age discrimination takes place when a person is deprived of opportunities or treated less favourably due to the person’s age, considering him or her too young or too old.

The basic purpose of this Act is to raise awareness regarding the fundamental rights including equality before law irrespective of age and to eradicate unlawful age discrimination within the society.

The Age Discrimination Act 2004 prohibits age discrimination in cases of employment, services, education and the administration of Commonwealth programs. The act also makes it unlawful to deprive, harass or bully a person based on ages.

Disability Discrimination Act 1992

The Disability Discrimination Act 1992 prohibits discrimination of disabled people based on physical, intellectual, psychiatric, learning disabilities or any kind of diseases. The Disability Discrimination Act 1992 pursues to eliminate discrimination against people with disabilities. The intention of this act is to raise awareness regarding the fundamental rights of disabled persons in the society.

The act prohibits discrimination against disabled people in various areas of life including employment, education, accommodations and other contexts.

The Act further seeks to employ disabled persons by means of legislation.

Racial Discrimination Act 1975

The Racial Discrimination Act 1975 promotes equality of every people in the eyes of law regardless of race, colour, culture or ethnic origin.

The act seeks to protect people from discrimination based on race, descent, ethnic origin or in some cases, immigrant status. It also seeks to protect people from racial hatred or any crimes arising out of racial hatred including insults and humiliations based on race.

Sex Discrimination Act 1984

The Sex Discrimination Act 1984 was enacted with the mission to promote gender equality and removing discrimination and harassment based on sex, particularly against females. It also protects workers from sexual harassment and safeguards people irrespective of their sexual orientation.

Discrimination based on sex, marital or relationship status, family responsibilities, gender identity or sexual orientation mainly takes place in areas of daily public life including employment, education, services, accommodation, administration etc.

The act seeks to implement a fairer society by establishing equality.

Fair Work Act 2009

The Fair Work Act 2009 ensures the fundamental legal rights of employees in the hands of employee. It prohibits any kind of discrimination based on race, ethnicity, sexual preferences or parental status and more.

This act ensures fair treatment of the employees by an employer. This act also protects the employees against any discrimination via adverse actions, such as terminating an employee’s job without proper notice, unfair terms and conditions at work, depriving any employee any legal entitlements such as pay for leave and harassment in workplace.

The act also ensures a healthy and fair workplace for all the employees.

Australian Human Rights Commission Act 1986

This is one of the most important legislations on Human Rights in Australia and the basis of federal anti-discrimination laws. All the complaints under federal anti-discrimination acts are to be filed in Australian Human Rights Commission under this act.

The Australian Human Rights Commission Act 1986 perfectly summarises the role and responsibilities of the Australian Human Rights Commission. The act also perfectly captures the spirits of the United Nations treaties and Covenants on human rights and anti-discrimination.

State and Territory laws

Australia consists of six states and ten territories. Out of the existing ten territories, there three internal territories which are in Australian mainland and seven external territories being offshore sovereign territories. The six states in Australia are New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, South Australia, Western Australia and Tasmania. The three internal territories are the Australian Capital Territory, the Jervis Bay Territory and the Northern Territory and the seven external territories are Ashmore and Cartier Islands, the Australian Antarctic Territory, Christmas Island, the Cocos (Keeling) Islands, the Coral Sea Islands, Heard Island & McDonald Islands and Norfolk Island.

Apart from the federal laws in Australia, each state has its own anti-discrimination law which operates together with the combined federal laws. Out of the territories, only Australian Capital Territory and Northern Territory have their own anti-discrimination laws.

The anti-discrimination laws of the states and territories are as follows:

New South Wales: Anti-discrimination Act 1977

This is an act of the New South Wales Parliament regarding the discrimination in employment, education, goods and service, accommodation etc. this law prohibits unlawful discrimination of people based on race, sex and others.

The act covers discriminations including sex, disability, race, marital status, sexual orientations, age and carer’s responsibilities.

The act also gives protection against sexual harassment or discrimination based on any diseases such as HIV/ AIDS.

Victoria:

i) Equal Opportunity Act 2010 &

ii) Racial and Religious Tolerance Act 2001

Equal Opportunity Act 2010 is an anti-discrimination act in the Parliament of Victoria. This act ensures the welfare of the common citizen and prohibits any kind of discrimination based on age, race, gender identity, marital status, physical features, political beliefs and more in the fields of employment, education, goods and services, accommodation etc.

Racial and Religious Tolerance Act 2001 is another anti-discrimination act in the Parliament of Victoria. It prohibits any kind of racial hatred or insult against any person or a group of people based on their religion or ethno-religious background. This act also prohibits racist graffiti, pictures or stickers in any public place.

This act applies solely to public places and seeks to minimise racist behaviour and religious intolerance in public.

Queensland: Anti-Discrimination Act 1991

The Anti-Discrimination Act 1991 is an act in the Parliament of Queensland which seeks to equalise all the citizens and prohibits any discrimination in public life based on any attributes. Along with the implementation of the act, the Anti-Discrimination Commission was also established to resolve the complaints related to discrimination, sexual harassment and others.

South Australia: Equal Opportunity Act 1984

The main aim of the Equal opportunity Act in the Parliament of South Australia is to promote the ‘equality of opportunity’ between the citizens and to prevent any kind of discriminations based on race, sex, disability or any other grounds.

The act further seeks to facilitate the participation of citizens in economic or social matters in the community.

Western Australia: i) Equal Opportunity Act 1984 & ii) Spent Convictions Act 1988

Equal Opportunity Act 1984 seeks to ensure the equality of all the citizens by prohibiting any kind of discrimination based on race, sex, colour or any other attributes.

Spent Convictions Act 1988 is a special act in Western Australia that specifically prohibits any discrimination in daily life and ensures welfare after a convict is freed or is pardoned.

Tasmania: Anti-Discrimination Act 1998

The Anti-Discrimination Act 1998 is an act in the Parliament of Tasmania which prohibits any kind of discrimination based on any attributes.

Australian Capital Territory: Discrimination Act 1991

The Discrimination Act 1991 is one of the two existing anti-discriminatory acts in the Australian territories. This act seeks to eliminate discrimination ‘to the greatest extent possible’ and protect and promote the right to equality before law.

Like all the anti-discrimination acts, this act also prohibits any kind of discrimination based on any attributes.

Northern Territory: Anti-Discrimination Act 1996

Just like all the anti-discrimination act, the Northern Territory Anti-Discrimination Act 1996 seeks to prevent any discrimination based on any aspects. Furthermore, the act strongly protects the rights of disabled persons.

The complaints regarding any discrimination under this act are resolved by Northern Territory Anti-Discrimination Commissioner.

Conclusion

Australia is vast country with people from several ethnic backgrounds living there. Hence, it is necessary to provide every citizen the right to equality. Australia has some strong anti-discrimination laws that protects its citizens from discrimination and prevents the breach of human rights violations. The existence of federal, state and territory laws which ensures that nobody faces any unlawful discrimination and protection of people from discrimination and harassment.