Commissioner’s Foreword Since 2003, the Australian Human Rights Commission has conducted four periodic surveys on the national experience of sexual harassment. Our most recent survey conducted in 2018 showed that sexual harassment in Australian workplaces is widespread and pervasive. One in three people experienced sexual harassment at work in the past five years.2 Underpinning this aggregate figure is an equally shocking reflection of the gendered and intersectional nature of workplace sexual harassment. As the 2018 National Survey revealed, almost two in five women (39%) and just over one in four men (26%) have experienced sexual harassment in the workplace in the past five years. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people were more likely to have experienced workplace sexual harassment than people who are non-Indigenous (53% and 32% respectively).3 Sexual harassment is not a women’s issue: it is a societal issue, which every Australian, and every Australian workplace, can contribute to addressing. Workplace sexual harassment is not inevitable. It is not acceptable. It is preventable. As Australia’s Sex Discrimination Commissioner, I deliver this report with a sense of urgency and hope. 10 I have been devastated by the experiences of sexual harassment within workplaces I have heard about through this Inquiry, the harms suffered by victims and the cost to the economy.4 However, I have also been heartened by the whole-ofcommunity response to the National Inquiry. Australia wants change. The current legal and regulatory system is simply no longer fit for purpose. In this report, I have recommended a new model that improves the coordination, consistency and clarity between the antidiscrimination, employment and work health and safety legislative schemes. The new model is evidence-based, victimfocused and framed through a gender and intersectional lens. It is also based on existing legal frameworks to avoid duplication, ambiguity and undue burden on employers. Importantly, it recognises the complementary and mutually reinforcing nature of the three schemes, while also recognising their distinctive features. I call on all employers to join me in creating safe, gender-equal and inclusive workplaces, no matter their industry or size. This will require transparency, accountability and leadership. It will also require a shift from the current reactive model, that requires complaints from individuals, to a proactive model, which will require positive actions from employers.