Having contributed to a National Joint Submission to Safe Work Australia’s 2025 Best Practice Review in September 2025, in collaboration with 33 peak bodies, national and global experts, calling for more explicit inclusion of gendered violence prevention in WHS regulations, I would like to commend Sapphire Parsons for leading the National Joint Submission. Sapphire Parsons is a Senior Workplace Lawyer and Co-Chair in the Law Reform Committee of Victorian Women Lawyers.
While the March 2025 update to the Work Health and Safety (Sexual and Gender-based Harassment) Code of Practice was a significant step forward in its shift from reactive complaints to proactive, mandatory risk management for employers, it provides practical guidance on how to meet legal duties, but is not legally binding. As Sapphire Parsons has highlighted “Australia’s workplace safety laws have failed to keep pace with the evidence on gendered violence prevention.” Our Joint submission urged Safe Work Australia to explicitly regulate gendered violence and discrimination as workplace hazards within the model WHS laws.
The current system places the burden on workers to report, despite the fact that an estimated 80% of workplace harassment goes unreported. It relies on reporting and investigations after harm. Ensuring WHS regulations have specific requirements to manage gendered violence, sexual harassment, and gender-based bullying, is critical if WHS regulators are to effectively enforce safety standards for gender-based violence and eliminate these hazards. Identifying the structural conditions of gender inequality that drive the harm in workplaces is needed to eliminate gender-based violence in Australian workplaces. Addressing Gender-Based Violence and Harassment under WHS allows for a systematic, collective, and publicly enforceable approach.
Best Practice Review Consultation Summary released on 17 March 2026 by Safe Work Australia.
Below is a LinkedIn post from Sapphire Parsons regarding the submission. Details on the importance of this call for reform has been highlighted by Women’s Agenda.
