Legal Liability

Legal liability for an Australian employer reaches beyond its own acts. An organisation can be liable for what an employee does in connection with their employment, which is why prevention work matters legally as well as practically.

Under anti-discrimination law an employer may be vicariously liable for discrimination or harassment committed by a worker. Whether that liability holds generally depends on what the employer did beforehand to prevent it, which is why the positive duty and vicarious liability are connected.

What that means in practice is that the question asked is not only how you handled the complaint. It is what measures existed before anyone complained, whether they were reasonable and proportionate to your risk, and whether you can evidence them.

Policies nobody acknowledged and training nobody completed are a weak answer to that question.

The Australian Human Rights Commission covers employer duties. This is general information rather than legal advice, and obligations vary by state and territory.

See Sentrient’s workplace compliance system and GRC system.