Victoria's upper house has passed vicarious liability legislation that significantly expands employer responsibility for sexual harassment committed by employees and contractors — going further than Commonwealth law in what advocates say should become the national standard, according to the ABC.
The legislation passed to what the ABC described as thunderous applause in the chamber — an unusual parliamentary response that signals the political weight of the moment, and reflects years of campaigning by workplace safety advocates, survivors' groups, and unions who pushed for structural accountability to match the rhetoric that followed the Brittany Higgins case and the broader national reckoning of 2021.
The core change is to the standard of employer liability. Under existing Commonwealth law, employers can avoid liability for harassment by a worker if they can demonstrate they took reasonable precautions. Victoria's new laws make that defence significantly harder to sustain, placing a stronger positive duty on employers to prevent harassment rather than merely respond to it after the fact.
The practical implications are considerable. Large employers — particularly in industries with documented harassment problems: hospitality, entertainment, professional services, construction — will need to demonstrate active prevention systems rather than box-ticking compliance frameworks. The legislation also extends liability to harassment by contractors, closing a loophole that has been used to insulate employers from accountability for workers classified outside direct employment.
Advocates including Kate Jenkins, whose landmark Respect@Work report in 2020 laid the policy groundwork for much of this reform, have consistently argued that voluntary measures and weak liability standards produce predictable results: cultures where harassment persists because the institutional incentive to prevent it is insufficient.
Victoria has now provided a legislative model that the Commonwealth can either match or explain why it will not. That pressure will be felt in Canberra — particularly in the Senate, where the incoming government, whichever it is, will face demands for alignment from women's safety advocates and the union movement.
The state has form here. Victoria led on minimum wage reforms, occupational health and safety law, and domestic violence leave provisions — all of which eventually influenced federal standards. Whether this follows the same path depends partly on the election result and partly on whether workplace safety maintains the political salience the 2021 moment generated.
For workers right now, the legislation provides a materially stronger basis for complaints and legal action. That is not a small thing.
