Australia cannot end workplace sexual harassment unless governments and employers confront how racism, class, disability and insecure work compound discrimination, Sex Discrimination Commissioner Dr Anna Cody has warned in a powerful National Press Club address.
“We still have a fairly limited, narrow understanding of sexual harassment… power gets used by harassers within a workplace,” Cody said in response to a question about intersectionality.
“Both her gender and her race were part of the sexual harassment — it wasn’t separate.”
Her message lands at a time when the data remains stubborn. The Australian Human Rights Commission’s Speaking From Experience consultations highlight that one in three women experience workplace sexual harassment; for First Nations women, women with disability, LGBTIQ+ people and culturally and racially marginalised women, it’s one in two.
On pay, the gap persists: “Women earn 78 cents to the dollar of every man. And that gap is even wider for First Nations women, who earn 65 cents to every dollar earned by men.”
From rhetoric to risk—and remedy
Cody’s core argument is that intersectionality is not an academic garnish; it is the difference between reforms that work and reforms that leave the most at-risk women behind. Economic insecurity and racism change both the likelihood of harassment and the cost of reporting it.
“If you’re on a temporary visa or if you’re in casual employment as a young person, then it has more of an impact on you because you rely on that employment. If you’ve already faced racism trying to get that job to start with, then you’re less likely to leave it. So then for your ability to speak out and take any action is reduced.”
That reality shows up across the labour market. Only one in five Australian workers are in occupations with roughly equal numbers of men and women—gender segregation that channels many women, including First Nations women and migrant women, into lower-paid care, health and education roles. Those sectors’ skills (negotiation, de-escalation, complex care) are essential yet chronically undervalued in pay and status.
The lever: prevention, not blame
Cody’s most practical lever is Australia’s new positive duty on employers—a legal obligation to prevent sexual harassment and sex discrimination before they occur.
“The positive duty to prevent workplace sexual harassment is a great change in our law. It really does put the responsibility on employers, and we know that good employers want to do the right thing. No one wants workplace sexual harassment to be happening.”
If implemented with an intersectional lens, that duty forces organisations to ask: Who in our workplace is most exposed to harm and least able to report it? What specific risks face visa-dependent workers, casuals, and women of colour? Do our reporting channels work for them—or only for those with stable contracts and cultural capital?
Redefining “merit” and sharing care
Cody also pressed for a rethink of “merit”—a concept that, in practice, too often rewards conformity to white, masculine leadership norms and discounts the capabilities dominant in women-majority sectors.
“We must critique the ideas of merit, which reinforce the status quo and instead broaden our understanding of how leadership and collaboration centre diversity of skills, experience and qualifications.”
Her broader equality agenda reaches into the home as well as the office. Shared care—supported by earmarked parental leave, flexible work and adequate pay—has to become a default rather than an exception if Australia is to avoid the predictable post-baby split where women step back, men step up, and inequality calcifies.
Ending the silence industry
One of Cody’s most pointed interventions targeted the use of nondisclosure agreements (NDAs) in harassment cases. Survivors repeatedly told the Commission that NDAs silence them, hide patterns and prevent prevention.
“NDAs undermine the transparency that’s essential for genuine accountability… that’s why our report calls for an overhaul to the use of NDAs in workplace sexual harassment cases, banning them, except when they’re requested by a victim survivor, who’s also had access to legal advice.”
Limiting NDAs is inseparable from intersectionality. When women who are already navigating racism, insecure work or visa precarity are also bound to secrecy, the system loses the very visibility it needs to fix root causes.
Safety beyond the workplace
Cody connected workplace harms to the broader crisis of gendered violence. Since she began as Commissioner, 136 women have been killed in Australia due to gender violence. She urged governments to back community-led responses—particularly those led by First Nations women—and to invest in justice reinvestment approaches that address the underlying drivers of violence rather than relying only on punitive after-the-fact measures.
“Diverse women face even more risks when it comes to gender violence… responses cannot be built on a single story. They must be shaped by the voices of First Nations women and informed by the lived experiences of culturally and racially marginalised people, women with disability and LGBTIQ+ communities.”
What intersectionality in practice looks like
Read together, Cody’s agenda sketches a practical checklist for leaders who want to move beyond posters and policies:
Risk-based prevention under the positive duty: Map harms for specific cohorts (e.g., visa-dependent casuals; night-shift cleaners; frontline carers) and fix the conditions that enable abuse—supervisory power imbalances, isolated work, roster vulnerability.
Reporting that works for everyone: Offer multiple, culturally safe reporting channels; guarantee job and visa security for reporters; partner with community organisations trusted by migrant and First Nations women.
Rethink “merit” and pay systems: Recognise and reward the complex skills in care and community roles; remove “culture fit” screens that replicate homogeneity.
Limit NDAs: Default away from secrecy; use NDAs only when requested by the victim with legal advice. Publish de-identified trend data.
Support shared care: Earmark paid parental leave for each parent, normalise men’s uptake, and make flexibility real across roles and levels.
Listen first: Build reforms with, not for, those most affected—First Nations women, migrant women and women of colour, women with disability, and LGBTIQ+ communities.
A call to courage
The speech ended on a note that was both urgent and constructive—nudging leaders beyond defensiveness and towards the work.
“Let’s recognise that gender equality benefits everyone, and challenge the outdated gender norms that limit all of us. We can build a culture where care is shared and everyone’s potential is recognised. I call upon all of us to commit to ending gender violence with a unified, community-led approach, one that prioritises prevention, accountability, and safety.”
The test now is whether governments and employers treat intersectionality as optional rhetoric—or as the operating system for change.
