In this article, the author argues that the separation of sexual harassment from sex discrimination within legal and popular discourses deflects attention from systemic discrimination. The article examines a range of conduct to support the view that the closer to heterosex the harassing conduct is, the more likely it is to be accepted as sexual harassment. This corporealised focus not only individualises the conduct and detracts from the idea of women as rational knowers in authoritative positions, it also legitimises other forms of harassing conduct in the workplace. The unremitting focus on the sexual in sexual harassment therefore serves a convenient political and ideological purpose within a neo liberal climate that privileges employer prerogative over workers’ rights.

Neoliberal employment strategies, immigration policies, economic globalisation and the events of 9/11 have created new environments for racism in Australia. In this article, the ramifications of the shifting political environment on race discrimination against ethnicised Others in employment since 1990 are examined, with particular regard to the post-9/11 period. Drawing on complaints made to anti-discrimination agencies and decisions of courts and tribunals, it is argued that there has been a contraction in the ambit of operation of the legislation through the application of exemptions and a heightened burden of proof for complainants which has had a chilling effect on the jurisdiction. Drawing on Goldberg’s thesis of the racial state, it is posited that in the contemporary political environment, the state is active in producing and sustaining racism.

This paper presents a critical overview of contemporary issues of concern relating to sex discrimination legislation in Australia, focusing particularly on the workplace and the federal Act. Pregnancy, maternity leave and caring responsibilities continue to be especially problematic because of the individual complaint-based mechanism, the comparability requirement in direct discrimination and the assumption of formal equality underpinning the Act.

Concerns about the ramifications of a rapidly aging population have generally focused on the post-retirement period, with limited scholarly attention to the experience of ageism in the workplace. Despite a shift in policy against early retirement, ‘older workers’ – who may be as young as 40 – are disproportionately experiencing age discrimination, often resulting in joblessness. This article argues that in a postmodern environment, where the culture of ‘youthism’ predominates, the workplace is undergoing significant changes. In the new knowledge economy, characterised by technological know how, flexibility and choice, traditional values such as maturity, experience and loyalty have become passé. Drawing on Australian complaints and reported decisions of age discrimination in the workplace in the context of the international literature, the article demonstrates the variety of forms ageism is taking. It argues that age discrimination legislation reflects an outdated modernist paradigm that fails to address the experience of older workers. In addition, as part of the culture of youthism, work is now being gauged by its capacity to create an aesthetic of pleasure.

This work provides comparative insights into how deliberation on proposed constitutional amendments might be more effectively pursued. It reports on a new nationwide survey of public attitudes to constitutional reform, examining the potential in Australia of innovative Canadian models of reform led by Citizens’ Assemblies. Assembly members are selected at random and are demographically representative of the wider public. They deliberate over reforms for several months while receiving instruction from experts in relevant fields. Members thus become ‘public-experts’: citizens who stand in for the wider public but are versed in constitutional fundamentals. The author finds striking empirical evidence that, if applied in the Australian context, public trust would be substantially greater for Citizens’ Assemblies compared with traditional processes of change.

The article sets these results in context, reading the Assemblies against theories of deliberative democracy and public trust. One reason for greater public trust in the Assemblies’ may be an ability to accommodate key values that are otherwise in conflict: majoritarian democratic legitimacy, on the one hand, and fair and well-informed (or ‘deliberatively rational’) decision-making, on the other. Previously, almost no other poll had asked exactly how much Australians trust in constitutional change. However, by resolving trust into a set of discrete public values, the polling and analysis in this work provide evidence that constitutional reform might only succeed when it expresses, at once, the values of both majoritarian and deliberative democracy.

This Report presents the findings and recommendations of a research project established to examine whether the ACT Human Rights Act 2004 (HRA) should be amended to include explicit guarantees of economic, social and cultural rights (ESCR) and, if so, what impact this was likely to have on governance in the ACT. The project was funded under the Australian Research Council Linkage Project Scheme; the academic project partners were the Regulatory Institutions Network (RegNet) in the College of Asia and the Pacific of The Australian National University and the Australian Human Rights Centre, Faculty of Law, The University of New South Wales, while the Partner Organisation was the ACT Department of Justice and Community Safety.

This article revisits the zonal malapportionment endemic in Queensland’s electoral system before the Fitzgerald Inquiry and examines how reform was won. The process is found to be one of liberalising but not ground-breaking catch-up. Viewing Queensland’s zonal system in the larger perspective of manipulation of electoral maps, this article compares Premier Bjelke-Petersen with populist strongmen in South Australia (Playford) and Québec (Duplessis), who employed similar rhetoric to entrench themselves. Ultimately, as others had, Queensland’s agrarian chauvinism proved long-running but brittle. The Queensland example is intriguing for the paradoxes it presented. An important rhetorical component of it was the signalling of anti-democratic values inherent in the zonal system. The electoral manipulations merged pretence with openness. The pointed rejection of democratic pluralism married with the projection of an image of leadership by right. Bjelke-Petersen was proud to govern over, rather than through, democracy.

This work provides comparative insights into how deliberation on proposed constitutional amendments might be more effectively pursued. It reports on a new nationwide survey of public attitudes to constitutional reform, examining the potential in Australia of innovative Canadian models of reform led by Citizens’ Assemblies. Assembly members are selected at random and are demographically representative of the wider public. They deliberate over reforms for several months while receiving instruction from experts in relevant fields. Members thus become ‘public-experts’: citizens who stand in for the wider public but are versed in constitutional fundamentals. The author finds striking empirical evidence that, if applied in the Australian context, public trust would be substantially greater for Citizens’ Assemblies compared with traditional processes of change.

The article sets these results in context, reading the Assemblies against theories of deliberative democracy and public trust. One reason for greater public trust in the Assemblies’ may be an ability to accommodate key values that are otherwise in conflict: majoritarian democratic legitimacy, on the one hand, and fair and well-informed (or ‘deliberatively rational’) decision-making, on the other. Previously, almost no other poll had asked exactly how much Australians trust in constitutional change. However, by resolving trust into a set of discrete public values, the polling and analysis in this work provide evidence that constitutional reform might only succeed when it expresses, at once, the values of both majoritarian and deliberative democracy.

The report is written with the view that the workshops and the lessons drawn from them can aid in providing a community engagement model for other residential groups in different localities as well as for other community projects with different social groups. With this aim in mind, the hope is to encourage the completion of the project as envisaged which involves a comprehensive approach to civil participation, conflict management and constructive communication involving all sectors of civil society.

The report outlines the approach taken to the workshops and their outcomes and some of the challenges for communities who feel excluded and who may not have had positive experiences or training in how to navigate complex systems and have conversations. It makes some recommendations and outlines some of the lessons learned by all.

The workshops achieved the overall goal of the ‘Creating Right Spaces’ project: of benefiting people with the least access to justice and community development to voice their concerns and learn some skills that could be helpful to them. This was achieved on a small scale and yet this project demonstrates how beneficial such a program can be as well as the importance of it being a continuing project. “One off” funding misses the opportunity for ongoing recurrent work. Continued support is necessary if any real gains are to be made to ensure behaviour change and ongoing skills development and to ensure that the work can transcend often fixed negative patterns of behaviour and give people the capacity to generate real, long lasting and sustainable positive change.

The extraordinary richness of the interactions that arose in the workshops occurred not just from the stories shared and the skills learnt together but, in the words of the residents, from the growing awareness of how the strength of a community comes from within the community itself and its ability to organise, support and respect its members as well as learn more about creating better relationship and engagements. There was individual and collective growth which involved rekindling a sense of being worthy of happiness, opportunities, and a better future – and this happened because the group itself supported each person to take risks, acknowledged each other’s strengths and weaknesses, and demonstrated honesty, respect and gratitude.