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1881: Fight for Self-determination at Coranderrk

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1881: Fight for Self-determination at Coranderrk

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Why was Coranderrk set up?

The Kulin people are the Aboriginal people who lived on the land around Port Phillip Bay and as far north as Benalla, Victoria. By the early 1860s many Kulin people had been driven off their land by colonisation.

In 1863 about 40 people from several Kulin clans walked to Coranderrk, a traditional camp at the meeting of the Yarra River and Badger Creek. Clan leaders Simon Wonga and William Barak thentravelled to Melbourne to ask Victoria's Governor for a permanent homeland. Their request was granted and the Coranderrk Aboriginal Station was set up in June 1863.

In its early years Coranderrk was a productive farming community and made enough money to survive. The government inspector and manager, John Green, supported Coranderrk residents in running the station themselves, and as a result their literacy, diet and health improved. Coranderrk became a popular place for tourists to visit and the sale of baskets, bags, boomerangs and skin rugs helped with the station's income.

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Coranderrk Aboriginal Reserve established | Australia's Defining Moments Digital Classroom | National Museum of Australia

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Coranderrk was set up as a reserve for the Aboriginal people of south-central Victoria in 1863. Reserves such as Coranderrk were set up following the brutal impacts of frontier violence and European diseases. But reserves were often very controlling places and Coranderrk's residents fought against efforts to control their lives.

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1863-1901: Australia had no slavery? Think again. 

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1863-1901: Australia had no slavery? Think again. 

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The White Australia movement was getting stronger in Australia throughout the 1880s, and many people argued that South Sea Islanders were taking jobs away from white workers. In 1891 the Queensland Government banned the recruitment of any more South Sea Island workers, but the ban was lifted because the sugar industry was struggling in the economic depression of the 1890s.

In 1901 thePacific Island Labourers Act was passed by Australia's new federal government. It was a part of Australia's new official White Australia policy. The law prohibited any South Sea Islanders from entering Australia after 1904, and it also meant that most South Sea Islanders already in Australia could be deported.

The deportations began in 1906 and continued until 1908. More than 7500 South Sea Islanders were returned to their home country, though some had arrived in Australia at such a young age they would have had no memory of it. About 2500 Pacific Islanders stayed in Australia.

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First indentured Islander labourers | Australia's Defining Moments Digital Classroom | National Museum of Australia

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In 1863 a group of 67 South Sea Islanders were brought to Queensland to work in the cotton and sugar industries. More than 62,000 men, women and children were transported from the Pacific Islands to Australia over the next 40 years. Some were kidnapped ('blackbirded'), others were told lies about working conditions in Australia.

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1949: Banjo Morton's protest for wages instead of rations. 

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1949: Banjo Morton's protest for wages instead of rations. 

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In 1949, Banjo Morton and a small handful of his workmates walked off the vast Lake Nash Cattle Station in the Northern Territory.

They were demanding pay in wages instead of rations. They requested to be paid £1 per week.

The Walk Off was a turning point for Indigenous workers, and an extraordinary part of Australian history.

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In 1949, Banjo Morton and a small handful of his workmates walked off the vast Lake Nash Cattle Station in the Northern Territory. They were demanding pay in wages instead of rations. They requested to be paid £1 per week. The Walk Off was a turning point for Indigenous workers, and an extraordinary part of Australian history.

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REPORTER: Blackfella's country - until recently, few people realised that there might be such a thing.

The idea that the Aborigine might own some of the land he discovered 100,000 years ago is one of the rude awakenings for Australians in the 1960s.

(Plays didgeridoo)

REPORTER: And these are the people who brought about the awakening, the Gurindjis, the remnants of a once-magnificent tribe now dressed like Hollywood extras and set against a background of squalor.

# DIDGERIDOO MUSIC

The Gurindjis are almost without exception stockmen. They first pricked the national conscience in 1966 when they went on strike at Wave Hill Station, 500 miles south of Darwin.

With more than 6,000 square miles of prime cattle country, Wave Hill is one of the largest stations in the world, and it's only one of a dozen or so stations in the Northern Territory owned by the British beef barons Vesteys. Vesteys started large-scale investment in the Territory during the First World War. They now hold a total of 32,000 square miles.

Nevertheless, the Gurindjis on Wave Hill had little share of the wealth. Wages were around $6 a week, and some claim they got only salt beef, bread and tobacco.

Spurred on by white and black civil rights workers including several Communists, the Aboriginal wages strike became a national issue, and from December this year, a new award will give some Aboriginal workers equal wages. But the Gurindjis wanted more.

Sensing sympathy, they asked for something that was more important to them - the land that was taken from their forefathers and which they'd worked for the whites with little in return.

They were led by Vincent Lingiari, a tribal elder who'd worked since childhood on Limbunya, Victoria River Downs and Wave Hill Stations.

Why do you want this land so much, Vincent?

VINCENT LINGARI: Well, I want land the same as anybody else.

REPORTER: What would you do on this land if it was yours?

VINCENT LINGARI: Well, I'm gonna do with the land when I do something about it, if I get cattle, if I get a horse, I might grow a bit bigger, I might start something up more.

REPORTER: Gurindji tribesmen came from stations hundreds of miles away when Lingiari and the other elders made their stand. The land they wanted was 500 square miles around Wattie Creek, an oasis almost at the centre of the Wave Hill property. Their earlier requests to Canberra were ignored, so in the words of Vincent Lingiari, they simply went over to the welfare joint, got a bale of wire and fenced off a small settlement area. They wanted Wattie Creek, they said, because it was a sacred Dreaming place.

VINCENT LINGARI: I went to the welfare joint...(Speaks indistinctly)..and I asked him for a coil of wire. And he said, 'What do you want a wire for?' I said, 'Oh, well, I want wire to put a fence...' (Indistinct) 'Righto,' he said, and we all got the wire and came and we showed everybody, bring it up here, and we started that morning, cutting up posts, and so we put it up - put a trailer up, wired around, finished it. And Mr Morris come along, and he said, 'Hey, you're stealing another man's country.' (Laughter) 'Oh, yeah. That's alright.' And I said, 'Well, what was before the Vestey born and I born? It was blackfella country.'

REPORTER: Last year, the Governor-General rejected a petition by natives for land at Wattie Creek, but a few months later, the new minister in charge of Aboriginal Affairs, Mr Wentworth, promised he would try to help the Gurindjis get about eight square miles of land at Wattie Creek.

The cabinet replied by offering 1.5 square miles of barren land near the Wave Hill Police Station and welfare settlement. The place is called Drovers Common. Cabinet also promised that it would be irrigated, but it's been suggested that to water the Common would be like irrigating the Sydney Harbour Bridge.

Natives said it was not big enough. White landholders said that even if it was, the Aborigines would not know how to handle it.

The Cattlemen's Association of North Australia which has its office in the main street of Katherine was even against giving the Gurindjis land at the Common.

We spoke to the secretary of the Association in Katherine and arranged to interview him at his office later in the day, but he did not arrive.

At Wave Hill Station itself, they say they could well afford to give away some land. 1.5 square miles to the Gurindjis would leave Vesteys with a total holding of 31,998.5 square miles.

Nevertheless, Wave Hill's manager Frank Wilmington is opposed to Aboriginal land rights in principle.

FRANK WILMINGTON: I don't think they could handle land if they were given it. There have been several occasions in this territory where the native has been given land. He hasn't made a success of it, uh, and I don't think on this occasion it would be any different.

REPORTER: Cattlemen seem to be afraid that if the Gurindjis here are given land, that the government will have to give land to Aborigines all over Australia.

Is that a worry to you?

FRANK WILMINGTON: They are making a precedent if they give the Gurindji people the land here, and not only here in the...It doesn't even apply to the cattlemen. It also applies to any part in Australia, the Domain in Sydney, or any other portion of Australia.

REPORTER: Many people doubt whether the Gurindjis have the staying power to hold out for land at Wattie Creek. Indeed, some stockmen have already gone back to the stations.

But the Gurindjis are a proud race. They've been at Wattie Creek now for more than a year, and they say they're prepared to fight for the land.

VINCENT LINGARI: I won't quit from this place.

REPORTER: You'll fight for it?

VINCENT LINGARI: Yeah. (Speaks indistinctly)

REPORTER: Would you be prepared to fight for this land?

VINCENT LINGARI: Oh, yeah. You have to do the same thing what you done it before, before I born.

REPORTER: Would you fight for this land?

VINCENT LINGARI: Yes. It's my land.

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topic_aboriginal and torres strait islander history and culture

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aboriginal and torres strait islander history and culture

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This Day Tonight: Two years after the 1966 Wave Hill walk-off

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REPORTER: Blackfella's country - until recently, few people realised that there might be such a thing. The idea that the Aborigine might own some of the land he discovered 100,000 years ago is one of the rude awakenings for Australians in the 1960s.

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1966 - Gurindji people's fight for wage rights. 

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1966 - Gurindji people's fight for wage rights. 

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In 1966, Gurindji man Vincent Lingiari led a walk-off of 200 Aboriginal people from Wave Hill Station as a protest against the work and pay conditions. This campaign was an important influence on the passing of the Aboriginal Land Rights Act (Northern Territory) 1976.

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10 things you should know about slavery in Australia. 

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10 things you should know about slavery in Australia. 

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1. You should know that ... Just because we don't call it slavery doesn't mean it's not slavery

Much like the words 'invasion, 'theft', massacres', and 'wars', Australia appears uncomfortable using the word slavery in reference to its own history. But no matter what you call it, the forcing of thousands upon thousands of people to work for no money, or only for basic rations, is tantamount to slavery by any meaningful definition.

Blackbirding, Stolen Wages, indentured service, indentured labour; are all words that have been used to avoid the harsh bite of the word. However, the realities of these words have always been much the same; unpaid labour, unsafe working conditions, exploitation, abuse, and decades long campaigns for justice and recognition - many of which are still ongoing. This is a significant relationship between Indigenous and white Australians.

2. You should know that ... the people are still alive to tell the tale

While the forced labour of Aboriginal people by the Federal and state Governments formally began in the late 19th Century, the system didn't end until up to the 1970s. This means that there are number of people in our community today who lived through this experience. It's a period that led to what is now known as the Stolen Wages and is intimately linked to Stolen Generations history.

3. You should know about ... The recent documentary Servant or Slave

As an Aboriginal filmmaker I thought it my duty to give the generation a clear voice and audience in fear that in another twenty years or so, they might be gone, taking their stories with them , writes Mitchell Stanley, filmmaker of Servant or Slave.

"Many Australians have some knowledge, or assumption, of the kinds of things that might have transpired during these dark times. But to hear them articulated by the victims themselves, and illustrated by powerful albeit discreet re-enactments, brings the details to mind in terrible ways,"

, Stephen McGregor.

4. You should know about ... The groundbreaking documentary, Lousy Little Sixpence

An influential film (access

) by Alec Morgan which comprised interviews and historical never-before-seen footage tells the long history of unpaid servitude of Aboriginal people.

It was premiered in 1983 at the

and was the first media of it's kind to discuss - reveal, even - this widespread dark history. Audiences were so affected that some viewers thought the film was fiction because the concept was too shocking to be conceived as was real.

5. You should know about ... This quote from Larissa Behrendt

Indigenous academic and writer, Larissa Behrendt makes the point on documentary

6. You should know that ... Rations are not wages

In some cases, indentured labour as slavery is argued against or denied, as the people in question were often paid in rations. This is uncannily similar to those in the US who try to refuse the atrocity of their slavery period by making a point that people were fed and housed as part of the process. *Ahem*. Of course people were fed, human beings require sustenance for energy - energy that was ironically used to encourage them to work for hours on end for no pay.

7. You should know why ... More people know about the Stolen Generations and not Stolen Wages

Generally, the public is not as aware of wages being stolen from Indigenous people as high as children being removed from families.

There are also significant barriers to Indigenous people finding out just how much they are owed as many records and government document have been incomplete, lost or destroyed. Some of the records were deliberately destroyed, particularly when Aboriginal Welfare Boards were disbanded in the late 1960s. It's also important to consider that many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people were not allowed bank accounts until the 1970s, so payment processing were added hurdles.

The Stolen Generations and Stolen Wages are not mutually exclusive. Many members of the Stolen Generations later had their wages withheld while working as domestics or farm hands after 'completing' their training in the homes that they were taken to after being forcibly removed from their families. Stolen Generations were stolen and thrust into the Stolen Wages system.

8. You should know how ... Slavery can tell us a lot about gender roles in society.

From the early 1900s, Aboriginal children were systematically placed into homes run by the state Government where they were to train for their servitude.

Both roles demonstrate the prevalent racist ideology that Aboriginal people were inferior in intelligence and only fit to become the servants of the rest of society, and their 'employment' was driven by their gender, as opposed to their interest, talent or skills.

9. You should know that ... It didn't just happen to Indigenous Australians. You should know about 'Blackbirding'.

'Blackbirding', in Australia, was the practice of kidnapping or coercing Islanders from Vanuatu, the Solomon Islands, and other nearby islands to work in Australia as indentured labourers.

It is believed that over 50,000 people were brought into NSW and QLD, predominantly in the 1800s. Although there were legal frameworks in place to allow this practice, it is regarded by many as having been a mere pretense to justify what would otherwise be acknowledged as criminal practices.The 1901 Pacific Island Labourers Act saw approximately 7,000 people deported, tearing families and communities apart. An excellent article in the

by Emelda Davis, a second generation descendant of South Sea Islanders who were blackbirded, speaks of the inhumanity and cruelty of this deportation by noting that, "the wages of 15,000 deceased Islanders were used for this deportation and the low and hard-earned wages of the Islanders were used to pay part of their fare to return to the islands that in some cases had seen their entire male population kidnapped."

10. You should know that ... Exploitation of Indigenous labour is still ongoing

Today, there are some Indigenous people in Australia who are required to work a

a year for the Government with no leave entitlements and no superannuation, and are paid a significant portion of their wages on a card that can only be spent in certain stores and on certain wages.

(CDP), an Government employment service for people living in remote areas, has been criticised in a recent

as being overly complicated and having not enough community buy in. There are also concerns that the system makes reaching the requirements difficult and with too many financial penalties. For example, a participant can lose up to 10 per cent of their fortnightly pay-per-day for non-compliance. The CDP has been criticised for applying penalties more frequently than comparable non-remote programs.

Yet, since the CDP came in, the number of penalties to remote job seekers has exceeded that applied to their non-remote counterparts. In the quarter ending March 2016, 46,183 financial penalties were applied to CDP participants, compared with 27,338 applied to jobactive job seekers."

In the conclusion to this report it states that: The most important thing is that many aspects of the current CDP must be changed, as the Program is currently causing more harm than good, and in areas where the alternatives to income support are, at this point in time, extremely limited. Thus creating the exploitation of Indigenous labour still occuring, in 2016.
Servant or Slave is available . It contains themes that may distress or upset viewers. Please click on the links provided for support on issues such as; , , and . a selection of dedicated programming, special events and news highlights with a focus on encouraging greater understanding of Indigenous Australian perspectives on 26 January. Join the conversation #AlwaysWasAlwaysWillBe

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10 things you should know about slavery in Australia

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1. You should know that ... Just because we don't call it slavery doesn't mean it's not slavery Much like the words 'invasion, 'theft', massacres', and 'wars', Australia appears uncomfortable using the word slavery in reference to its own history.

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"Lousy Little Sixpence" directed by Alec Morgan features interviews and historical never-before-seen footage tells the long history of unpaid servitude of Aboriginal people. 

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"Lousy Little Sixpence" directed by Alec Morgan features interviews and historical never-before-seen footage tells the long history of unpaid servitude of Aboriginal people. 

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Freedom - by Torres Strait Hip Hop artist Mau Power featuring Archie Roach

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Freedom - by Torres Strait Hip Hop artist Mau Power featuring Archie Roach

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2022: Reflections on the Northern Territory Intervention. 

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2022: Reflections on the Northern Territory Intervention. 

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The intervention rolled into the Northern Territory like an unseasonal storm.

That's how some Territorians who lived through the policy - formally named the emergency response - remember its arrival, 15 years ago.

John Daly, a remote community resident from Nauiyu, was the Northern Land Council's chairman at the time.

"I think it was done in a way that was so hurtful," he said.

"When you look at the intervention, it was based on a report - this wasn't the response [the authors] wanted from their report.

"Why basically ride in there and take away the rights of every traditional owner and Aboriginal person?"

In north-east Arnhem Land, Djambarrpuyngu clan cultural leader Lapulung Dhamarrandji remembers residents from Milingimbi fleeing to neighbouring homelands and communities out of fear.

"To us, it was like there wasn't any blue skies around us, it was covered with thick grey clouds - when the intervention came, it was like that," he said.

"The fear inside us all, I mean we are parents just like you people you know.

"The fear inside, it was like, is this for real? Here they come back again to take our children. That was the fear."

Accompanied by the military, Commonwealth public servants flew into the NT's remote communities in 2007.

They conducted compulsory health checks on children and put up signs about new financial penalties for breaching alcohol and pornography bans.

Then came welfare quarantining through a basics card and the demolition of an existing remote jobs program that was, according to some observers and locals, having success.

While John Howard's government oversaw the intervention, Labor leader Kevin Rudd did not oppose it and his government later tweaked and took intervention-based policies forward in the form of Stronger Futures.

This month, Stronger Futures quietly ended, wrapping up a controversial chapter in Australia's history, despite some policies remaining in place under different legislation, including compulsory income management.

Mr Daly likened the political strategy around the intervention to the use of the "boat people" phrase years later during the 2012 federal election campaign.

"We'll get another term of politics if we bring the black football out of the cupboard and start booting it around the political football field again," he said.

Leeanne Caton quit her job over it.

"It just broad brushed the whole of the Aboriginal community, so a lot of us, a lot of people have been living in shame," she said.

"They just smashed the Aboriginal community."

Ms Caton, a Kalkadoon woman who grew up in Darwin, was herself a Commonwealth public servant at the time.

She said she resigned after being asked to escort bureaucrats from Canberra around remote communities.

"You know what? It was worth it because I could sleep at night," Ms Caton said.

"I just said I'm not having any part of this. So I resigned on the spot."

"Then I thought about how I was going to pay two mortgages after that. It didn't matter."

Ms Caton, who now chairs peak advocacy body Aboriginal Housing NT and is Yilli Rreung Housing's chief executive, said politicians still needed to "build their capacity" to work with and listen properly to Aboriginal people on the ground.

Kevin Rudd faced opposition to his handling of the Northern Territory intervention during a visit to Darwin. (File: AAP: Tara Ravens)

The intervention was said to be a response to the final report of the Little Children are Sacred inquiry, which examined child sexual abuse in remote communities.

The authors of that report had made it clear remote residents should be "empowered" and given support to find their own answers to health, housing and social issues in their communities.

They advised against one-off government interventions at the expense of community-driven change.

The NT's Australian of the Year Leanne Liddle, an Arrernte woman, government lawyer and former police officer, said she witnessed the opposite.

Ms Liddle was working in South Australia's APY Lands at the time.

She said men started crossing the border into SA, fearing they would be branded paedophiles in the NT.

"They had no idea except that they'd been told they'd been labelled as child sex offenders - good people, honourable people, and there was this blanket labelling of Aboriginal men," Ms Liddle said.

"That happened overnight and the damage that was done was horrific.

"I worry that messaging is still on the table, [the whole story] hasn't been told."

Nauiyu resident and former school principal Dr Miriam Rose Ungunmerr Baumann was the NT's first Aboriginal teacher and last year's Senior Australian of the Year.

She initially supported the intervention and was the only remote NT resident on the federal government's taskforce in 2007.

"We were all excited thinking that, wow, it's going to be really good for the communities throughout the Territory - in that a lot of the things that we're having issues with, they're going to listen to us and fix," she said.

"Nothing happened."

Ms Ungunmerr Baumann said the intervention was at best a "talk-fest" and later a heart-breaking failure to listen to people on the ground.

"You're hearing more organisations throughout Australia [today] asking, how do we work better with the First Australians?," she said.

"And I say, you're asking me that now?"

From her perspective, changes to the remote jobs program during the intervention caused the most damage, coupled with an NT government decision to merge local councils and remove local assets like machinery.

"They just took everything from us, they sacked everybody, they gave our jobs to people from the outside," she said.

"We used to run everything out here, we were responsible for everything in this community."

"There's been a lot of young people from that time up to now that don't know what it is when it comes to working, there's nothing here for them," she said.

Ms Ungunmerr Baumann now wants the message about listening to finally break through.

"This is a good community," she said.

"If the government wants to do something to support and help make communities better and talk properly to find out what the needs are, come and sit and talk and listen.

"You just don't listen on the outside, you listen on the inside as well."

Mr Daly said pleas for more investment in jobs and support for local leadership to boost role models for young people had still not been properly heard.

"The government nipped that in the bud when they brought the intervention in," he said.

"Now we have a situation out in our neighbouring town of Wadeye where we have a massive problem out there at the moment.

"Nobody knows how to fix it - well you can't fix it, government can't fix problems like that, communities need to fix it and it's the community that needs to sit at the table."

Mr Daly said this meant reaching out to men and women with knowledge of their own communities.

"They can keep sending police officers out there, police planes, to lock more blackfellas up but it's not going away," he said.

"It's because they're not listening to Aboriginal people on the ground."

"If you're going to look at Indigenous affairs, don't look at it though a microscope like you've done in the past - come out and talk to us."

He said his message was for all levels of government.

"Create something for the future generations," he said.

"Because if you have a look at conflicts around the world, if you continue to just push things in a corner and hope they just disappear and go away, bad things come from models like that.

"Make it worthwhile, that an Aboriginal kid can strive to be a Prime Minister or strive to be something."

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'Come out and talk to us': What lessons can be learnt from the NT intervention?

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The intervention rolled into the Northern Territory like an unseasonal storm. That's how some Territorians who lived through the policy - formally named the emergency response - remember its arrival, 15 years ago. John Daly, a remote community resident from Nauiyu, was the Northern Land Council's chairman at the time.

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2022: A snapshot of Indigenous Employment

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2022: A snapshot of Indigenous Employment

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Indigenous Australians hold less than 1 per cent of senior leadership roles | SBS News

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Graphic Organiser: Continuity & Change. 

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Graphic Organiser: Continuity & Change. 

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https://padlet.com/mlneto/kduiimelxcjzvj8z

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Open employment is also called mainstream employment. It is where people with and without disability do their jobs together in the same workplace.

If this is your goal, it is important to make sure you think about what training and support you may require.

There are several pathways that people with disability can take to access open employment:

Disability Employment Services (DES)

DES providers can help you find jobs to apply to, and fill out applications. Their aim is to place people with disability into work. If you are already confident in your work-ready skills, this could be a good option. If you think you need a bit more support to build up your confidence and skills, you might want to consider joining a training pathway before, or alongside, enrolling with a DES.

Specialised training pathways

If you want to build up your job-ready skills and confidence before applying to jobs, you may want to find a work-readiness training pathway. This will give you support tailored to your abilities, interests and support needs.

In your last year of school, or when you leave, you can access NDIS funding called School Leaver Employment Support (SLES). You can use this funding to pay for a training pathway with a SLES provider of your choice.

Providers like Jigsaw can connect you with valuable vocational opportunities. This includes work experience, mentoring, on-the-job training, and skills like time management. We can also support your search for mainstream employment with job interview training, resume preparation and more.

Jigsaw believes SLES enables a type of support that can best meet the needs of many school leavers with disability. It can help you to reach your potential in the world of work from day one.

Only school leavers with an NDIS plan are eligible for SLES, but do not worry if you don't have SLES funding, or if you left school more than two years ago. You can also access providers like Jigsaw with Core and Capacity Building NDIS funding, for example "Finding and Keeping a Job".

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Post-school options for young people with disability - Jigsaw

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Open employment is also called mainstream employment. It is where people with and without disability do their jobs together in the same workplace. If this is your goal, it is important to make sure you think about what training and support you may require.

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PB School Leaver Employment Supports Booklet PDF (1)

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Human rights and discrimination in Victoria

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Human rights and discrimination in Victoria

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https://www.humanrights.vic.gov.au/for-individuals/discrimination/

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Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission

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We all want to be treated fairly. At work or school, when we buy something or receive a service. We don't want to be judged simply because of how we look, our disability, sex, or our age. Unfortunately, people are often judged on an aspect of their body or character, rather than being seen as a whole person. In Victoria we have a law that protects people from this kind of unfair treatment.

Photo by Brooke Cagle on Unsplash

What is discrimination?

When we talk about a person being discriminated against, it means they're being treated badly or unfairly because of a personal characteristic that is protected by the law. The Equal Opportunity Act 2010 describes it as being treated "unfavourably".

How does the law protect me?

The Equal Opportunity Act makes discrimination because of a protected personal characteristic against the law. The Commission can help resolve complaints of discrimination.

Protected characteristics

Characteristics protected in the Equal Opportunity Act are:

Protected areas of public life

Discrimination is against the law when it happens in a specific area of public life.

These public places include:

People who work in these areas have a positive duty to make sure you don't face discrimination.

Discrimination in the workplace

Around half of all complaints that come to us are about the workplace (52 per cent in 2018-19).

While a person is responsible for their own unlawful behaviour, employers can also be held responsible.

Under the Equal Opportunity Act, employers have a positive duty to eliminate discrimination, sexual harassment and victimisation as far as possible.

Victoria is unique in having a positive duty, which creates an opportunity to prevent unlawful behaviour. It helps organisations put a healthy workplace culture in place, just as occupational health and safety laws require employers to take appropriate steps to ensure injuries don't occur.

To ensure they are complying with the positive duty, organisations should also put measures in place to ensure that complaints are responded to swiftly and appropriately when they do arise.

The positive duty applies to employers of all sizes, regardless of whether they are a major company or a small cafe, and covers all types of workers:

full-time, part-time and casual employees

agents and contract workers

trainees and apprentices.

It applies to all stages of employment, including:

Different kinds of discrimination

Discrimination can be direct or indirect. Both kinds of discrimination are against the law.

Direct discrimination

Direct discrimination happens when someone is treated unfavourably because of a personal characteristic protected by the law.

Direct discrimination often happens because of unfair assumptions about what people with certain personal characteristics can and cannot do.

For example, George applies for a position with a construction company but doesn't get the job. When he calls the company's human resources manager to ask why he wasn't chosen, she tells George, "We've employed people from your country before. You lot don't share our work ethic".

Indirect discrimination

Indirect discrimination happens when there is an unreasonable requirement, condition or practice that disadvantages a person, or a group of people, because of a personal characteristic.

For example, a factory makes all employees start at 6am. This might seem to treat everyone equally, but it could disadvantage employees needing to care for children, who are usually women. If it is not a reasonable requirement, this will be indirect discrimination.

Are there any exceptions to the law?

There are some exceptions in the Equal Opportunity Act that mean it's not against the law to discriminate in particular circumstances. For example, discrimination is not against the law if there is a real risk to someone's health, safety or property.

Find out more about exceptions.

What can I do if I'm discriminated against?

You can make a complaint

Get help from the Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission.

You can make a complaint to us if you think you have experienced:

If you wish, someone else can make a complaint for you. Find out how the Commission helps people resolve complaints.

We can also give you information about your rights.

It is also against the law to victimise a person, which means treat them badly or unfairly, because they have made a complaint about discrimination, sexual harassment or vilification, or have helped someone else to make a complaint.

Find help and support

If you think you have been discriminated against, sexually harassed, victimised or vilified in Victoria, we can help.

The Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission stands on the traditional lands of the Wurundjeri and Boonwurrung Peoples of the Kulin Nation. We recognise their cultures, histories, diversity and deep connection to this land and pay our respects to their Elders past and present.

Sovereignty has never been ceded - this land always was, and always will be, Aboriginal land.

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1. Home

2. Education

3. Equal pay matters

Equal pay for work of equal or comparable value is a basic human right. Regardless of where we work - or our sex, gender, race, age, abilities or care-giving status - we are all entitled to be paid and treated fairly at work.

What is Equal Pay?

Equal pay for work of equal or comparable value is a basic human right. Regardless of where we work - or our sex, gender, race, age, abilities or care-giving status - we are all entitled to be paid and treated fairly at work.

Yet, every year, Victorian, national and international data confirm that some workers are not paid equally for their work.

What drives unequal pay?

Unequal pay is driven by gender bias and sex discrimination and the historical and systemic undervaluing of work traditionally associated with women.

There is also widespread industry and occupational segregation resulting in high concentrations of women in low paid jobs.

Why does it matter?

Businesses who do not pay their workers fairly and equally may struggle, among other things, to attract and retain diverse and talented staff. Lower labour force participation from women, in part occasioned by unequal pay, also weakens the Australian economy overall.

By contrast, equal pay delivers broad-ranging benefits. It ensures that individual workers are remunerated fairly for their skills, effort, responsibility and working conditions. It contributes to a fair, respectful and equal society and it makes good business sense.

Supporting small-to-medium enterprises to achieve equal pay

Much of the available research on gender pay inequality has focused on large organisations, with comparatively less known about the nature, scale or drivers of pay inequality in small-to-medium enterprises (SMEs), despite these organisations being required by Victorian, national and international law to pay workers equally for work of equal or comparable value.

Therefore, Industrial Relations Victoria, supported by the Equal Workplaces Advisory Council, engaged the Commission to research and support Equal Pay in SMEs.

Achieving gender pay equality in SMEs requires a tailored response that addresses their distinctive characteristics and the barriers they face to equal pay, avoiding a 'watered-down' or 'simpler' approach of what is expected of large organisations.

Such an approach should enable SMEs to take appropriate and achievable measures to advance equal pay and reflect considerations likely to persuade them to deliver on this vision.

Resources

View our educational resources

We have developed educational resources to support small-to-medium enterprises in embedding Equal Pay, by shedding light on the key barriers to pay equality in these organisations and the factors likely to motivate them to achieve equal pay
Click here to view our educational resources.

Download our Equal pay matters report

Download our business guide

You may also be interested in

Find help and support

If you think you have been discriminated against, sexually harassed, victimised or vilified in Victoria, we can help.

The Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission stands on the traditional lands of the Wurundjeri and Boonwurrung Peoples of the Kulin Nation. We recognise their cultures, histories, diversity and deep connection to this land and pay our respects to their Elders past and present.

Sovereignty has never been ceded - this land always was, and always will be, Aboriginal land.

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7 things you need to know about your rights at work