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Where am I now? Lawlink > Anti-Discrimination Board > Making a Complaint
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Making a Complaint
 Can the Anti-Discrimination Board help me?
What can the Anti-Discrimination Board do?
Is there a time limit?
How do I complain?
What will the Anti-Discrimination Board do with my complaint?
Privacy Statement
Complaint form
More information about lodging a complaint and the Board's complaint handling process
Can the Anti-Discrimination Board help me?
Discrimination means treating someone unfairly because they belong to a particular group of people.
Only certain types of discrimination are covered by the NSW Anti-Discrimination Act 1977 - Anti-Discrimination law
What can the Anti-Discrimination Board do?
- investigate complaints about these things
- help you and the other side find a way of solving the problem.
The Board can't:
- take sides
- decide whether discrimination happened or not
- give you legal advice.
If the Board can't help you solve the problem, you might be able to take your complaint to the Equal Opportunity Division of the Administrative Decisions Tribunal, which can make a decision like a court.Is there a time limit?
Yes. The Board can only help you if the discrimination happened in the past 12 months. If you make a complaint about something that happened more than 12 months ago, the Board may refuse to investigate your complaint. If you want the Board to investigate something that happened more than 12 months ago, please tell us why you were late in lodging this complaint.
How do I complain?
You have to complain in writing. If you can't sort out the problem yourself then you can download and fill in the Board's complaint form or you can write us a letter addressed to the President, with the information asked for on the form. Send or fax the form or letter to the Board.
We also accept complaints on your behalf from your lawyer, or organisations such as unions and other representative bodies. However, the complaint must make it clear that you agree with the complaint being made and you must be named in the complaint. In some circumstances you may also be required to show you consent to the complaint being made on your behalf. If you want to make a complaint on behalf of a child or a person with a disability, contact the Board for more information.What will the Anti-Discrimination Board do with my complaint?
We will contact you by phone or letter within two weeks of getting your complaint. When we talk to you, we'll get any other information we need, explain what we can and can't do, and discuss the best way of handling your complaint. We will only contact whoever you're complaining about when you understand all of this.
The person you are complaining about is called the respondent. We will send the respondent a copy of your complaint form and any paperwork you have provided, along with a covering letter from the Board explaining the law. The respondent will then have a chance to write to us with their side of the story. If this doesn’t solve the situation, the next step is usually a meeting held at the Board, called a conciliation conference.
Privacy Statement
Personal information provided to the Anti Discrimination Board is protected under privacy legislation, including the Privacy and Personal Information Protection Act 1998 (NSW) and the Health Records and Information Privacy Act 2002 (NSW).
The Board uses the personal information you provide in your complaint and in other communications with the Board to assist it to perform its statutory function of investigating complaints of unlawful discrimination.
For details of the Board’s collection and use of your personal information and your rights in regard to the information held about you by the Board, please contact the Board.
Complaint form
The Anti-Discrimination Board's complaint form is available as a PDF document and as a Word document
PDF - Complaint Form (52.32 KB)
To download a PDF document you need Adobe Acrobat. You can download the software for free from the Adobe website - Adobe Acrobat
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Word document - Complaint Form (78.8 KB)
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