Discrimination and Vilification
This page has information about discrimination and vilification and advice about what you can do if you are experiencing it.
What is discrimination?
Discrimination is when someone treats you unfairly because of some aspect of who you are. For example, because of your sex, your race, your sexuality, your age or because you are married or pregnant or you have a disability.
Discrimination can be direct, which means treatment that is obviously unfair or unequal. For example if you don’t get a job just because you are a woman.
Or it can be indirect, which means there is a requirement or rule that is the same for everyone but it has the effect or result of being unequal and unreasonable in all circumstances. For example, if an employer says that a person must be over 180cm tall in order to get a job, this is likely to discriminate against most women and some racial groups.
If it can be shown that the job does not need to be done by someone that tall or it can easily be adapted to suit people who aren’t that tall, this could be indirect sex discrimination or indirect race discrimination.
In NSW, it is against the law for someone to treat you unfairly while you are at work, at school, TAFE or university, when you are buying goods or getting services, when you are accessing accommodation or when you are in a registered club, because of your:
- Sex (including if you are pregnant)
- Race, colour, ethnic or ethno-religious background, descent or nationality
- Marital status
- Disability (including past, present, presumed or future physical, intellectual or psychiatric disability, learning disorders, or any organism capable of causing disease, for example HIV)
- Actual or presumed sexuality
- Age (including for example forced retirement at a certain age)
- Or because of who you are related to, or who you associate with
What is vilification?
Vilification is when someone does something publicly that could encourage hatred, serious contempt or severe ridicule.
For example, racial vilification could include making derogatory statements about a particular ethnic group in a newspaper or on television. Homosexual vilification could include behaviours like wearing clothing with homophobic slogans printed on it or abusing someone in public about being a lesbian. Vilification can include graffiti, written statements in journals, newspapers or in other publications, or on the radio or television.
In NSW racial, homosexual, HIV/AIDs and transgender vilification are against the law.
What can I do if I am experiencing discrimination or vilification?
Get legal advice
If you are unsure if you have experienced discrimination or vilification, you could contact a community legal centre or the NSW Anti-Discrimination Board. These services are free and confidential. They can tell you if what you have experienced is discrimination or vilification, provide you with information and help you to work out what to do next.
For a list of community legal centres and their contact details or contact details for the NSW Anti-Discrimination Board, go to the contacts for help page of this website.
Consider talking to the person that is discriminating against you
If you have experienced discrimination, you could try talking to the person causing the problem if this feels appropriate and safe. Let the person know that what they are doing is against the law.
You could also ask someone to help you do this. For example if the discrimination is happening in your workplace, you could ask your union to support you. Or you could go to your boss or someone with more authority than the person discriminating against you. If the discrimination is happening in a service, you could ask to speak to the manager first and then approach the person with the manager’s support.
Make a complaint to the NSWAnti-Discrimination Board
If talking to the person doesn’t work or there is no-one with more authority in the organisation or institution than the person that is discriminating against you, or you have experienced vilification, you can make a complaint to the Anti-Discrimination Board (ADB).
To do this:
- Write a letter to the President of the ADB detailing why you feel you have been discriminated against. You must make your complaint within six months of the unfair treatment. If your complaint is urgent, for example, you are about to lose your job, include detail about this on your complaint. The ADB will respond to your complaint as quickly as they can. If you have experienced discrimination or vilification under the anti-discrimination laws, the ADB will try to conciliate. This means that the ADB will help you and the person or organisation you are complaining about to reach a private settlement that you both agree on.
- The settlement will depend on your case and could include an apology, financial compensation, getting your job back etc.
- If your complaint cannot be conciliated, you can go to the Equal Opportunity Division of the Administrative Decisions Tribunal. This is similar to a court and provides a legal judgment which must then be obeyed.
For more information about making a complaint to the Anti-Discrimination Board, go to the contacts for help page of this website.
Aside from the Anti-Discrimination Board you may wish to contact your union, the NSW Ombudsman, Department or Fair Trading or Department of School Education, depending on your circumstances – to get them to assist you to deal with the discrimination or vilification.
Try to document or make sure you are clear about:
- what it is that you are unhappy about
- why you are unhappy about it
- what you would like to happen
- what you intend to do if what you want to happen does not happen
Get information about your rights
Click here for information about about legal rights for lesbians and gay men.
Click here for information about the Crime Prevention Division’s work with the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities in NSW.
What if I am threatened with violence or assaulted?
If you have been threatened with or are the subject of a violent attack, you should contact the police. Depending on the police station, specialist officers might be available. You can ask speak to an Ethnic Community Liaison Officer, Aboriginal Community Liaison Officer, Gay & Lesbian Liaison Officer, Youth Liaison Officer or Domestic Violence Liaison Officer.
If you want to talk to someone before you see the police there are a number of services which offer advice and assistance. Go to the contacts for help page of this website.
The information in this section is summarised from an Anti-Discrimination Board Fact Sheet: Discrimination and the Anti-Discrimination Board of NSW (1997).
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