Australian Human Rights Commission Calls for Reforms to Tackle Pregnancy and Caring-Related Workplace Discrimination

Author: Pragya Verma

October 28, 2026

HRRC stands with workers with caregiving responsibilities and supports their right to equal opportunities at work, free from discrimination. We urge the Australian Government to consider the recommended reforms, ensuring workers are not disadvantaged due to family responsibilities. 

[Image credit: Matilda Wormwood/Pexels]

On October 19, 2026, the Australian Human Rights Commission released the Balancing Act report which examines discrimination related to pregnancy and caring responsibilities. It highlighted how such discrimination can be compounded for people from marginalised backgrounds. The report identifies 18 areas for reform aimed at strengthening protections and improving support and care for working parents and carers. 

The Sex Discrimination Act 1984 (Cth) (the SDA) makes it unlawful to treat someone unfairly because of their sex, gender identity, intersex status, sexual orientation, marital or relationship status, family responsibilities, pregnancy or potential pregnancy, or breastfeeding.

The report recommends wide-ranging changes to the Sex Discrimination Act, including making it unlawful for an employer to indirectly discriminate against a worker due to family responsibilities. It builds on the Australian Human Rights Commission’s landmark 2014 National Review, which found that nearly one in two (49%) mothers reported experiencing discrimination during pregnancy, parental leave or on returning to work. 

The report found that workers can lose shifts, contracts, training, and promotion opportunities, experience reduced hours, or be forced to leave their jobs due to pregnancy or caregiving responsibilities. Breastfeeding discrimination also remains a barrier to work, with workers reporting inadequate facilities, insufficient breaks, and stigma. 

ABC’s Four Corners has also documented examples of workplace discrimination related to pregnancy. More than 100 women have told ABC’s Four Corners that they experienced discrimination at work after becoming pregnant. Twenty-one women said they had been made redundant or dismissed, only to later discover that their role still existed. 

Alisha Warner was a senior counterterrorism executive in the Department of Home Affairs until June. Before taking a leave for her second child, Warner had a flexible arrangement that allowed her to work full-time hours over four days. When she sought to return under the same arrangement, she was told that senior executives cannot work flexibly. The department offered Warner a short transition period, after which she would be required to work five days a week. 

Warner said returning to work five days a week was not always an option, as she could not secure an additional day of childcare for her children. She eventually took voluntary redundancy, despite not wanting to leave her job. “It's not a real choice when you don’t feel like you have any other choices”, she told Four Corners. 

A spokesperson for the Home Affairs told Four Corners that Warner’s role had evolved and required senior executive level oversight, leadership and decision-making, and that the department was not in a position to approve compressed hours, which it cited as grounds for refusing her request. 

The report recommends prohibiting indirect discrimination based on family responsibilities. It explains that indirect discrimination occurs when a workplace rule or requirement appears neutral but disadvantages people with family responsibilities, such as inflexible hours or expectations of full-time availability.

Other recommendations include strengthening protections against redundancies connected with parental leave, strengthening the right to request flexible working arrangements, and improving access to justice and information through increased support for the Commission, legal aid, and community legal centres. 

Employment Minister Amanda Rishworth said that issues around parental leave were being investigated as a part of an ongoing inquiry into workplace standards, but the government has not yet committed to any of the recommended changes. 

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Glossary

• Compounded - to make a problem or difficult situation worse.

• Discrimination - treating a person or particular group of people differently, especially in a worse way from the way in which you treat other people, because of their race, gender, sexuality, etc.

• Inadequate - not adequate: not enough or good enough.

• Intersex - a term for people born with sex characteristics, such as reproductive anatomy or hormones, that do not fit typical definitions of male or female bodies.

• Marginalised - relegated to an unimportant or powerless position within a society or group.

• Redundant - having lost your job because your employer no longer needs you.

• Sexual Orientation - the fact of someone being sexually or romantically attracted to people of a particular gender, or more than one gender.

• Stigma - a set of negative and unfair beliefs that a society or group of people have about something.