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Federal Court ruling has important implications for WSH investigations
A recent Federal Court ruling heightens employers' obligations to take s-xual harassment complaints seriously, even when there's no witnesses to the alleged conduct, a lawyer says.
Last month, Justice Stephen McDonald found a Beiler Constructions supervisor sexually harassed an apprentice – by propositioning her for oral sex – while they both worked on Kangaroo Island.
The supervisor denied the apprentice's claims, saying the incident "never happened".
"In this case, the allegations were ultimately established and accepted by the Court, and in circumstances where there's no other witnesses, the perpetrator's saying it didn't happen, and our client has a different version of events – so a very clear dispute in facts," says Nikki Candy, CEO of the Working Women's Centre SA, which represented the apprentice...
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