Responding to a complaint
Find out what you can do to respond to a complaint about a possible breach of anti-discrimination laws.
Summary
If a complaint is made against you or your organisation, we want to hear your views on the matter.
You will have a fair opportunity to respond and where appropriate, participate in the conciliation process.
Download resources
Responding to unlawful discrimination complaints
How to respond if a discrimination complaint is made against you or your organisation.
Responding to human rights or International Labour Organisation (ILO) complaints
Responding to complaints about human rights or ILO discrimination.
Response form
Use this form to respond to a complaint. To help us to deal with your response in an effective and timely manner, we ask you keep your response to one document of no more than 20 pages with no attachments.
What happens when we receive a complaint?
Step 1:
When we receive a complaint, we will:
- notify you that a complaint has been made about you or your organisation
- provide you with a copy of the complaint and invite you to respond.
Step 2:
We may ask you for additional information. If we require further information or documents, you'll be asked to provide them within a specific timeframe.
Step 3:
We will share your response with the person or organisation that made the complaint (the complainant). This can help the complainant understand how you see things.
Step 4:
Where appropriate, we'll invite you to participate in the conciliation process. Conciliation is where we try to help you and the complainant find a way to resolve the complaint.
The conciliation conference is not a public hearing, a court or a tribunal. That means parties do not have to prove or disprove the complaint. Instead, conciliation allows people to state their point of view, discuss the issues in dispute and settle the matter on their own terms.
Our role is to assist the parties to consider different options to resolve the complaint and provide information about possible terms of settlement.
Amending a complaint
If you would like to make changes to an open complaint, please use this form.
Getting legal advice
You don't need a lawyer to respond to a complaint, but you can choose to get legal or other support. If you want a lawyer, you will need to organise this yourself. You can also seek advice from other organisations such as industry groups.
Contact us
You can contact the Commission’s National Information Service by phone on 1300 656 419 or by email to infoservice@humanrights.gov.au.
