The Disability Discrimination Act 1992 (DDA) came into effect in March 1993. The Act makes it unlawful to discriminate against people with a disability in many areas of public life. The purpose of the Act was to 'assist people with disabilities to exercise their rights as Australian citizens'(3) in recognition that 'people with disabilities are entitled to the same rights and same opportunities as all other Australian citizens'.

This paper looks specifically at the issue of sexual harassment in employment and approaches to resolving associated complaints that are brought before the Australian Human Rights Commission ("AHRC").

State and federal anti-discrimination & human rights law in Australia, as in many other countries2, provides for the resolution of complaints of discrimination and breaches of human rights by a process of conciliation. Conciliation is an alternative dispute resolution mechanism for parties to complaints in that it is an 'alternative' to more formal determination of the dispute by a court or tribunal.

While different meanings are currently ascribed to the ‘A’ in the acronym ADR, in this paper ADR is used as an acronym for Alternative Dispute Resolution and refers to processes other than judicial determination, in which a third person assists parties to resolve a dispute.

Human rights and anti-discrimination law in Australia, as in many countries in the Asia Pacific, provides for complaints about discrimination and violations of human rights to be resolved by conciliation. The use of Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) in this context has been criticised. In particular, it has been claimed that the individualised form of the complaint process, coupled with the confidential nature of conciliation outcomes, restricts the social reformative potential of human rights and anti-discrimination law.

Human rights and anti-discrimination law in Australia, as in many other countries, provides individuals and groups with the right to lodge complaints with an administrative agency which has responsibility for the investigation and conciliation of such complaints. The conciliation process can be said to be undertaken in the ‘shadow of the law’ as complaints are located in a legislative framework with the option of complaints being heard by an administrative tribunal or court if conciliation is not appropriate or is unsuccessful [3].

The Australian Human Rights Commission (HREOC) is empowered to investigate complaints under federal human rights and anti-discrimination law and to attempt to resolve complaints by conciliation, where this is considered appropriate. There is some variation in the complaint handling process for complaints alleging unlawful discrimination1 and complaints alleging breaches of human rights and discrimination under the Australian Human Rights Commission Act 1986. Additionally, in recent years there has been a change in the determination process for complaints of unlawful discrimination.