Employment Relations in Australia - Essay Example

The term discrimination refers to the choices and judgments we make every day. Similarly, employers discriminate in a way when recruiting staff. There will be many applicants, so employers need to make a choice. They choose the best person for the job by discriminating according to the applicants' skills, experience, etc.These types of discrimination makes sense. But some types of discrimination are unfair and against the law. For example, a sensible employer does not make decisions about who to give a job based on irrelevant personal characteristics, like someone's race or gender.

Discrimination can be based on disability, race, age, pregnancy and martial status. Discrimination can be done even based on religion, political opinion, medical record, irrelevant criminal record, social origin, trade union activity. The Human Rights Commission Act 2005 commenced on 1 November 2006 enabled people to make their voices heard and put a stop to discrimination on the grounds of Physical Disabilities, religion, caste, gender and so on . Western Australia has come up with some changes in its Anti-Discrimination Laws for the betterment of its employee (Glen Bartlett Sep 2007).

The commission has submitted its report to the Attorney General on 14 May 2007 (A1) .These changes in the anti-discrimination law will force the commission to widen the grounds covering areas so far neglected which include physically challenged people, people suffering from fatal disease and discrimination on religious ground and providing equal work opportunities to all. The recommended changes include Considering breastfeeding as a ground of discrimination in its own right.

In many states of Victoria, Northern Territory, Tasmania,