Recently retired sex discrimination commissioner Kate Jenkins to ‘keep making a difference’

Kate Jenkins, Australia’s recently retired sex discrimination commissioner, is not done with her fight against gender inequality.

Australian sex discrimination commissioner Kate Jenkins.

Australia’s most recent sex discrimination commissioner may have finished serving out her term, but she is far from done in the fight against gender inequality.

Kate Jenkins says news she will be recognised as an Officer of the Order of Australia is a sign that her work, including her 2021 inquiry into workplace culture at Parliament House that produced the “Set the Standard” report and was prompted by the Brittany Higgins furore, has affected structural change.

“This honour has come at a ­really nice time when I am reflecting both on the past and the ­future. It is a great honour, and quite humbling, but also motivating to keep doing things that make a difference,” she said.

“I feel like the award recognises that, with a whole lot of other people, I have worked towards making workplaces (including in) sport, parliament, education – a whole lot of different environments – safe, respectful and inclusive.”

Reflecting on her 30-year ­career, which started in the 1990s when Ms Jenkins was litigating workplace cases in Melbourne as an employment lawyer and grew into her becoming the commissioner of the Victorian Equal ­Opportunity and Human Rights Commission from 2013 to 2016, she says a highlight was delivering the landmark Respect at Work Report in 2020 in her most recent role.

“I’m really delighted that the Respect at Work report, which was following the national inquiry on sexual harassment, all those recommendations are being implemented,” she says.

“That the laws about sexual harassment in the workplace have changed so that employers now have to take preventive ­action to stop sexual harassment rather than just respond to it.

“At this moment in time, the laws have been passed, employers are changing practice. And people, individual workers are telling me things are getting better.”

Improving diversity in the federal parliament also became a key goal for Ms Jenkins.

“There is no place that should be more representative of the Australian community then our federal parliament, because their job is to represent the community,” she says. “Having done that work and realising it still wasn’t attracting diverse candidates – I’m really passionate that we get better at that.”

After serving out her term as sex discrimination commissioner since 2016, Ms Jenkins says her focus for the immediate future will be promoting (and watching) the 2023 Women’s World Cup as a legacy ambassador.