The ALP and the Democrats have combined to get rid of regulations allowing the payment of youth wages in AWAs in breach of the anti-discrimination legislation. So AWAs are now not exempt from age based discrimination laws, but awards and agreements are. The NSW Anti-Discrimination Act was amended earlier this year making it unlawful for an employer to discriminate against an employee or an applicant for employment on the grounds of the employee's or applicant's responsibilities as a carer. Anyone with responsibility for a child in a comparable role to a parent and includes a step-parent or a person with parental responsibilities for a child which have been granted pursuant to various State and Commonwealth laws. Immediate family members are also defined in the amendments to include a spouse or former spouse of the employee, grandchildren, parents and step-parents of the employee or their spouse or former spouse, and brothers and sisters of the employee or of their spouse or former spouse.
Spouse includes same-sex partners.
Direct discrimination under the amendment would occur when a person with carer's responsibilities is treated less favourably than someone who does not have carer responsibilities. Indirect discrimination would occur when a requirement or condition which is not reasonable in all the circumstances of the case is imposed which is harder for a person with carer responsibilities to comply with than a person without carer responsibilities. A complainant would have to show that substantially higher proportion of people who do not have responsibilities could comply than those who do and that the requirement is not reasonable. Examples highlighting some of the grounds which may give rise to such forms of discrimination include a woman who is not hired because she has children, someone not hired or not sent on a training course because they have to drop off their brother who has a disability each morning. Reasonableness is not defined in the legislation, but is determined by considering the extent of the discrimination weighed against all of the circumstances, including reasons for requirements, commercial considerations, and the ability of the employer to accommodate the employee's needs.