Why this matters
Workplace sexual harassment is one of the most serious and persistent barriers to workplace gender equality. It is also a significant work health and safety issue. Following recent changes to the Sex Discrimination Act 1984 (Cth), employers now have a positive duty to take reasonable and proportionate measures to eliminate sexual harassment, as far as possible. Simply responding to complaints is no longer sufficient – organisations must create safe workplace environments. Similarly, in 2023 changes relating to the prohibition of sexual harassment in the workplace took effect in the Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth). These were the introduction of a prohibition of sexual harassment of workers, an ability for an employer to be found vicariously liable for sexual harassment if they are unable to demonstrate that pro-active measures had been taken to prevent it, and the creation of an alternative path to pursue sexual harassment claims through the Fair Work Commission (FWC). Employers also have obligations under the Occupational Health and Safety Act 2004 (Vic) to provide and maintain a working environment that is safe and without risks to health, including psychological health.
Sexual harassment in the workplace remains too common. It causes psychological, physical and financial harm to victim-survivors. It carries a significant economic cost for organisations and the wider community. It is both a symptom and a driver of workplace gender inequality. It arises from unequal power relations and, if left unaddressed, reinforces them by limiting safety, participation and career progression.
Under the Gender Equality Act, duty holders collect complementary sources of information about workplace sexual harassment. Workforce data records the number of formal sexual harassment reports received by an organisation. Anonymous employee experience data captures both people's experiences of workplace sexual harassment and whether they said they had formally reported those experiences. Together, these data provide a more complete picture of workplace sexual harassment than either source can alone.
While other regulators such as WorkSafe Victoria, the Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission, and the Fair Work Commission, can respond to cases of sexual harassment when a complaint is made, the Public Sector Gender Equality Commissioner is the only regulator requiring Victorian public sector organisations to regularly and transparently report on sexual harassment at a workplace level.
This is important because many people who experience workplace sexual harassment never make a formal report. Barriers include fear of reprisal, uncertainty about reporting processes, lack of confidence that action will be taken, and limited understanding of what constitutes sexual harassment. Together, these barriers, and failures to formally record reports that are made, mean organisations may underestimate both the prevalence of workplace sexual harassment and the effectiveness of their reporting systems. These issues are examined in more detail below.
You can read more about sexual harassment, including its drivers and risk factors, in the Commission’s Insights report: Sexual harassment (2025).
How we define progress
The goal for this indicator is a workplace free from sexual harassment. This means an experience rate of zero, together with reporting systems that employees trust and use, and organisations consistently recording if incidents occur.
As organisations progress towards this goal, anonymous experience rates should decline. Organisations should also see the gap narrow between the proportion of employees who say they formally reported workplace sexual harassment in their employee experience data and the number of formal reports recorded in workforce data. A large gap between these measures suggests that some employees who believe they have made a formal report are not being captured in organisational reporting systems. Organisations need to ensure that employees understand how to make a formal report and feel safe doing so, and that managers consistently record and escalate reports in line with organisational processes, so they are reflected in workforce data (see Commissioner expectations below for more detail).
Experience rates should generally decline over time. However, temporary increases do not necessarily indicate that workplace sexual harassment has become more common. They may, for example, reflect improved awareness or greater confidence in recognising and naming sexual harassment. For this reason, workforce audit and employee experience data should always be interpreted together.
Workplace sexual harassment remains one of the Commissioner’s regulatory priorities because of the serious harm it causes and the persistence of employee experience rates. In 2023, only 60% of duty holders demonstrated compliance with the requirement to make progress on this indicator (or adequately explain their lack of progress). Strengthening the prevention of workplace sexual harassment, improving employees’ confidence to report it, and ensuring reports are consistently recorded and acted on will remain key priorities of the Commission’s regulatory work.
Progress between 2021 and 2025
Rates of sexual harassment have not decreased. Across the sector, employee experience rates barely changed between 2021 and 2025, and for non-binary and gender-diverse employees they increased substantially. The data also raises a serious question about how much harassment is visible to organisations. In employee experience data, more employees say they formally reported their experience of sexual harassment than the number reflected in organisations’ workforce data. This suggests that some reports are not being consistently recorded through formal organisational reporting systems. When this happens, victim-survivors may not receive appropriate support or a consistent organisational response. It also makes it harder for organisations to identify patterns of behaviour, detect repeat perpetrators, learn from incidents and prevent future harm.
There is an encouraging sign within this picture. In 2025 a larger proportion of people who said they experienced harassment in employee experience data also said they reported it formally. A greater number of formal reports from women were also recorded in workforce data, with the increase primarily driven by the public health care sector. A small proportion of the increase came from organisations that did not have available data in previous reporting periods, or that were new duty holders in 2025. These shifts sit firmly within an overall finding of insufficient progress. Sexual harassment is a serious work health and safety issue with lasting effects on individuals and organisations. It is always unacceptable, and organisations have a legal duty to prevent it and respond appropriately when incidents occur.
Key data measures are presented in Tables 4.1 to 4.3. Findings are discussed in further detail after the tables.
Sexual harassment experience
Table 4.1a: Survey respondents who said they experienced sexual harassment at work
| Gender | 2021 | 2023 | 2025 | Percentage point change 2021-2025 | Progress |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Women | 6.5% | 6.6% | 6.4% | -0.04pp | Poor (8 – Matrix) |
| Men | 3.6% | 3.5% | 3.5% | -0.05pp | Moderate (9 – Matrix) |
| Self-described | 12.7% | 13.7% | 16.9% | +4.18pp | n/a |
Table 4.1b: Proportion of respondents who said they experienced sexual harassment, who also said they reported it
| Gender | 2021 | 2023 | 2025 | Percentage point change 2021-2025 | Progress |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Women | 4.6% | 6.9% | 7.3% | +2.75pp | Poor (7 – Matrix) |
| Men | 3.4% | 4.0% | 4.2% | +0.79pp | Poor (7 – Matrix) |
| Self-described | 4.2% | 4.9% | 8.3% | +4.06pp | n/a |
Table 4.1c: Number of complainants formally reporting sexual harassment according to workforce data
| Gender | 2021 | 2023 | 2025 | Percentage point change 2021-2025 | Progress |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Woman or group of women | 844 | 615 | 1165 | +321 | n/a |
| Man or group of men | 376 | 139 | 164 | -212 | n/a |
| Person or people of self-described gender | 4 | 3 | 6 | +2 | n/a |
| Group of mixed genders, or prefer not to say | Not available | 105 | 80 | +80 | n/a |
| Gender data unavailable | Not available | 118 | 782 | +782 | n/a |
Source: Workplace gender audit workforce data, 2021, 2023 and 2025. People matter survey data, 2021, 2023 and 2025.
Notes: To understand how to interpret the different types of progress ratings, see Data measures in Appendix 1. Public health participation in the survey was lower in 2025 than in 2023. We tested whether this affected these results and it did not. See Data caveats in Appendix 1 for more details. The number of complainants is an underrepresentation. Duty holders under the Act are required to report on each formal complaint received by the organisation, and whether the complaint was made by an individual or group, of what gender(s). Duty holders optionally provide the number of complainants. The figure in table 4.1 includes the total number of complainants reported to the Commission. But the optional nature of this data in 2021 and 2023 means that not all duty holders provided data. The percentage point change column may not always reflect the exact difference between years due to rounding.
Sexual harassment response
Table 4.2a: Survey respondents who did not report due to a lack of trust and confidence
| Gender | 2021 | 2023 | 2025 | Percentage point change 2021-2025 | Progress |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Women | 60.0% | 56.5%
| 59.5% | -0.50pp | n/a |
| Men | 64.1% | 63.7% | 63.0% | -1.12pp | n/a |
| Self-described | 78.8% | 73.5% | 72.9% | -5.89pp | n/a |
Table 4.2b: Survey respondents who did not report due to a lack of information and guidance
| Gender | 2021 | 2023 | 2025 | Percentage point change 2021-2025 | Progress |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Women | 53.7% | 54.6% | 50.3% | -3.43pp | n/a |
| Men | 46.6% | 49.2% | 49.6% | +3.00pp | n/a |
| Self-described | 48.7% | 51.6% | 45.2% | -3.46pp | n/a |
Table 4.2c: Survey respondents who were satisfied with how their report was handled
| Gender | 2021 | 2023 | 2025 | Percentage point change 2021-2025 | Progress |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Women | 53.8% | 60.8% | 57.7% | +3.85pp | Poor (7 – Matrix) |
| Men | 25.7% | 55.1% | 38.3% | +12.58pp | Moderate (13 – Matrix) |
| Self-described | 50.0% | 14.3% | 28.6% | -21.43pp | n/a |
Source: People matter survey data, 2021, 2023 and 2025.
Notes: To understand how to interpret the different types of progress ratings, see Data measures in Appendix 1. The percentage point change column may not always reflect the exact difference between years due to rounding.
Table 4.3: Total number of complainants who formally reported sexual harassment according to workforce data by industry
| Industry | 2021 | 2023 | 2025 | Change 2021-2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Community and cultural services | 19 | 25 | 86 | +67 |
| Finance and insurance | 3 | 6 | 6 | +3 |
| Local government | 37 | 81 | 163 | +126 |
| Other | 1 | 3 | 9 | +8 |
| Police and emergency services | 87 | 229 | 109 | +22 |
| Public health care | 946 | 409 | 1464 | +518 |
| TAFE and other education | 4 | 14 | 61 | +57 |
| Transport | 4 | 11 | 9 | +5 |
| Universities | 27 | 47 | 116 | +89 |
| Victorian Public Service | 88 | 145 | 155 | +67 |
| Water and land management | 8 | 10 | 19 | +11 |
Table 4.4: Sexual harassment experience for groups facing intersecting inequalities
| Measure | 2021 | 2023 | 2025 | Percentage point change 2021-2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Women aged 15-24 | 14.1% | 15.4% | 13.9% | -0.12pp |
| First Nations women | 6.5% | 9.1% | 7.6% | +1.12pp |
| Women with disability | 11.6% | 11.8% | 11.7% | +0.11pp |
| CARM women | 5.4% | 6.2% | 5.7% | +0.26pp |
| Non-binary or gender-diverse people | 12.7% | 13.7% | 16.9% | +4.18pp |
Source: People matter survey data, 2021, 2023 and 2025.
Notes: The percentage point change column may not always reflect the exact difference between years due to rounding. CARM is an acronym for ‘culturally and racially marginalised’. See Intersectionality at work (2023) for further discussion around language the Commission uses to describe groups that experience compounded discrimination.
Signs of progress
More sexual harassment reporting was visible in the data in 2025, in two different ways
Within an overall picture of insufficient progress, the data shows some encouraging movements in reporting.
In the employee experience survey data, a growing share of people who experienced sexual harassment said they went on to report it formally. Among women, the proportion rose from 4.6% in 2021 to 7.3% in 2025. For men it rose from 3.4% to 4.2%, and for non-binary and gender-diverse people it rose from 4.2% to 8.3%.
In the workforce data, the number of formal reports recorded by organisations also rose for women. In 2025, Victorian public sector organisations recorded 1165 formal reports through formal reporting mechanisms made by women who witnessed or experienced sexual harassment – 321 more than in 2021. Over the same period, formally recorded reports from men fell from 376 to 164, and formal reports from people who self-describe their gender rose slightly, from 4 in 2021 to 6 in 2025.
The data shows that increased formal reporting was largely driven by the public health care industry. Several large, metropolitan health services increased their numbers of formal reports of sexual harassment significantly, even between 2023 and 2025. This is likely due to a combination of improved data collection and reporting, as well as a potential increase in actual reports made. Given the public health care industry has among the highest rates of sexual harassment in the Victorian public sector, increased ability to monitor and respond to sexual harassment through improved reporting processes and systems is a positive step. Centralised formal reporting matters. It is what allows a person who reports to be supported safely, and an incident to be investigated and appropriately dealt with.
Areas for attention
The sector did not make sufficient progress in reducing sexual harassment
Sexual harassment remains one of the most concerning areas in duty holders’ data. Experience rates for women and men were essentially unchanged from 2021, and the rate for non-binary and gender-diverse employees rose. In 2025, anonymous survey data showed 6.4% of women experienced sexual harassment (6.5% in 2021) and 3.5% of men (3.6% in 2021), while the rate for non-binary and gender-diverse people rose from 12.7% to 16.9%. Despite years of awareness-raising and policy attention, many organisations are not yet demonstrating sufficient progress in prevention.
The industries with the highest sexual harassment experience rates for women were police and emergency services (11.8%), transport (10.6%) and community and cultural services (10.2%). For men, the highest rates were in public health care (6.1%), police and emergency services (4.7%) and local government (4.6%).
As noted above, there has been a concerted push from governments to prevent and address workplace sexual harassment in recent years. The Gender Equality Act has been in operation for 5 years, requiring duty holders in Victoria to demonstrate reasonable and material progress on sexual harassment every 2 years. At the federal level, changes to the Sex Discrimination Act 1984 also placed a positive duty on organisations to actively prevent sexual harassment, rather than just respond to occurrences. Within this legislative and policy environment, duty holders must be able to show they are identifying risks, implementing effective prevention measures, responding appropriately when harassment occurs, and reviewing whether those measures are working. Where an organisation cannot demonstrate meaningful progress or effective prevention, the Commissioner will continue to use the regulatory and compliance powers available under the Gender Equality Act to drive change.
Read more about recent changes to sexual harassment regulation, and how to prevent and respond to sexual harassment, in the Commission’s Insights report: sexual harassment 2025.
Rates of sexual harassment were much higher for groups experiencing intersectional gender inequality
Employees who experience intersecting forms of discrimination and disadvantage continued to experience sexual harassment at higher rates. The highest rates of all were experienced by non-binary and gender-diverse people, whose experience rate rose 4.18 percentage points since 2021 (from 12.7% to 16.9%). This is the largest increase of any group in Table 4.4. The next largest increase was among First Nations women (7.6% in 2025, up 1.12 percentage points). Rates for CARM women (6.4%), young women (13.9%) and women with disability (11.7%) were largely unchanged since 2021. All require immediate attention.
Patterns in who reports sexual harassment were strongly gendered
Women continued to report sexual harassment more often than men. Research indicates the reasons are highly gendered. Women experience more severe forms of harassment, at higher rates (Nielsen et al. 2010; AHRC 2022). Men are less likely to label their experiences as harassment (Keenan et al. 2024; Węziak-Białowolska et al. 2020). And, men are more reluctant to report formally, because doing so conflicts with traditional gender roles (McDonald and Charlesworth 2016).
Formal reporting by men and by non-binary and gender-diverse employees was low, and confidence and sense of safety among gender-diverse employees was poor. Together with the high and increased experience rate for this group, this points clearly to the need for reporting pathways that are safe and inclusive for employees of all genders.
Much sexual harassment was invisible to the systems meant to manage it
Sexual harassment cannot be prevented if organisations cannot see where it is occurring. Yet the data suggests that, in many workplaces, a significant proportion of sexual harassment remains invisible to the systems responsible for addressing it.
Employee experience survey data consistently shows that some employees who experience sexual harassment say they have formally reported it. However, the number of formal reports recorded in workforce reporting data is often substantially lower than those survey responses would lead us to expect. Formal reports include complaints made by witnesses or bystanders (as well as victim-survivors), and can come from members of the public, clients and patients, as well as employees. They are therefore not directly comparable to the employee experience survey data. But given formal reports cast a wider net, they should reflect higher numbers of reports.
The discrepancy between employees who say they experienced sexual harassment and the number of formal reports raises important questions about how reports are being captured. It may indicate that employees are reporting incidents to managers or supervisors, but that these reports are not always being formally documented, escalated through organisational processes, or reflected in workforce reporting systems. As a result, senior leaders may have an incomplete picture of the scale and nature of sexual harassment in their organisation and how complaints are being addressed.
This gap has significant consequences. People who disclose harassment may not receive appropriate support, follow-up or resolution. Organisations may be unable to identify patterns of behaviour, detect problem areas or assess whether prevention initiatives are working. Most importantly, an organisation cannot meet its positive duty to prevent sexual harassment if incidents are not visible within its own systems.
Closing this gap requires more than encouraging people to speak up. Organisations must ensure that every disclosure at every level is consistently recorded, appropriately escalated, and built into organisational reporting and risk-management processes. Employees need confidence that reporting is safe, meaningful and will lead to action. Leaders need confidence that the information reaching them reflects their employees lived experiences.
Read together, experience and workforce data show both the prevalence of harassment (survey data) and whether reporting and response systems are working (workforce reporting data). A large gap between them is a signal that harassment is occurring but is not being systematically captured. The Commissioner expects duty holders to treat this as a governance and work health and safety issue, requiring the same rigour applied to any other significant workplace risk.
Commissioner expectations
The Commissioner expects urgent action to drive down sexual harassment and to improve formal reporting. The lack of progress on this indicator is concerning. Sexual harassment causes serious emotional, psychological and physical harm. It damages careers and workplace culture and disproportionately impacts women and gender diverse people. Any instance of sexual harassment is unacceptable and must be taken extremely seriously.
Organisations are legally required to take proactive steps to prevent and eliminate sexual harassment under anti-discrimination and occupational health and safety laws. Relevant legislation includes the Sex Discrimination Act 1984 (Cth), Equal Opportunity Act 2010 (Vic), and the Occupational Health and Safety (Psychological Health) Regulations 2025 (Vic). This means that organisations must treat sexual harassment as a workplace hazard, not a misconduct or complaints issue. Under the Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth), organisations may also be found to be liable for sexual harassment of an employee where they have failed to take proactive measures to prevent it.
To comply with these obligations, organisations must have effective systems to collect and report robust and timely workplace sexual harassment data. Without this data, it is not possible to genuinely identify, assess and develop strategies to eliminate workplace sexual harassment and its root causes as a psychosocial hazard. It is also not possible to track progress. The current gaps in this data would be unacceptable in any other area of work health and safety. Duty holders must improve their ability to capture this information with the same amount of due diligence they apply to the other areas of their work health and safety obligations.
Anonymous survey data and formal reporting data each tell organisations something different, and both are needed. Survey data reveals the true extent of harassment – who is experiencing it, who is perpetrating it, what kind of harassment is occurring, how many people say they have reported it, and what stops people reporting. Formal reporting data shows whether the organisation’s own systems are working. This includes whether disclosures are being recorded, victim-survivors are supported, incidents are addressed, patterns of perpetration are identified, and complaints processes are holding up.
When formal reporting falls well short of what the survey data would predict, it is not a neutral data gap. It is a system failure. It means disclosures are being made but are not reaching the systems meant to act on them. People who have spoken up may not be well supported. And leaders are making decisions on an incomplete picture of the risk in their own organisation. The Commissioner expects duty holders to actively close this gap and to treat a persistent divergence between employees who say they have experienced sexual harassment, employees who say they have reported sexual harassment, and workforce data on formal reports, as a serious governance and work health and safety failure.
Certain groups that experience intersecting forms of discrimination are at higher risk of sexual harassment. Sexual harassment for these groups may also take different forms (see, for example, AHRC 2025). Organisations must be aware of these risks in their prevention and response strategies. Limited data about the experiences of these groups does not excuse inaction. Sexual harassment prevention and response should consider how intersecting inequalities shape risk and safety to speak up. Improving data collection and analysis from an intersectional perspective will also help to strengthen prevention efforts and ensure people facing heightened risk are able to report safely.
A concrete step duty holders should take is to establish a clear pathway so that no disclosure of sexual harassment stops at an individual people leader. At a minimum, this means establishing:
- a recording obligation on every people leader to log each disclosure of actual or suspected sexual harassment they receive – including disclosures made informally and by third party witnesses – in the organisation’s central reporting system. This ensures the complaint is captured as workforce data even where the person does not wish to make a formal complaint
- a de-identified recording option, so a disclosure can be logged for risk and pattern-detection purposes without naming the person, where that is the discloser’s preference. This will separate capturing the data from triggering a formal process and protects the discloser’s control over what happens next
- a clear distinction between recording and acting, that is understood by all leaders. Recording is expected in every case, while the decision to proceed to formal investigation should ordinarily follow the wishes of the person affected. There should be defined exceptions where there is a serious or ongoing risk to that person or others
- manager capability and accountability, so people leaders know how to receive a disclosure safely, understand their recording obligation and can explain the de-identified option
- Health and Safety Representative training specific to identifying, reporting and responding to workplace sexual harassment
- workforce awareness and training, so that employees are aware of the reporting options available to them and the ability to report an incident of sexual harassment without an obligation to pursue a formal complaint
Recording protocols must protect confidentiality in practice, not only by removing a name. In small teams or organisations, the details of an incident may identify those involved regardless. Organisations should design recording and reporting processes in a way that keeps individuals safe and maintains trust. Done well, this approach means disclosures reach the organisation’s systems and inform its risk identification and control approach, without removing the discloser’s autonomy or deterring people from speaking up.
Reporting protocols should also be tailored to the organisation’s specific context and what is known about the nature and experience of sexual harassment. For example, organisations with large public-facing workforces have the same legal obligation to eliminate and prevent sexual harassment of their employees by third parties (such as customers, patients and students). It is important that data capturing practices and reporting protocols are designed to account for this.
Ultimately, duty holders must demonstrate targeted, context-specific prevention and culture-change strategies. They must consider how, when, where and why harassment is occurring: How safe do employees feel to report, and how do they navigate the process? Is harassment concentrated in particular work areas, and who is perpetrating it – colleagues, managers or members of the public?
Five years after the Act came into effect, duty holders need to move beyond generic approaches built on training alone or basic reporting systems. They must be designing and implementing context-specific strategies that measurably drive down the sexual harassment experience rate and increase formal reporting.
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