Equal Opportunity Act 1984 (WA)

Western Australia

Western Australia

Equal Opportunity Act 1984

An Act to promote equality of opportunity in Western Australia and to provide remedies in respect of discrimination on the grounds of sex, marital status, pregnancy, sexual orientation, family responsibility or family status, race, religious or political conviction, impairment, age, or publication of details on the Fines Enforcement Registrar’s website, or involving sexual or racial harassment or, in certain cases, on gender history grounds.

[Long title amended: No. 40 of 1988 s. 4; No. 74 of 1992 s. 4; No. 2 of 2000 s. 28; No. 3 of 2002 s. 46; No. 48 of 2012 s. 45.]

This Act may be cited as the Equal Opportunity Act 1984.

The provisions of this Act shall come into operation on such day or days as is or are respectively fixed by proclamation.

The objects of this Act are — 

• (a)

  to eliminate, so far as is possible, discrimination against persons on the ground of sex, marital status or pregnancy, family responsibility or family status, sexual orientation, race, religious or political conviction, impairment, age, publication of relevant details on the Fines Enforcement Registrar’s website or, in certain cases, gender history in the areas of work, accommodation, education, the provision of goods, facilities and services and the activities of clubs; and

• (b)

  to eliminate, so far as is possible, sexual harassment and racial harassment in the workplace and in educational institutions and sexual harassment and racial harassment related to accommodation; and

• (c)

  to promote recognition and acceptance within the community of the equality of men and women; and

• (d)

  to promote recognition and acceptance within the community of the equality of persons of all races and of all persons regardless of their sexual orientation, religious or political convictions or their impairments or ages.

[Section 3 amended: No. 40 of 1988 s. 5; No. 74 of 1992 s. 5; No. 2 of 2000 s. 28; No. 3 of 2002 s. 47; No. 48 of 2012 s. 46.]

• (1)

  In this Act, unless the contrary intention appears — 

accommodation includes residential and business accommodation;

age, in relation to a person, means chronological age of the person;

charitable benefits means benefits for purposes that are exclusively charitable according to the law in force in Western Australia;

club means an association (whether incorporated or unincorporated) of not less than 30 persons associated together for social, literary, cultural, political, sporting, athletic or other lawful purposes that — 

• (a)

  provides and maintains its facilities, in whole or in part, from the funds of the association; and

• (b)

  sells or supplies liquor for consumption on its premises;

commission agent means a person who does work for another person as the agent of that person and who is remunerated, whether in whole or in part, by commission;

Commissioner means the Commissioner for Equal…