A long-awaited bill to curb the use of non-disclosure agreements in sexual harassment cases will be introduced to Victorian parliament, in an Australian-first move the government says will prevent victim-survivors from being silenced.
The premier, Jacinta Allan, and treasurer and industrial relations minister, Jaclyn Symes, will announce the introduction of the bill to parliament on Wednesday, which if passed would ban NDAs in workplace sexual harassment cases unless expressly requested by the employee.
The complainant would also have the ability to waive their own confidentiality after 12 months, and to disclose the existence of the NDA to certain groups including health workers, police and lawyers.
Other additional safeguards include a requirement for an information statement and a 21-day cooling-off period before a worker signs an NDA.
Bosses would also be prohibited from “pressuring or influencing” a worker to sign.
“We heard from victims who have been silenced in the workplace, and this legislation will make sure they have a voice,” Allan said.
“How can we have a hope of stopping sexual harassment in the workplace when the conduct gets hidden, the victim gets silenced and the powerful stay protected?”
Symes said NDAs are “too often misued” and the proposed laws are “about putting the voices of victim-survivors first”.
The bill is the first in Australia to restrict the use of NDAs, though similar legislative changes have been made in Ireland, Canada and some US states and are under consideration in the UK.
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The use of NDAs to cover up sexual harassment became widely known after the #MeToo movement in 2017, particularly in cases involving the disgraced Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein. But less is known about their use in Australia.
Research by lawyers from the Human Rights Law Centre and the Redfern Legal Centre, published in 2024 by the University of Sydney, found NDAs were considered “standard practice” in sexual harassment cases. It found 75% of legal practitioners had never resolved a sexual harassment settlement without including one.
Several women who have signed an NDA have told Guardian Australia they struggled to find work again, as they were unable to explain their history or gaps in their résumé.
The Victorian government committed to restricting their use in 2022, as a direct response to a ministerial taskforce investigating workplace sexual harassment, which made 26 recommendations.
Wil Stracke, the assistant secretary at the Victorian Trades Hall Council, said in the three years since, thousands of workers had agitated for the change.
“When we started this campaign, a lot of people said there was no way to stop bosses from using NDAs to silence workers. We were told that the practice was too entrenched and couldn’t be changed,” Stracke said.
“But thousands of working women stood up in their unions and said ‘this isn’t right’ and they demanded better.”
She said the new laws were “gamechanging” and a “positive step towards ending sexual harassment in workplaces”.
“Changing workplace cultures starts with transparency. It’s time for employers to take workplace harassment seriously and put safety before silence,” Stracke said.
The best public interest journalism relies on first-hand accounts from people in the know.
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