Anti-discrimination
What is discrimination?
Discrimination is a type of behaviour that has various forms and happens very day. You may discriminate against a person when you treat them less favourably than another person or group because of their gender, race, religious or political belief, sexual preference, physical or mental capabilities, marital status, pregnancy or other central characteristic. Discrimination may be intended or unintended. Some discriminating behaviour, such as sexual harassment and racial discrimination, is illegal in Australia. Some, such as a coach favouring his or her child over other players, is not.
All discrimination is undesirable if it leads to unfair treatment of players, members and other participants in recreation and sport. This issue is also discussed in section 4.3C of this resource library and touched on briefly in section 4.3A.
The law - Australia has many laws designed to protect people from discrimination at a Federal, State and Territory level. Human Rights and Equal Opportunity commissions federally and in States and Territories generally have responsibility for these laws.
