Ms Carly Bailey:

Yes, absolutely. It is a preventative measure. One does not want discrimination to happen in the first instance. As somebody else said, it is unlikely that those types of heightened awards will be paid out. My view is they absolutely should be paid out. There is no point in having them if they are not going to be used. One might as well leave the levels where they are now if that is the case. In the context of the heads of the proposed Bill, It would be useful for guidelines to be considered for the WRC adjudicators to provide understanding of the levels and to take account of this issue. That could be similar to how it might be done by the Judiciary in the courts, where there is a hierarchy of types of offences, for example, and how serious the offence is and its impact. Often that is the hard part in terms of time limits. Let us imagine a person was able to make a complaint within the time but sometimes the impact can be very long-lasting and it is way off into the future and the person does not even know that at that point by the time he or she gets to it. There is a lot to think about here, including accessibility and being able to figure all of it out. It is very confusing. It is incredibly unfair because, as we have said, this is proposed legislation that primarily is there to protect those who are more likely to be discriminated against than others. People are literally being treated as lesser than others. All the duty and responsibility is being placed on the person who has been wronged and discriminated against, and none of that burden is elsewhere. As Mr. Swan said, organisations are being resourced to potentially take a case where they do not want their name out there. That is a very valid point. One can simply type the words "WRC case" into a Google search and that comes up and a person may not get called for an interview or whatever it might be as a result of having brought a complaint. There are reasons that people should be able to keep their anonymity if they want but have the structural issue looked after and challenged by those with standing in terms of civil society organisations that work with and on behalf of particular groups that are more vulnerable.