Equal opportunity policy, Brigalow Freight Lines
Equal opportunity policy template with the law behind every attribute
An equal opportunity policy has to name the attributes that cannot be used against anyone, turn that into concrete rules for hiring and promotion, and give people a way to ask for adjustments and to complain. This four page Australian policy for a freight company with 340 staff does that with an attribute table citing each Act and seven recruitment rules.
The document, page by page
Every page as it renders and as it prints, with nothing summarised. Read the wording before you reuse it.
Section by section
What each section is for, so you can keep the ones you need and drop the rest.
- Cover
- Panel cover with the company, title, purpose line and date.
- 1. Purpose and scope
- 340 staff across five depots, and decisions made on merit.
- 2. Protected attributes
- Eight rows with the main Commonwealth Act and what each means at the depots.
- Genuine requirements callout
- Licences that are lawful requirements, and tests that are not.
- 3. Recruitment and promotion rules
- Seven rules from written criteria to keeping decision records.
- 4. Reasonable adjustments
- A 10 business day meeting and four depot examples.
- 5. Complaints
- Three internal paths, a 2 day acknowledgement and outside bodies.
- 6 and 7. Responsibilities and review
- Who does what, and the yearly data report and review.
How to adapt this document
First, keep the attribute table but rewrite the third column for your work, because the examples are what make it usable; a hospital would talk about rostering and uniforms, a law firm about partnership pathways. Second, add your state's anti discrimination Act and any attributes it adds, such as irrelevant criminal record or physical features in some states. Third, if you are a small business, shorten clause 7 to a yearly look at who applied, who was hired and who was promoted, which costs little and finds problems early.
Which law the terms follow
The protected attributes come from the Fair Work Act 2009, which bans adverse action on these grounds, and the federal discrimination Acts: the Racial Discrimination Act 1975, the Sex Discrimination Act 1984, the Disability Discrimination Act 1992 and the Age Discrimination Act 2004. The Disability Discrimination Act sets the reasonable adjustment and unjustifiable hardship test. Every state and territory also has its own anti discrimination law, which applies alongside the federal Acts.
What makes this document work
Each attribute has a law and a local meaning
The table runs eight rows from race and colour under the Racial Discrimination Act 1975 to being subject to family and domestic violence under the Fair Work Act 2009, and every row adds what it means at a depot, such as no name screening of driver applications or no age limit beyond the licence rules.
Genuine requirements are separated from bias
The callout says a heavy rigid licence for a truck driver or a forklift licence in the warehouse is lawful because the job cannot be done without it, while a fitness test unrelated to the duties is not. That one distinction answers most of the questions hiring managers ask.
Adjustments are shown, not promised
Clause 4 commits to meeting within 10 business days and lists four real adjustments: an automatic truck for a driver with a knee injury, a fixed early shift for school drop off, written instead of radio instructions for a worker who is hard of hearing, and a quiet room for a dispatcher.
Questions people ask
What attributes are protected in Australian workplaces?
The Fair Work Act 2009 protects race, colour, sex, sexual orientation, breastfeeding, gender identity, intersex status, age, disability, marital status, family or carer's responsibilities, being subject to family and domestic violence, pregnancy, religion, political opinion, national extraction and social origin. Federal and state discrimination Acts add their own lists, which largely overlap.
What is a reasonable adjustment?
A change to how, when or where a person works so they can do the job despite a disability or other need. Under the Disability Discrimination Act 1992 an employer must make reasonable adjustments unless doing so would cause unjustifiable hardship. Clause 4 sets a 10 business day meeting so requests do not drift.
Can I ask a job applicant about their health?
Only about whether they can perform the inherent requirements of the role, with or without adjustments. Asking about health in general, or about age, pregnancy, family plans or religion, invites a discrimination claim, which is why recruitment rule 5 bans those questions. A driving role may need a medical that matches the licence standard.
Is an equal opportunity policy required by law?
Not as a document in itself, but employers are liable for discrimination by their staff unless they took reasonable steps to prevent it. A clear policy, trained managers and a working complaints process are the evidence of those steps. Larger employers also report gender equality data to a federal agency each year.
Where can staff complain outside the business?
To the Australian Human Rights Commission under the federal discrimination Acts, to the Fair Work Ombudsman or the Fair Work Commission under the Fair Work Act, or to their state anti discrimination body. Each has time limits, so the policy lists them and states that staff can go to them at any time.
Build your own in about a minute
The button below opens the generator with this use case already described. Change the wording to match your own, generate, then edit anything you like.
Make one like thisOther document examples
Sexual harassment policy template built around the positive duty
A sexual harassment policy in Australia now has to show what the business is doing to prevent harassment, not only how it handles complaints, because employers carry a positive duty to eliminate it as far as possible. This five page policy for a 24 store retail chain sets out the definitions, the preventive measures with owners, five reporting options and a fair investigation.
WHS policy template for a manufacturing plant, signed by the managing director
A work health and safety policy has to state what the business commits to, say who is responsible for what, and show how workers are consulted and incidents are reported. This three page Australian policy for a 96 worker plastics plant in Queensland does that in five numbered sections and ends with the managing director's signature.
Disciplinary procedure template with a stages table and appeals
A disciplinary procedure has to make sure every employee accused of misconduct hears the allegation, sees the evidence, answers it and can appeal, with the same steps and outcomes in every department. This four page procedure for a 210 staff hotel does that with a misconduct examples table, five stages with how long each warning stays live, seven investigation steps and an appeal that can never increase the penalty.
Want the steps in the builder? Read Create a document with AI, then Document builder components. For everything this generator can do, see the document maker.
Written and checked by the OneCraft team. Last checked .