By Emily Woods

After being passed up for an associate principal role, a woman went on maternity leave to have her first baby.

When she returned to work, she expected to go back to her role in leadership.

Instead, her principal told her she would come back as a music teacher.

“He just said, the school no longer needed my role,” the Perth woman told AAP.

“I don’t have any formal music qualifications … He gave me the job he considered to be the least important.”

The mother-of-two, who spoke on the condition of anonymity as she still works in the state school system, considered taking action against her principal.

She spoke to the Fair Work Ombudsman and her union, but decided not to pursue a claim.

“My life was already so full, I didn’t want to take more time away from being with my kid,” she said.

“And it would just be rough to work for someone that you had legally fought with to have that job.”

In another case, Alana, from Melbourne, worked at a hydrotherapy service for babies and tried to take time off to be with her one-year-old when he was hospitalised.

“I gave a few days’ notice, and she (the manager) got really, really angry and lost it, and said it’s unacceptable, if your son is sick, you have to call your mother or a babysitter,” she said.

“Another time he was sick … she said that I had to have my husband take him, or I wouldn’t have a job.”

Almost half of mothers (49 per cent) experienced discrimination during pregnancy, parental leave or return to work, a 2014 Australian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) study found.

About 91 per cent did not lodge formal complaints out of stress, fear of retaliation or lack of legal awareness.

Little has changed, with pregnancy, breastfeeding and family responsibility discrimination remaining “a significant and widespread workplace issue” in 2026, an AHRC report released on Tuesday found.

The number of alleged pregnancy discrimination complaints the AHRC received rose from 54 in 2021, to 72 in 2025.

The AHRC met with 84 stakeholders, including industry, community, advocates, lawyers, unions and academics.

Recurring patterns of discrimination were identified, including “sham” redundancies and job loss during pregnancy or parental leave, diminished duties when returning to work, and refusal of flexible work arrangements.

Harms were amplified for First Nations, migrant, racially-marginalised, disabled, and LGBTQI+ communities, who experienced intersecting forms of discrimination.

“It was really clear that pregnancy discrimination, and discrimination on the basis of carers’ responsibility, is widespread and hasn’t changed significantly in the last 12 years,” Sex Discrimination Commissioner Anna Cody said.

She said employers needed to change how they conceptualise work, with flexible working arrangements made a presumption unless an employer rebuts, and the 12-month service requirement to access unpaid parental leave eliminated.

It made 18 recommendations, including amending the Sex Discrimination Act to ban indirect discrimination based on family responsibilities, and limiting redundancies during or immediately after parental leave.

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