Online Sexual Harassment Prevention Training Alone isn’t Enough: Tribunal Clarifies the ‘Reasonable Steps’ Defence
The Queensland Industrial Relations Commission ruled that compliance training completed during normal work duties cannot be considered a ‘reasonable step’ to prevent harassment.
In Loquias v The Star Entertainment Group and John Dwyer [2026] QIRC 023, The Star was found vicariously liable for sexual harassment. Between September 2020 and March 2021, a young female employee was repeatedly harassed by her male floor manager. The actions condemning the manager included:
Commenting on the victim’s body,
Pinching and touching the victim’s arm,
Touching the victim’s face and eyebrows and telling them not to frown, and
Stating to the victim, “You’re lucky I wasn’t there, I would have done a lot worse,” when they wanted to report incidents of sexual harassment from two other managers.
Although The Star conceded that the offender’s conduct did occur in the course of work, they nonetheless argued they took reasonable steps to prevent said conduct. In their defence, The Star lauded their training, claiming it was ‘more fulsome’ compared to training alternatives. The Tribunal even acknowledged the content of their training being adequate, and did not require employees to be skilled up as subject matter experts.
Despite their biennial Code of Conduct and ‘Do the Right Thing’ online training modules, the Tribunal was not persuaded by their reasonable steps defence. Why? The manner in which the training was delivered was inadequate. The issue was not the absence of policy - it was the absence of institutional implementation. The Tribunal discovered that the manager completed training modules whilst actively working, noting that genuine training cannot reasonably occur in these conditions. Therefore, The Star could have prevented its employee’s unlawful conduct if training had been conducted away from work duties.
On top of this, the Tribunal emphasised The Star’s heightened obligation to ensure a safe workplace, given the manager’s previous harassment allegation in 2016, causing a final warning to be issued. The Tribunal noted that biennial training may have been appropriate for most employees, but it would have been reasonably expected for policy-breaching employees to complete additional training. There was no evidence of The Star taking further measures to address this high-risk employee and ensure his conduct would not happen again.
As a result, the Star had to pay $50,000 in damages.
So, where does this leave employers?
The ‘reasonable steps’ evidence threshold is getting ever so stricter, requiring employers to implement practical and appropriate measures suitable to their workplace context.
Positive duty and psychosocial safety obligations are even greater when high-risk employees are involved. Standardised e-learning modules may behave become high risk, as employers cannot guarantee that their employees are fully engaged when completing such training. - which they consider to be a “tedious” task.
Questions for employers:
Can you evidence training effectiveness?
Is training contextualised to the risk profile?
Are high-risk employees monitored?
Is there executive accountability?
Is training embedded in performance systems?
If employers and employees are treating policy training as a tick and flick task, it leaves both parties legally exposed and endangers their reputation. Training is one element, but governance, accountability and implementation determine whether the reasonable steps defence will stand. Don’t end up like The Star, be a star – embed structural prevention measures.
