Just over a year ago, writing for this masthead, I attempted to give voice to women’s collective rage – correction, their downright fury – directed at the Morrison government for failing to legislate all the recommendations from Sex Discrimination Commissioner Kate Jenkins’ Respect@Work inquiry into workplace sexual harassment.

Now I’m back – but this time I have a much happier task. Having just marked the fifth anniversary of #MeToo going viral, we can now note the significance of the Respect@Work Bill, which passed in federal parliament on Monday. It legislates the remainder of Jenkins’ recommendations, in particular the “positive duty” placed on employers to prevent sexual harassment.

In short, the Albanese government has done what the Morrison government could not – and would not – do to keep women safe at work. It is indeed historic.

Getting here wasn’t easy. It confronted powerful resistance. It is a testament to the power of women’s collective action and the persistence of many who warrant induction into the Persisterhood Hall of Fame. They include Jenkins herself.

Australia is, once again, poised to be a world leader in the response to and prevention of sexual harassment.

When Jenkins’ world-first sexual harassment inquiry was commissioned by then prime minister Malcolm Turnbull in 2018, it was informed by an epic 60 consultations and drew on 460 submissions from legal services, unions, women’s services, academic experts and, most importantly, victims. Anything informed by that breadth of experience and front-line expertise was bound to put forward transformative recommendations, which Respect@Work most certainly did.

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The final report’s 55 recommendations – released in early 2020 – covered everything from a more robust legal and regulatory framework to more holistic support for survivors. And they included the game-changing positive duty that took the burden off victims and placed it firmly on the shoulders of employers to prevent sexual harassment from happening in the first place.

The Morrison government provoked outrage by cynically attempting to cherry-pick Jenkins’ recommendations when she had made clear they should be taken as a whole so they would be mutually reinforcing. The same government initially tossed the final report into then attorney-general Christian Porter’s drawer, where it sat for more than a year until 2021, when a series of highly publicised cases of alleged sexual assault reinvigorated calls for change.