2023 King's Birthday Honours: Former sex discrimination commissioner Kate Jenkins appointed AO

The former sex discrimination commissioner, who finished up her seven year post in April, has been, in her words, "intimately" involved with the inner workings of Federal Parliament since 2021.

She was asked to investigate reports of sexual assault, harassment and bullying and found one in three people working in Commonwealth parliamentary workplaces experienced such unacceptable behaviour. It set federal politics towards a wholesale lifting of its game.

For the landmark Jenkins Review - and for generally being one of the leading architects of change - Ms Jenkins has been appointed an officer of the order of Australia in the King's Birthday Honours.

"I feel incredibly honoured," she told The Canberra Times.

"It is true that my personality, my nature, has been to identify sort of injustice and also be really focused on a pragmatic, 'Where can we get change? What would make things better?' That has been a pretty consistent thread throughout my whole career.

"I do feel like it is rewarding if I can push for change. And it's not just one off changes. It's really systemic change."

Ms Jenkins, who lives in Melbourne, was cited in the honours list for "distinguished service to human rights governance, to advancing gender equity, to the promotion of inclusivity, and to the law."

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She is keen to point out that she has worked with a "whole lot of other people" to bring lasting change in the environments of sport, politics and policing.

The Melburnian said she loved the role of sex discrimination Commissioner, but also past roles as Victorian human rights commissioner and as co-chair of Play by the Rules where she has been quietly pushing for greater inclusivity in sport, "particularly for women, but also transgender people".

She has taken on reforming the culture of Australian gymnastics, the Australian Defence Force, the Australian Federal Police and Australian Border Force.

And there is the landmark Respect@Work inquiry into workplace sexual harassment, a culmination of 30 years of work.

She insists Australia is on the precipice of change with new sexual harassment laws passed, the Human Rights Commission having new obligations on new enforcement powers and everyone - unions, employers and other organisations - knowing what to do, and what not to do.

"I know the employers, and I know the unions, and I know the other organisations in that sector, I know that they're actively working towards change," Ms Jenkins said. "In December, the positive duty on employers taking steps to prevent sexual harassment will start to be enforced."

"It's not going to be completely eliminated, but I think the majority of workers now can expect that they'll work in better workplaces."

As for Parliament, it is still the centre of power with cases of great power imbalances and it can be a fraught workplace where maintaining a healthy work life balance is difficult.

Ms Jenkins said she is seeing, in real time, a significant change, starting with the intent and the will of the people across the parliament and also the steady, bipartisan-backed, implementation of all of her recommendations.

"I can't guarantee perfect, but some really important systemic change has happened," she said.

"When I'm at Parliament, people do come up to me at all levels, whether it's parliamentarians, staffers journalists, come up to me and quietly say 'it is different.' And a lot of those people have been there for a very long time."

"And some of them said, 'I never thought it could change.'"