Cutting Chai with Lakshmi Ganapathy is a monthly series of bite-sized interviews with prominent South Asians showcasing their career and personality and celebrating their South Asian Australian identity.
PRABHA NANDAGOPAL is a human rights and discrimination lawyer and the founder of Elevate Consulting and Safespace@Elevate. Holding various senior positions at the Australian Human Rights Commission, she was Director of Legal for the Independent Review into Commonwealth Parliamentary Workplaces and led the landmark National Inquiry into Children in Detention.
Lakshmi Ganapathy: You’ve been inside many Immigration Detention centres over your career, what’s one experience you’ve had in here you’ll never forget?
Prabha Nandagopal: I visited my first detention center in Port Augusta, SA at the age of 20 and then went on to visit almost all detention centers in Australia over the next 15 years, working with asylum seekers and refugees in agonising situations…It really forced me to develop a tough skin, so there’s not a lot of what I see or hear in these contexts that tips me over; I don’t know if that’s a good thing or not!
But the group that truly kept me up at night was unaccompanied children in detention, the ones who flee to Australia without their parents. On one visit to Christmas Island, I met a remarkable 14-year-old Sri Lankan boy whose parents had died in the Sri Lankan Civil War. With the help of extended family, he travelled to Australia by boat and had the misfortune of being indefinitely detained on Christmas Island.
Despite everything he had been through, he was so kind and brave, brilliant, articulate. He dreamed of becoming a lawyer, but like many children in detention, the harsh conditions and that uncertainty of not knowing when you’ll be released had a huge toll on his mental health and he was self-harming.
I pleaded with the Department of Immigration to release him as soon as possible, promising them the Tamil community would rally around him and provide him everything he needed to resettle. But the truth is, when I said the Tamil community, I really meant me – I couldn’t stand leaving this vulnerable sweet child alone on that desolate island, you know, cut off from the world and potentially his future. It was like I was abandoning him; I still feel that anguish of getting on the plane to head home to Sydney.
Fortunately, he was eventually released and went on to live in Melbourne, but I often wonder what he’s doing today. I hope he and all the other unaccompanied children cruelly locked up are now thriving and living the life they truly deserve.
Lakshmi Ganapathy: What need had you identified in workplaces when you decided to launch Elevate Consulting?
Prabha Nandagopal: For many years I played a key role in the establishment of the Positive Duty, and I realised what a seismic shift this was for employers who usually adopted a reactive approach to workplace sexual harassment. I could see there was a real need to support businesses in implementing these measures to prevent harmful workplaces and meet their regulatory requirements. So, I put together a multidisciplinary and diverse team and we’re now working with a range of organisations from ASX listed companies to industries such as hospitality, to support them in fostering safety, respect, diversity and inclusion in the workplace.
What sets us apart is we adopt a multidisciplinary approach, so we’re not just a mob of lawyers – we’ve got psychologists, behaviour change experts, investigators as well. And we do everything through an intersectional lens, so we understand people with intersecting identities such as migrants and refugees, LGBTQI+ people or people with disabilities experience higher rates of workplace sexual harassment. Therefore, businesses need to be cognizant of how these issues are affecting them and have measures that are appropriately adapted to all people in the workplace.
Lakshmi Ganapathy: If someone’s experiencing workplace bullying or happens to find themselves inside toxic workplace culture, what should they do?
Prabha Nandagopal: Firstly, you’ve gotta take care of yourself and get the right support. Talk to people you trust, whether it’s colleagues or your family and friends; really take care of yourself.
If you can, keep a record of the incidents, no matter how small; take some file notes, this can be helpful later down the track if you want to make a formal report.
If you feel safe and comfortable, you could try and address the issue directly with the person involved or with your supervisor, or if you’re not comfortable, go to HR or some other internal mechanism to report. We know in most workplaces there’s a real lack of trust and confidence in HR to report hurtful behaviours and underreporting is a huge problem, that’s why we’ve developed this platform called SafeSpace@Elevate to address this issue of where to go.
If the situation is not getting better, really think about whether that workplace is the right fit for you, because no job is worth your mental health. I know it’s easy for me to say ‘just move jobs’, especially with this cost-of-living crisis, but really think about what other opportunities are out there, because you should not be losing sleep. Your health should not be affected in such a negative way by work.
Lakshmi Ganapathy: What’s something that you’re currently listening to/reading/playing/watching?
Prabha Nandagopal: I just finished reading ‘Chai Time at Cinnamon Gardens’ by Shankari Chandran. [Shankari] and I were both nominated earlier this year for a Women’s Agenda award, so I heard about it then. It’s harrowing, but it’s such a charming read, and I highly recommend it.
Lakshmi Ganapathy: What’s a word that you like in a South Asian language, and what does it mean?Â
Prabha Nandagopal: In Tamil, ‘kutty’ is used as a term of endearment; the direct translation is little or cute. My aunts and older cousins still call me Prabha kutty, and I call my nieces and nephews (even though they’re in their 20s) kutty too.
Lakshmi Ganapathy: And finally: Soan Papdi or Papdi Chat?
Prabha Nandagopal: I’m South Indian, so they’re not common foods for me. For me it would be, like, vadai and sambar! I guess papdi chaat though because that’s savoury?
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