Claire Moore (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Women) Share this | Hansard source

I wanted to again note the work of the Workplace Gender Equality Agency. Senator McAllister has pointed out some of the key work that this agency does. Its core job is to ensure that we in Australia understand exactly what is happening in workplaces around workplace gender. That was what the legislation was originally developed to prove. The workplace gender agency since its introduction has done large collections of data. We have had two rounds of that data collection which are now on public record and which indicate what is genuinely happening in Australian workplaces and reflecting the obstacles to ensuring that there is gender equity and the ways that employers can work effectively to make change within their workplaces.

As a result of that, there have been ambassadors of change developed within the workplace gender agency who are core employers who have acknowledged that within their own workplaces, to achieve workplace gender equity, there must be changes. These employers have volunteered to be part of promoting the role of the agency; promoting the role of the need to have effective data; and also to identify, very clearly, that, as long as there is no workplace change, there will continue to be an ever-growing workplace gender gap. We know that. Whilst the workplace gender pay gap in Australia has fluctuated and whilst there continues to be some discussion around the edges about what exactly are the amounts of money involved—what is counted and what is not—the one real thing is that this gap continues to grow.

Recent data indicates that, this year alone, there has been a slight increase in the overall gap between payment received by women employees and male employees in our country. The positive thing is that there is work being done to address that. I want to give credit to the employers who voluntarily agreed to be part of the education campaigns that the agency has run, in particular 'In your hands' that was launched at the end of September 2014, focusing on educational programs about gender bias and how people can improve the work in their own agencies. The data sets have now been created, for the first time, to provide benchmarks at the industry level so employers can see how they are going in comparison to other employers within their own industry. Employees and employers can see what is happening in their agency and sense the commitment that has been made by the leadership in their agencies.

Unfortunately, we do have the list of non-complying agencies, non-complying organisations, non-complying businesses. There are 44 who are listed in this year's annual report. I am not going to read them all into the record today but there could well be a time when I will read them one by one, organisation by organisation. For various reasons, they have chosen not to comply with the expectations, being an organisation with over 100 employees, nor look at what is happening in their organisation nor fill in the data collection from the agency.

These 44 organisations and businesses cross a range of industries. There are a number in transport; there are a number in the cinema industry; and, certainly, the one that interested me—the jewellery industry. I would imagine that there would be many people who are working as purchasers in this organisation who do not understand that this particular company has decided, for whatever reason—and I do not know the reason—that they will proudly be listed in 'Appendix 1: Non-compliant organisations' for this financial year. I really do encourage people to check out who is on that list, because the whole idea of naming and shaming is to ensure that the shame is known.

This year's annual report from WGEA lists the work that has been done. I want to give credit to the two previous directors of the agency, particularly Helen Conway, who was there up until 6 March 2015; Louise McSorley, who came in and worked for the period 7 March to 18 October and was able to keep going, particularly with the ambassador program; and also welcoming Libby Lyons, as the newly appointed CEO who commenced in her role on 19 October. I encourage people to read the report, and I seek leave to continue my remarks.

Leave granted.