BPW Australia offers a warm welcome to Ms Helen Conway as the new Director for Equal Opportunity in the Workplace Agency (EOWA). As an organization representing the interests of working women, whether business owners, employers or employees BPW is acutely aware of the need for closer collaboration between the sectors if we are to reverse the increasing gender wage gap.

Ms Conway brings a wealth of private sector experience to this role and BPW looks forward to maintaining its close relationship with EOWA as it strives for greater equality in the workplace, said National President Marilyn Forsythe. As the economic rights of women are a focus for BPW’s International Women’s Day centenary celebrations, we believe Ms Conway’s credentials, including her community related work, will allow her to build the public/private partnerships that we need.

EOWA’s current a/g Director Mairi Steele moves to head the Office for Women, an appointment applauded by BPW. Mairi has had much experience in dealing with the machinations of government policy and this, combined with a strong background in labor economics places her ideally to champion the changes we require, Ms Forsythe said. Australian women can look forward to some real change around gender equity and women’s workforce participation: good for them, for business and for the economy as a whole.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 9th, 2011 at 11:14 am and is filed under Historical. You can follow any comments to this entry through the RSS 2.0feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.

BPW Australia is opposed to the Coalition’s Paid Parental Leave (Reduction of Compliance Burden for Employers) Amendment Bill 2010 which undermines Paid Parental Leave for Australian women.

We believe that that women who work should be treated on an equal footing with all employees – why should their maternity leave payments be treated as welfare payments? The payments via Centrelink will disenfranchise women from their employer while on paid parental leave and could have a significant impact on the number of women who return to their employer at the cessation of the leave.

BPW Australia has lobbied the Federal Cross Bench Politicians to oppose the Bill when it is tabled in Parliament.

Paid Parental Leave Statement to Independents

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 22nd, 2011 at 12:42 pm and is filed under Historical. You can follow any comments to this entry through the RSS 2.0feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.