A consortium led by Women for Election (WFE) and including several gender-specialist organisations, has been awarded a $5 million federal grant over 5 years, to help increase the representation and diversity of women in public office.

Women for Election is non-partisan, with more than 2500 women across the political spectrum registering for events since 2019. A number of those women have gone on to launch campaigns or support the campaigns of other women, with some also being elected now at all levels of government.

Women for Election CEO Licia Heath told Women’s Agenda that 43 alumni ran in last year’s Federal election, and 2 of the 20 WFE alumni who ran in the recent NSW state election were elected.  Even those who didn’t gain a seat held others to a higher standard and inspired greater involvement of other women and girls to see themselves as future political leaders. Win or lose, in every contest that a woman stands, they help to shape the agenda and influence the outcome. 

The Minister for Foreign Affairs, Senator the Hon Penny Wong, has appointed Stephanie Copus-Campbell AM as the Ambassador for Gender Equality.

The Ambassador for Gender Equality is a lead advocate for Australia’s work on gender equality and the human rights of women and girls.

The Ambassador engages in international advocacy, public diplomacy, and outreach in support of Australian Government policies and programs to:

• ·         promote gender equality
• ·         eradicate sexual and gender-based violence
• ·         eliminate discrimination against women and girls, and persons of diverse gender identities
• ·         ensure better educational and health (including sexual and reproductive maternal health) opportunities and outcomes for women and girls
• ·         enhance the participation of women in decision-making and leadership
• ·         implement the Women, Peace and Security agenda

Stephanie has extensive experience working across the public, private, philanthropic and community sectors in Australia and the Indo Pacific. She has served as head of Australia’s bilateral aid programs with Papua New Guinea, Fiji and Tuvalu and head of Australia’s Pacific Regional programs. She has also worked in senior executive roles with CARE Australia and the Oil Search Foundation.

In 2018, the PNG Government appointed Stephanie as Chair of the Southern Highlands Provincial Health Authority Board. She is also the founding Director on the Femili PNG Board (providing services to survivors of family and sexual violence) and actively involved in a not for profit, social impact coffee business that supports female coffee growers in PNG with all profits funding domestic violence services in PNG.

The handbook for NGOs prepared for the UN Commission on the Status of Women in New York last month includes an excellent explanation of how the United Nations is structured and operates and how CSW was established. 

It also has a section starting at page 20 on digital advocacy for women's organisations that is a great toolkit for BPW clubs.  Use it to start a discussion at your club – how can you promote your campaigns through digital platforms and empower women in your locality and your state?

BPW International was invited to give an Oral Statement at the 2023 session of the Commission on the Status of Women in New York last month. The statement was read by our BPW International Vice President, Chularat Israngkool Na Ayutthaya, from Thailand.

You can listen to BPW International’s CSW statement or read it.

Australia’s Treasury Department has published their research on how children affect the earnings of men and women in Australia. The authors use HILDA survey data to show the arrival of children has a large and persistent impact on the gender pay gap, reducing female earnings by 55% on average in the first 5 years of parenthood.

Personal income tax data shows this gap improves only slightly but remains high in the 10 years following the arrival of children. The authors attribute the gap to lower participation rates and reduced working hours amongst mothers. Although the decline in earnings for women is very similar regardless of their breadwinner status in the household pre-children, women with greater access to workplace flexibility are more likely to remain employed after having children.

Australian-first reforms empower Australian workers with access to employer gender pay gaps

More than four and a half million Australian employees will be able to access their employer’s gender pay gaps starting in early 2024 after the passage of the Workplace Gender Equality Amendment (Closing the Gender Pay Gap) Bill 2023 in Federal Parliament today.

The package of reforms requires the Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA) to publish employer gender pay gaps for private sector and Commonwealth public sector employers. This will be done by mean, median and employer remuneration quartile.

The Australian-first measure covers the workplaces of approximately 40 per cent of the nation’s workforce.

WGEA CEO Mary Wooldridge welcomed the passage of the Bill and acknowledged the leadership and significant work of Minister for Women Sen. The Hon. Katy Gallagher to deliver these crucial reforms.

Ms Wooldridge said the reforms shape the future of workplace gender equality and will give employees greater insights into their workplaces’ gender equality policies and priorities.

“For the first time, from 2024 employees will have access to the key indicator of how their organisation is performing on gender equality,” Ms Wooldridge said.

“Employees and prospective employees are placing high value on jobs that support gender equality.

“Publishing employer gender pay gaps will provide deeper insights on their employer’s progress, while job-seekers can get a clearer indication of a prospective employer’s commitment to ensuring the contributions of all employees are equally valued and rewarded.

“This is also an opportunity for employers who may have been slow to prioritise gender equality to get serious about change.”

Ms Wooldridge said Agency data showed that employers gain a competitive edge when they make gender equality a priority.

“Analysis of workforce data reported by employers that hold WGEA’s Employer of Choice for Gender Equality (EOCGE) citation has shown dedicated action gets results, with these employers closing their gender pay gaps faster than others,” Ms Wooldridge said.

“One of the recurring messages from our most recent recipients of the EOCGE citation was that as soon as they started on the path to gender equality, they saw the benefits and they wished they had started earlier.”

International research is showing that publishing employer pay gaps can be a powerful motivation for companies to prioritise gender equality and to lower their gender pay gaps. In the UK, the approach has already motivated employers to substantially narrow the wage gap between men and women.

“A key aim of publishing gender pay gaps is to help employers show improvement over time,” Ms Wooldridge said.

“That is why an essential part of the legislative reforms is to give employers the option to provide a statement that gives context to their gender pay gap results and outlines their plans for action.

“WGEA will continue to actively support all reporting employers to make progress on gender equality in Australian workplaces as these reforms are implemented.”

The reform package also strengthens WGEA’s world-leading dataset with mandatory reporting from 2024 of employee age, primary workplace location and CEO remuneration, as well as spurring accelerated action by requiring WGEA’s gender equality reports are shared with governing bodies.

The changes also support safer workplaces and advance implementation of the Respect@Work report with enhanced reporting on the prevalence, prevention and employer response to sexual harassment and harassment on the grounds of sex or discrimination.

From 2024, large employers with 500 or more employees must also have policies or strategies in place to address all six gender equality indicators.

Media contact

Emma Manser |  0437 225 386  |  E emma.manser@wgea.gov.au  

BPW members will have attended and hosted International Women's Day events around the country and heard inspiring speakers celebrating women's achievements but also relaying dismaying statistics about the progress of women's equality.  Now take the time to listen to listed to two leading women, Sam Mostyn and Katy Gallagher, summarising where we’re at and what’s next for Australian women.

On International Women's Day, the federal government released the Status of Women Report Card which provides a data summary of what life looks like for women in Australia in 2023. The report card looks at education, economic outcomes, health, safety and wellbeing, housing and gender norms girls and women experience in careers and working life, through parenthood and families, and in later life. Listen as Katy Gallagher, Minister for Women delivers the Susan Ryan Oration and Sam Mostyn AO provides insight into the work the Women’s Economic Equality Taskforce is doing.

Women for Election, a non-partisan, not-for-profit organisation, is supporting several candidates in the NSW election hoping to increase the representation of women in the state parliament.  WFE offers training courses for aspiring candidates to better equip them to engage with the political system.  Of the 2,500 women 3who have completed their course in the last 2 years, 17 are running in this state election across political parties and as independents. 

ABC’s even-handed analysis describes a diversity of women candidates for the NSW election across age groups and cultural backgrounds.  It profiles several candidates, including lawyer and company director Helen Conway who is standing in the seat of North Shore.  BPW members will be familiar with Helen who is a founding Director and inaugural Chair of Australian Gender Equality Council, and who was previously CEO of the Workforce Gender Equality Agency and Chair of the Board of Women for Election. 

This week the Workplace Gender Equality Agency released new data on Australia’s gender pay gap, which has dropped to a record low of 13.3% - 87c for every dollar a man earns. But this doesn’t include bonuses, overtime payments or superannuation – the total remuneration gender pay gap is consistently 5% greater than the gender pay gap for base salaries alone

In November 2022, women’s average weekly ordinary full-time earnings across all industries and occupations was $1,653.60. For men it’s $1,907.10. Women are $253.50 worse off every week as a result of their gender, amounting to $13,182 over a year. Because the gender pay gap only reflects base salary for full-time workers, it’s only a limited reflection of the true situation.

As many Australians struggle with sharp increases in the cost of groceries, energy, fuel and housing, WGEA is calling attention to the disproportionate effect this persistent pay gap has for Australian women. With inflation at 7.8%, and rising, everyday essentials are becoming increasingly unaffordable.

There’s flurry of activity around early childhood education and care. This week childcare experts attended a national summit on children under 5, last week the government established a Productivity Commission inquiry into early childhood education and care, and last month the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission began its inquiry into the cost of childcare.  And former prime minister Julia Gillard is leading a royal commission into early education and care in South Australia. 

The Productivity Commission Inquiry is expected to lay the foundations for achieving a universally accessible, high-quality early learning and care system in Australia.  The ACCC will examine how costs and prices differ across childcare service types and locations and how these impact childcare provider viability, quality and profits.  

A research team at Victoria University finds that universal, affordable and high-quality early education for Australian families is on the horizon, but four key challenges remain:

• 1.    Access to early childhood education and care is not equal in Australia, and depends on where families live.
• 2.    Despite increasing subsidies, the cost of early childhood services remains a key issue for many families.
• 3.    The government’s “activity test” is a major barrier to parents working.
• 4.    Early childhood educators are overworked and not paid enough