Women earn less than men. The full-time total remuneration gender pay gap based on WGEA data is 22.4 %, meaning men working full-time earn nearly $26,527 a year more than women working full-time. When you consider total remuneration, women still get paid about 23 per cent less than men (this and other data at the Workplace Gender Equality Agency
Labor has announced it will change the Fair Work Act to make it clear that the Commission must consider pay equity a central objective of the workplace relations system, as well as give the Commission greater capacity and funding to conduct Pay Equity Reviews.
The Minister for Women has done a gallant job of extracting some money from the Government for women. However, $109 million over 4 years is roughly $26m a year. You cannot do much to increase women’s economic security on an investment of around $26m a year. You have to pad it out with old budget initiatives and do what you can on the cheap.
This submission briefly addresses the gender segregation issues identified in the first three terms of reference. The issues identified in those sections are expanded upon and addressed in detail under the last two terms of reference, which discuss approaches to gender segregation and suggested remedies.
Commentson Selected Recommendations of the 2017 report of the Senate Finance And Public Administration Committee concerning Gender Segregation In the Workplace. We appreciate Labor’s invitation to put our views on the matters identified in the consultation paper. Our commentary below is numbered to mirror the sections of the consultation paper to which it responds.
The Commission’s draft report argues that ‘a sound workplace relations system must give primacy to the wellbeing of employees (and would-be employees), and take account of community norms about the fair treatment of people
NFAW, with other women’s organisations, is committed to examining the potentially differential impacts of policies and their outcomes for men and for women, and whether the consequences of policies, intended or unintended, may adversely impact on women. There is an average gap of 17 per cent between the incomes of men and women.
The National Women’s Alliance1 has called on Commonwealth and State/Territory Governments to reduce the systemic barriers to women with family responsibilities who wish to enter or return to the workforce.
The origins of the NFAW role lay in the process of national consultations with women and their organisations during 2006 and 2007 on the impacts on their working lives of the former Government’s changes to the industrial relations system (WorkChoices). In consequence early NFAW discussions about a national system of paid maternity or paternity leave were framed around industrial relations policy.
