Government Seeks to Wind Back Gender Equity Reporting, despite new high in Gender Pay Gap

By Terri Macdonald (NTEU National Office). Despite new figures showing that the gender pay gap has blown out to 18.8 per cent, the Federal Government is seeking to water down gender equity reporting for employers.
The latest data on average weekly earnings from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), released 25th February, shows that Australian men now earn $298.10 more than Australian women each week.
Even worse, the increase is across all 8 occupation groups collated by the ABS. 
Given the continued rise in gender pay gap, the proposal by the Government to reduce the reporting requirements to the Workplace Gender Equality Agency (Agency) for businesses with 100 or more employees is deeply concerning.
The Government's decision is the outcome of a flawed public consultation process, where a review into the Reporting requirments placed greater emphasis on calls by employer groups and the business lobby to reduce or even abandon reporting on gender equity in the workplace.
Below is NTEU's briefing memo on the proposed changes, as well as a review of the Report of the Workplace Gender Equality public consultations.
Discussion Paper : Government's proposed changes to WGEA reporting. More...