Katy Gallagher (ACT, Australian Labor Party, Minister for the Public Service) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Grogan for the question and for all the work that she has done throughout her career in advocating for gender equality across all industries. It was a pleasure to stand with Mary Wooldridge, the head of the Workplace Gender Equality Agency, today to release the annual employer gender pay gaps data, and this report—this is the third year in which we have been providing this information—shows continued progress to reduce the gender pay gap. In fact, the average total remuneration take-up has reduced from 12.1 per cent last year to 11.2 per cent, and there was good progress in terms of reducing the number of employers who are conducting gender pay gap analysis, the number of those who did a comprehensive analysis, the number of those employers who found the cause of the gap in that analysis and the numbers who took action to review performance structures to ensure there was no bias, and, indeed, we see more employers falling into the target range of pay, including—this year, we recorded the Commonwealth public sector data for the first time alongside the private sector data. We now have half of employers with an average total remuneration gender pay gap smaller than 11.2 per cent, which is a reduction of 0.9 per cent. There are more women in high-paid roles, but women are still more likely to be concentrated in the lowest paid jobs. As I said earlier, more employers are conducting the analysis that leads to further change.

We know that there is more to do. We thank WGEA for the work they have done in working with employers to deliver this information. In particular, I'd like to thank Mary Wooldridge, who's been the head of the Workplace Gender Equality Agency since 2021, and this will be her last reporting season. (Time expired)