Local Government News

Parliament reviews wage transparency law for gender pay gap

Eliza Sayon Feb 9, 2023

2 min read

The federal government is introducing a new law that will compel employers with 100 or more workers to share wage data as part of recent efforts to address the gender pay gap.

According to the Mandarin, the Workplace Gender Equality Amendment Bill, which will provide accurate data for Australia’s gender pay gap information, was reviewed by the lower house this Wednesday.

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Minister for Finance, Women and the Public Service Katy Gallagher stated that it will take another 26 years to close the gender pay gap in Australia.

However, it has been found that transparency regimes across the world have encouraged organisations to take action to address the issue in their workplace.

“On average, women working full-time can expect to earn 14.1% less than men per week in their pay packets,” Minister Gallagher said.

“The gender pay gap is also holding our economy back with $51.8 billion a year lost when it comes to women’s pay.”

The bill will remove red tape for businesses to make it easier to report remuneration data with the Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA). This data will form part of the first reporting set on Australia’s pay gap in 2024.

“Women have waited long enough for the pay gap to close — let’s not wait another quarter of a century,” Minister Gallagher said.

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While some Australian companies have reported their remuneration data to WGEA in previous years, no individual employee remuneration was published.

Because of this current public data sets showed a breakdown of the gender pay gap according to industry but not at an individual company level.

The law reforms make good on a federal election promise made by the Albanese government, and follow the recommendation of the Review of the Workplace Gender Equality Act 2012 conducted two years ago.

Eliza Sayon

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Eliza is a content producer and editor at Public Spectrum. She is an experienced writer on topics related to the government and to the public, as well as stories that uplift and improve the community.