Ai Group welcomes the opportunity to provide a submission in response to the Workplace Gender Equality Amendment (Closing the Gender Pay Gap) Bill 2023 currently before the Senate Finance and Public Administration Committee.

The Bill implements recommendations made by the then Federal Government in its 2021 review of the Workplace Gender Equality Act 2012 (Cth) as contained in the Department of Prime Minister & Cabinet’s WGEA Review Report. The current Federal Government has made clear its election commitment to narrow the gender pay gap and has committed to implementing the Review’s recommendations.

The Bill is premised on an important economic and equity objective of narrowing the gender pay gap. The current national gender pay gap is reported as 13.3%; the lowest it has been on record, but a close return to pre-pandemic levels.

Ai Group has a strong commitment to gender equality and inclusive workforce participation. Ai Group does not, in principle, oppose the Bill. We have, however, identified very specific amendments that would make the Bill operate more fairly on commencement and more consistently with the WGE Act’s existing provisions. These are set out in this submission.