Inquiry Into the Workplace Gender Equality Amendment (Closing the Gender Pay Gap) Bill 2023 (Cth)
Submission Date: 6 March 2025
The Law Council of Australia provided a submission to the Senate Finance and Public Administration Committee (the Committee) for the purposes of its inquiry into the Workplace Gender Equality Amendment (Closing the Gender Pay Gap) Bill 2023 (Cth) (the Bill).
This submission is informed by input from the members of the Law Council’s Equal Opportunity Committee and National Human Rights Committee and its constituent body, Law Firms Australia, to inform this submission. This submission reflects the Law Council’s preliminary views.
Executive summary
The Law Council welcomes the Australian Government’s commitment to implementing several recommendations made by the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet in its 2021 review (the Review) 1 into the Workplace Gender Equality Act 2012 (Cth) (the Act) through the amendments proposed in the Bill.
The Law Council emphasises the value of implementing the Review’s recommendations to ‘accelerate progress on gender equality in workplaces and streamline reporting for employers to the Workplace Gender Equality Agency’.2
The Law Council broadly supports the proposed amendments to the Act, although it raises some questions in this submission regarding the manner in which some of the recommendations in the Bill are given effect.
It also queries the absence in the Bill of measures to implement recommendations 7.2 and 8 of the Review—which also recommended amendments to the Act. The Law Council encourages the Australian Government to consider implementing these recommendations in full, either within the current proposed Bill or by committing to future implementation.
1 Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, Review of the Workplace Gender Equality Act 2012 (Report, December 2021) <https://www.pmc.gov.au/sites/default/files/resource/download/wgea-review-report_1.pdf> (Review Report).
2 Ibid 4.
Last Updated on 30/04/2025
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