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ANGE:

From Schwartz Media, I’m Ange McCormack, this is 7am.

The gender pay gap in Australia is well documented. Data collected on the difference between men’s and women’s wages is more detailed and comprehensive than ever.

But, that wasn’t always going to be the case. The picture could have been made fuzzier and the gap further hidden from public view.

Today, contributor to The Saturday Paper Kristine Ziwica, on how Australia almost took its eye off the gender pay gap.

It’s Tuesday, March 19.

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ANGE:

Kristine, Australia tracks the gender pay gap, which sounds like a pretty straightforward thing to do, but how challenging has it been to get to a point where we do have gender pay gap transparency?

KRISTINE:

Well, it's been a bit of a journey, a ten plus year battle to get to this point. And I say battle because those fighting inside and outside the tent to get us to this point, they really face significant headwinds and resistance from the business lobby and from a coalition government that was really hostile to gender pay gap transparency.

So just a few weeks ago, for the very first time, the Workplace Gender Equality Agency, what many people call WGEA, published the size of the gender pay gap at all private sector employers with more than 100 employees.

Audio Excerpt - News Reporter:

“A report by the Workplace Gender Equality Agency has found the national median gender pay gap sits at about 19%. The data are also showing 37 companies paying women at least 50% less than men.”

KRISTINE:

Prior to that, for the last decade or so, WGEA has published the gender pay gap data as a national average and as industry composites. But until a few weeks ago, you really couldn't lift up the lid and see what was going on in individual workplaces.

Audio Excerpt - News Reporter 2:

“While conditions for women are improving, we're not there yet. A federal government report card found women typically do an extra nine hours of unpaid work around the home. The gender pay gap, while improving, is still 12% and only 9% of CEOs on the ASX 300 are women.”

KRISTINE:

Now, I'm sure a lot of awkward conversations followed the publication of this data, and it's important to note that the Minister for Women, Katy Gallagher, has denied that this move, this kind of radical transparency, is about, quote unquote, naming and shaming.

Audio Excerpt - Katy Gallagher:

“And we need to be honest about it. It's not about shaming, it's not about naming, It's not about saying men should be paid less. It's none of those things.”

KRISTINE:

But we could be living in a country where we didn't have this kind of gender pay gap transparency. In fact, Katy Gallagher, the Minister for Women, made this point at the National Press Club on International Women's Day when she launched the Labor government's new gender equality strategy. Gallagher said, over successive governments here in Australia, there's a baton handed along.

Audio Excerpt - Katy Gallagher:

“But we should never forget that that baton hasn't always gone forward, and that we must remain on guard and ready to defend the progress made to date. I’m privileged to…”

KRISTINE:

Now, Gallagher could easily have been referring to a big showdown at a time when the WGEA gender pay gap data collection regime, then barely three years old, was under threat. It happened just nine years ago in the very room at the National Press Club, Ange, that Gallagher was speaking in that day.

ANGE:

And I mean nine years ago isn't very long ago. So, when we're thinking of the clock being wound back on gender equality, what was happening at that time nine years ago that could have kept the pay gap in secret?

KRISTINE:

So it all began in 2014, when the newly elected Abbott government was threatening to roll back the WGEA Gender Pay Gap Reporting Regime as part of, what it called, its war on red tape.

Audio Excerpt - News Reporter 3:

“Earlier this week, the Federal Government announced some changes to gender reporting guidelines for businesses. There will still be gender and pay reporting for businesses with 100 employees or more, but other Labor policies that were to come into effect this year will be scrapped.”

KRISTINE:

The Minister for employment at the time was Eric Abetz, and he declared, quote, that the government is committed to effective workplace gender equality reporting and is seeking to ensure that the information collected drives, quote, reel results for gender equality and women in the workplace.

Audio Excerpt - Labor MP Ged Kearney:

“We need data and the Workplace Gender Equality Agency recommended some data collection processes that would help, but we have just seen a government, this government, decide to water down those requirements. Watering down data collection requirements is going to be, I think, a major step backwards in closing the gender pay gap.”

KRISTINE:

The chief executive of the Australian Industry Group, Innes Willox, in 2015 said that gender data reporting of the kind that was taking place was so onerous it would encourage employers to ask for applicants to specify their gender on application forms, which he said could lead to discriminatory behaviour.

Enter Marie Coleman.

Audio Excerpt - Marie Coleman:

“Oh right, well, my name's Marie Coleman. Once upon a time I was a public servant, and then I retired in 93, and became much involved with women's organisations thereafter.”

KRISTINE:

At the time, she was an 81 year old veteran of the Australian women's rights movement. She's devoted her life to these issues. She is dogged. She is persistent. She never gives up. But she's just also, like, tough as nails, really.

Audio Excerpt - Marie Coleman:

“Well persistence, persistence, persistence. You know, you don't give up easily.”

KRISTINE:

And when it seemed that WGEA and its gender pay gap data collection regime was under threat, Marie, and that time a coalition of women's groups, began organising to resist these efforts.

Audio Excerpt - Marie Coleman:

“So we quickly discussed the matter between us together and agreed that we had to take this on because we saw the data collection as being absolutely essential.”

“We organised a wider group of organisations to join us. We undertook a deliberate PR strategy of placing stories in newspapers, getting the backbench on side as much as we could. We had a meeting, a convened meeting, in Parliament at one of the committee rooms, and presented what we knew.”

KRISTINE:

And then one day, as the campaign was in full swing, she received this mysterious envelope.

Audio Excerpt - Marie Coleman:

“It was round about this time that I got the buff envelope.”

“Big envelope of a buff colour, light brown, it was very full. That lobbed into my post box. We have a saying around Canberra that sometimes things fall off the back of trucks. So this fell off the back of a truck into my post box…”

KRISTINE:

She says it was simply marked Marie.

ANGE:

Okay, a mysterious envelope, I'm very intrigued. What was inside and what was the significance of it?

KRISTINE:

Inside was the draft instrument that Liberal Senator Eric Abetz had planned to use to change the legislation that had established WGEA and determined what data it collected and how it was published. She had proof that the government was planning on winding things back, so she started to think what her next move would be. Now, Marie knew that Michaelia Cash, then the Minister assisting the Minister for Women, was scheduled to give an International Women's Day address at the National Press Club.

She said to me, to have the disallowable instrument, in what she called her hot little hands, was very heartwarming. It meant to her that they had some friends in powerful places. But what was she going to do with this knowledge? She decided to take it with her to see Michaelia Cash at the National Press Club. In fact, she organised to be seated at Cash's table.

ANGE:

After the break, how Marie Coleman helped to push for the gender pay gap transparency we have today.

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ANGE:

Kristine, nine years ago the activist Marie Coleman finds herself in this pretty incredible position. She has an envelope that confirms everything she suspected about the government's plans to wind back effectively gender pay gap transparency, and she's going to be in the same room as Michaelia Cash as she gives this speech. What does she do next?

KRISTINE:

Marie Coleman says she, quote, delicately indicated to Michaelia Cash that she had a certain document and would be making it very public if this matter didn't come to a halt. With International Women's Day fast approaching, and Minister Cash scheduled to give an address at the National Press Club, Coleman told me that she booked to go to the Press Club and that she took the document with her just in case “she needed to do something very naughty at Question Time”. I can just picture it.

Audio Excerpt - National Press Club Host:

“Would you please welcome our first speaker, the honourable Senator Michaelia Cash, Minister assisting the Prime Minister for Women.”

Audio Excerpt - Michaelia Cash:

“Thank you Virginia, and ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon and as always it's an absolute pleasure to join everybody here today for the UN Women International Women's Day Forum.”

KRISTINE:

Knowing what might be coming, Cash backed down. And Coleman told me that she announced that she really wanted to put to bed all this talk that was going around about cancelling the data collection. And then Coleman said, she looked at me in the eye and said, “Now, Marie, I want you to know that, I want you to be very comfortable with that.”

Coleman told me that there she was with the document in her hands, and she was being given these assurances, and whoever was at the National Press Club was being given these assurances, that there really was never any intention to do any such thing. And she added at the end, quite deadpan, so I didn't rain on her parade.

ANGE:

So Kristine, after that moment at the national press club 9 years ago, how did Australia end up where it is today, with really transparent reporting of the gender pay gap?

KRISTINE:

It’s important to note that Marie wasn't the only one who's contributed massively to helping us move forward in the long fight to close the gender pay gap. Two years after Marie’s story, the new director of the Workplace Gender Equality Agency, Libby Lyons enters the picture. The British government had just started publicly reporting the gender pay gaps at large employers, and Libby told me she was very frustrated at how far Australia was behind.

Audio Excerpt - Libby Lyons:

“We knew in our gut, we felt in our gut that if you shone a spotlight on gender pay gaps for organisations, it would make organisations act.”

KRISTINE:

She began to recommend moving to this kind of naming and shaming of specific employers at each of her biannual reports to successive ministers for women. And she started to talk more explicitly about something called the action gap, which at the time stood at 40%. So she was referring to the percentage of employers who measured and reported the size of the gender pay gap to WGEA, and then did absolutely nothing about it.

She told me that we knew that these organisations that were taking action had seen these dramatic changes. They targeted their gender pay gap, they found out what was the problem and they took the necessary action. Whereas the others, she told me, really couldn't care less.

Audio Excerpt - Libby Lyons:

“They knew what was wrong. They weren't doing the deep dives to find out the specifics of what they were doing wrong. And they certainly weren't taking any action to address the issue.”

KRISTINE:

Finally, in 2021, the Australian branch of the Global Institute of Women's Leadership, dealt a fatal blow to the status quo. It found that Australia compared poorly with other nations on gender equality reporting, receiving the joint lowest ranking of all countries studied due to this lack of transparency. This ability to really drill down and find out what was going on in workplaces. And so Libby Lyons and the Global Institute of Women's Leadership, and women like Marie and her coalition, they're all part of this story that today we can finally see the real detail of where the gender pay gap is and the workplaces that need to do the most to close it.

ANGE:

And Kristine, when we look back on the story of exposing the gender pay gap, I guess you're saying it often wasn't our politicians leading the way on this, it was, you know, experts and activists and lifelong advocates who kind of dragged the country to this point. What does this story tell you about how change happens and what we'll need to do to finally close the gap for good?

KRISTINE:

So I think when I set out to do this story, I really wanted to remind everyone that big changes don't just happen. People like Marie, and many others, they make them happen and often, sadly, I find myself reporting on how very necessary change is thwarted. But on this occasion, it was really a privilege to speak to the few people whose dogged persistence helped usher in significant change. People who wouldn't take no for an answer. People who knew how to build a broad coalition. People who marshalled expertise and evidence. And people who, quite frankly, just had a lot of guts.

ANGE:

Kristine, thanks so much for your time today.

KRISTINE:

Thank you.

Audio Excerpt - Marie Coleman:

“Don't give up easily, and build coalitions. And always remember when you're building coalitions, even with unlikely people, that on this occasion the enemy of your enemy might well be your friend. Might not be on another occasion, but might be on this one. Just keep on, and don’t be... there’s a well-known union song that goes: ‘Don't be too polite, girls’.”

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ANGE:

Also in the news today

The parliament will pass extra paid parental leave for new families, with the government-funded leave to increase from 20 to 26 weeks after a deal was reached between the government and crossbench senators including Jacqui Lambie and David Pocock.

The changes will be phased in gradually, with two extra weeks added on every year until 2026.

And 500 experts, including some of Australia’s most respected legal figures, have urged NSW Premier Chris Minns to abandon plans to make bail laws for children harsher.

Arthur Moses SC, a former president of the NSW Bar Association and one of the signatories, said: “The bail changes will make it harder for children to get bail than adults, and result in an increase of children in custody.”

I’m Ange McCormack. This is 7am, we’ll be back again tomorrow.

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