Where Do Australia’s Major Parties Stand On Diversity And Inclusion?

Diversity Council Australia has released responses to its pre-election survey about policies the major parties would be taking to the election that support diversity and inclusion in Australian workplaces.

DCA CEO Lisa Annese said that government has an important role to play in supporting diversity and inclusion in Australian workplaces.

She said: “DCA is the independent not-for-profit peak body leading diversity and inclusion in the workplace. In order to keep our members informed, we asked the major parties a series of questions from DCA’s own research about where they stand on diversity and inclusion in Australian workplaces.

“The Coalition and the Labor Party have responded to our survey and today we are releasing their responses to let our members know where the parties stand on diversity and inclusion.”

DCA’s survey included questions about the following issues:

Respect & Recognition for Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander peoples. Action in relation to Constitutional Recognition and plans to address calls for truth-telling and treaty. Policies and plans to support Australian organisations to create inclusive workplaces and provide safe, welcoming and culturally competent environments for Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander peoples to work.
Gender equality in workforce participation. Policies and plans to address the availability, affordability and accessibility of childcare. Potential changes to Government funded paid parental leave. Plans for improving the uptake of parental leave by men. Policies and programs to increase women in leadership roles, in corporate Australia, in the government sector and/or in Parliament. Actions to address workforce gender segregation. Specifically, any plans to increase the ratio of women in STEM professions, and the ratio of men in caring professions.
Domestic violence. Policies in relation to supporting and protecting victims of domestic violence in the workplace.
Pay equity. Actions to address discrimination in work practices; reduce disincentives to increasing workforce participation; and to increase pay transparency and reporting on gender pay gaps.
People with disability. Policies or plans to improve employment opportunities of people with disability.
Carers. Policies to support workers who are also carers.
Mature age workers. Policies to drive workforce participation and retention of mature age workers.
Younger workers. Policies to address harassment and discrimination of younger workers.
Culturally diverse Australians. Policies to enable workforce participation of people from culturally diverse backgrounds, including in relation to their representation in leadership roles. Actions to improve Asia capability for the future workforce.
LGBTIQ+ employees. Policies to prevent discrimination, harassment, bullying and victimisation of LGBTIQ+ people and their families, both in the workforce and more generally.
Flexible work. Proposed measures to enable the mainstreaming of flexible work for all people, for any reason.
Innovation: automation, artificial intelligence and the future of work. Actions to ensure that existing structural inequalities are not exacerbated by technology.
The Racial Discrimination Act. Position on legislative protections against racial discrimination.
Sexual harassment in the workplace. Action to prevent workplace sex-based and sexual harassment.

You can read the Coalition’s policies here, and Labour’s here.

At B&T, we are staunch believers in gender equality, diversity, and inclusivity in workplaces. That’s one of the reasons we created Changing the Ratio, Australia’s diversity and inclusion conference for the advertising industry. Buy tickets here.

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