According to the Workplace Gender Equality Agency, women are under-represented in science, technology, engineering and mathematics education and jobs in Australia and in higher paid trades.
They also cop more sexual harassment in the workplace than men, as shown last year in Western Australia when a parliamentary inquiry uncovered more than 250 cases of sexual misconduct across the mining industry amid a culture of cover-up.
WGEA admits there has been some progress on women's leadership, with Australian Securities Exchange 200 companies achieving the 30% target set by the 30% Club Australia and the Australian Institute of Company Directors.
However, there are only 18 women CEOs in the ASX300, and of the 23 CEOs appointed in 2020-21 only one is a woman.
WGEA director Mary Wooldridge said the mining industry's systems approach positioned it well to lead the way and drive change in terms of gender equality best practice.
The government recently reviewed the Workplace Gender Equality Act 2012 and came up with 10 recommendations on how to improve gender equality in workplaces across all industries and streamline reporting for employers to WGEA.
The recommendations include digitalising processes to make it easier for employers to report to WGEA, and publishing companies gender pay gaps at an employer level to accelerate action to close them.
Recommendation three suggests bridging the action gap with gender equality standards and targets, while recommendation four calls for a reduction of the regulatory burden for employers by simplifying the WGEA reporting requirements.
Minerals Council of Australia CEO Tania Constable said the 10 recommendations from the government's review would drive the change needed to achieve gender equity.
She said the mining industry stood ready to work with the WGEA to implement the recommendations.
Constable said the MCA advocated for streamlined reporting for employers, including using systems such as Single Touch Payroll, to ease the reporting burden for employers and provide all government agencies with better information.
"The decision to publish organisation gender pay gaps will accelerate action to close them," she said.
"The mining industry pushed for this change in the hope that an increase in transparent data will drive more decisive action and the data will allow companies to partner with each other to achieve this goal."
Constable said given the landmark Respect@Work report, it was time to update the legislation around employers' existing obligations to report to WGEA on sex-based harassment and discrimination.
Woolridge said pleasingly, the review considered WGEA's evidence-based submission on what should change to enhance Australia's national reporting framework.
"The implementation of these recommendations will accelerate positive change towards gender equality, improve the reporting experience for businesses, enhance insights from our already world-leading dataset, and deepen WGEA's capacity to work closely with employers to support and advance their efforts," she said.
"We look forward to supporting the implementation of these recommendations, which will result in Australia having one of the strongest approaches in the world to ensure women and men are equally represented, valued and rewarded wherever they work."
