Promote women or miss government deals

The Federal Government Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Amendment Bill was tabled in Parliament last month but a Senate review committee has now released public submissions. The Bill states companies that don't promote women equally will "not be eligible to compete for contracts under the Commonwealth procurement framework and may not be eligible for Commonwealth grants". The changes mean companies will be assigned targets to promote women to management positions and provide them with equal training and promotion opportunities. The current penalty for not doing this is public naming by the Federal Government. Business SA has rejected the plan - which would force companies to provide equal opportunities for female employees - as "social Stalinist engineering". Chief executive Peter Vaughan said the measures which would force promotion and other targets to benefit female employees would be unworkable. "Once again we have those who wish to social engineer outcomes, then seek to enforce them by penalties rather than by reward," he said. "When you look at Australia compared to anywhere in the world, the ability to utilise skills in the workforce regardless of any other agenda like gender, sexuality and ethnicity is front-and-centre because of the skills shortage." The plan has been welcomed by work-life balance advocates who want companies to be forced to set equality targets - and meet them. Director of the UniSA centre for work and life, Associate Professor Sara Charlesworth, welcomed the changes and said if taxpayers were asked to provide $275 million to a company like Holden then targets for women in management and other positions should be demanded by the government. "If you pick Holden as an example, they would report to the government on the number of women in management positions, how many people have completed sexual harassment training or the training spend on men and women, and so on; then they would explain how they would make an improvement over time," she said. The Australian Federation of Employers and Industries has criticised the planned changes in a written submission to the Senate committee. It complains that public service targets on equality could be met only because departmental workforces changed so little over time. "Consequently, employers who face these constraints may be unfairly penalised ... "