CITY of Vincent councillor Jonathan Hallett will tackle gender pay equity for his first motion at tonight’s council meeting.
Cr Hallett is the newest councillor after being elected to represent the South Ward in February and has given a notice of motion to push for gender pay equity reporting.
The motion requests chief executive Len Kosova include gender pay equality information in the City’s workforce in the Annual Report and encourage Western Australian Local Government Association (WALGA) to encourage all local governments to do the same.
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READ NOWIt also requests the Minister for Local Government and Department of Local Government and Communities to consider mandatory reporting on workforce gender pay equality in annual reports.
Mr Hallett said private companies were legally required to report on gender equity and local governments should not be exempt.
“Local government is a significant employer; there’s 140 local governments in WA and the City of Vincent alone has over 400 staff,” he said.
“While private companies with more than 100 staff are legally required to report on gender equity, the same is not required of the public sector; I don’t see any reason why there should be a difference.
“It is about looking at where there are differences in remuneration and participation that is caused in some way by systemic or cultural biases that disadvantage women in the workplace.
“Equity is an important issue across the board.”
Mr Hallett was confident report results would be positive for the City.
“I suspect the City is likely to perform quite well but… it’s important that we take a leadership role,” he said.
“Reporting this data in our annual report keeps us accountable too; if local governments are doing well then let’s identify and celebrate that.”
