City of Vincent to include gender pay equality information in annual reports

CITY of Vincent will include gender pay equality information in its annual reports from now on.

Councillor Jonathan Hallett’s motion, his first, to do so was passed unanimously at Vincent council’s June 27 meeting.

The City will now request the Western Australian Local Government Association (WALGA) encourage other WA Local Governments to follow suit.

It will also request Local Government Minister David Templeman and the Department of Local Government to consider including it as mandatory reporting under the Local Government (Administration) Regulations 1996, as part of the government’s recently announced review of the Local Government Act 1995.

Cr Hallett said companies in the private sector had to do it, and so should the public sector.

“It is about equity rather than equality; it’s not about sameness for the sake of sameness,” he said.

“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.

“Everyone’s different but when there are consistent barriers, intentionally or not, then it is an inequity that should be addressed.

“And we can’t know where there are issues without having publicly available data on it.”

He said he was confident the City results would be positive.

“I suspect the City is likely to perform quite well,” he said.

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