Further Education, Employment, Science and Technology Department

The Hon. A.L. McLACHLAN (15:14): I seek leave to give a brief explanation before asking the Minister for Employment, Higher Education and Skills a question regarding maintaining the proportion of women within the Department of Further Education, Employment, Science and Technology.

Leave granted.

The Hon. A.L. McLACHLAN: Minister, I note that one of the key performance measures is to increase employee diversity within the department by maintaining the proportion of women within the executive level of the department at 50 per cent or more. My question is: what policy initiatives have been implemented to ensure that the department meets the target of maintaining a proportion of 50 per cent of women at executive level in the department?

The Hon. G.E. GAGO (Minister for Employment, Higher Education and Skills, Minister for Science and Information Economy, Minister for the Status of Women, Minister for Business Services and Consumers) (15:14): I thank the honourable member for his most important question and his first question in this place, and I am delighted to see that his question is in relation to women. It is a very important policy area, and of course it is an area where this government has worked extremely hard and has an extremely impressive track record.

We know that this government has set itself a number of performance targets in relation to women. I have talked about those many times in this place before. We know that, for instance, we have set ourselves targets to reach 50 per cent women on our government boards and also 50 per cent women chairing those boards. We have done extremely well in that place. I was just trying to put my hand on our latest figures; I think they are about 47 point something per cent. I think the last figure that I saw was something like 47.2 per cent women represented on our government boards, but I will double-check that.

Of course, that has been a significant increase since the Liberal opposition were in government. In the former government, the number of women represented on government boards and committees was extremely low, but we set ourselves this target. It is a transparent target that we are publicly accountable for, and it is not surprising that we have increased the representation of women significantly. Although we have not quite reached our 50 per cent goal, we are well on the way to achieving that and we continue our efforts. So too with our chairs, our figures aren't quite as impressive, but nevertheless since setting the target we have significantly increased the number of women in chair positions on our government boards and committees.

We have also set ourselves targets in relation to women in the executive, and again we have some very impressive figures in that area. There are a number of programs that were put in place throughout the public sector to try to ensure that we improve women's representation in leadership throughout our public sector. Women currently comprise two-thirds of the entire public sector but just over one-third of executive level positions, and this target seeks to redress the imbalance—we have again set another 50 per cent target—to ensure that the South Australian public sector has a high-performing, flexible and responsive executive group.

The percentage of women in executive positions has increased from 29.4 per cent when the target was set in 2004 to 43.8 per cent now. That is the figure I am advised as of June 2013. There are a number of strategies we have put in place to help us achieve these impressive figures, and I must say that, although we still haven't achieved 50 per cent, and I acknowledge that, nevertheless South Australia is one of the leading jurisdictions in relation to these very impressive results. We have one of the highest levels of women represented in the executive throughout the nation.

The Office of Public Employment did a review and it developed a number of strategies to help us in this space—things like:

targeted marketing to attract increased applications from women for executive positions;

improvement of executive capabilities amongst women in executive feeder groups;

ensuring that chief executives, HR directors and divisional heads demonstrate a commitment to employing women at executive levels; and of course

making the South Australian government women's choice of employer for work-life balance initiatives.

I would also like to mention that this government has done things like enshrine in our Public Sector Act 2009 the right for public sector workers to access flexible working arrangements.

We have a policy position in place. They are the sorts of on-the-ground workplace provisions that make it possible for women and men to be able to manage child rearing and other family caring responsibilities. The responsibility still largely rests with women, but nevertheless these arrangements are available to men as well. This government has put in place a number of different initiatives and we continue to strive to encourage women, to develop them in leadership positions and to try to ensure that the workplace is as family friendly as possible to enable women to succeed and be the very best they can.