Equal opportunity/ gender equity page 5 of 15

The Albanese Government's first major tranche of IR legislation beefs-up workers' rights to secure flexible working arrangements and empowers the FWC to arbitrate if conciliation of a refused request fails.

The Senate Work and Care inquiry's Labor and Greens majority is urging the Albanese Government to move swiftly to consider a right to disconnect, make flexibility requests an enforceable right and provide "roster justice" by ensuring workers with variable hours have predictability and certainty, in a 152-page interim report tabled this afternoon.

The Albanese Government will phase-in an increase in the total package of federally-funded paid parental leave from the current 20 weeks to 26 weeks between 2024 and 2026.

Submissions to the Senate inquiry into the Albanese Government's Respect@Work legislation close on October 12.

The ANMF has told the Senate work and care inquiry that ordinary full-time hours should be reduced from 38 hours to 32 to enable workers to achieve a better balance of work and caring responsibilities.

A review conducted by former Sex Discrimination Commissioner Elizabeth Broderick has found poor HR practices and people management have contributed to s-xual harassment and assault and bullying in NSW parliamentary workplaces and that cultural, policy and legislative barriers are preventing reporting of incidents.

The Albanese Government has told the FWC it backs a minimum pay rise for the 365,000 aged care workers because their work value "is significantly higher than modern awards currently reflect" and "gender-based assumptions" have undervalued their labour.

A senior Aldi manager challenging the legality of being denied primary carer's leave under the retailer's apparently rebranded parental leave policy is suing the supermarket giant for discrimination, after it allegedly brought his redundancy forward and cut 26 weeks off his payout while he was on leave.

A proposal by Queensland's Palaszczuk Labor Government to remove gendered language from parental leave entitlements is the beginning of the end of "women" as a protected class at law and risks making mothers invisible, according to submissions on its IR Bill.

Gender discrimination continues to be the biggest single driver of a pay gap that is nationally costing women more than $50 billion a year, according to a new report prepared for Diversity Council Australia and the Workplace Gender Equality Agency.