This submission to the Department of Employment comments on proposed new reporting requirements and minimum standards under the Workplace Gender Equality Act 2012.

One of the goals included in the Business Council of Australia Action Plan for Enduring Prosperity, released in July 2013, was to increase the number of women in senior roles in BCA organisations to 50 per cent in the next decade.

The BCA toolkit Increasing the Number of Women in Senior Executive Positions, released in November 2013, is a practical guide to improving policies and strategies that work for women and for business.

In this submission to the Department of Employment, we outline why we support the collection of gender diversity data that is not unnecessarily complex and does not duplicate data collected elsewhere by government agencies.

We have reviewed the exposure draft of the legislative changes to the Workplace Gender Equality Act 2012 and outline why:

• we believe the proposed changes will provide a simplification of data collection for all businesses
• we do not believe that the reduction in the range of data being collected will inhibit or hold back the shared objectives of the BCA and the government of improving gender diversity.