This article applies to organisations that employee 500 or more employees and organisations that are designated relevant employers under the Workplace Gender Equality Act 2012 (Cth).

Workplace Gender Equality Amendment (Setting Gender Equality Targets) Bill 2025 (Cth)

On 26 March 2025, the Workplace Gender Equality Amendment (Setting Gender Equality Targets) Bill 2025 (Cth) (the Bill) passed the Federal Parliament and is currently awaiting Royal Assent. The Bill will commence on a day yet to be proclaimed or three months after receiving Royal Assent (whichever is sooner).

Operationally Significant Change

The Bill inserts a range of amendments into the Workplace Gender Equality Act 2012 (Cth) (the Act). The most significant change (from an operational perspective), includes new reporting requirements in relation to gender equality targets for designated relevant employers under the Act.

Further Information

The Minister, via legislative instrument, must set targets (gender equality targets) in relation to specified gender equality indicators and specified target cycles, and must also specify rules for the selection of such targets by designated relevant employers for the purposes of the new reporting requirements. A target cycle for a designated relevant employer is a 3-year period that begins on the same day as the next reporting period following a reporting period for a public report in which the employer has selected gender equality targets in accordance with the new reporting requirements (as discussed below).

At the time of writing this Alert no such specified gender equality indicators, specified target cycles or rules have been published.

A relevant employer becomes a designated relevant employer if the relevant employer employs 500 or more employees at any time and the relevant employer is not already a designated relevant employer at that time. An employer ceases to be a designated relevant employer if the number of employees of the employer falls below 400 for a continuous period of six months or the employer ceases to be a relevant employer.

New Reporting Requirements

If:

• a designated relevant employer is required to prepare a public report for a reporting period (the relevant period); and
• the employer made a public report for the reporting period that ended immediately before the start of the relevant period; and
• either:
  • the relevant period ends at the same time as a target cycle for the employer; or
  • the employer did not have a target cycle in the relevant period and it is at least 12 months since the day the employer became (or became again) a designated relevant employer,

the employer must, in the public report for the relevant period, select gender equality targets that the employer commits to achieving in the target cycle that begins immediately after the end of the relevant period. A designated relevant employer’s selection of targets must be done in accordance with any rules made for this purpose.

If, at the end of a target cycle for the employer, the employer has not, without reasonable excuse, in respect of each gender equality target selected by the employer for the target cycle, either met the target or demonstrated improvement against the target in the public report for the final year of the target cycle, as compared to the baseline report for the target cycle (being the public report for the target cycle that begins immediately after the end of the relevant period), the designated relevant employer will have failed to comply with the Act.

Failure to comply with these new reporting requirements may result in the consequences set out in section 19D of the Act, including the employer being named as having failed to comply with the Act, along with details of the non-compliance being set out, in a report given to the Minister by the Workplace Gender Equality Agency (the Agency) under section 12(2) of the Act or section 46 of the Public Governance, Performance and Accountability Act 2013 (Cth).

Transitional provision

If an employer has had 500 or more employees for at least 12 months when the Bill commences, they will be considered a designated relevant employer upon this commencement and will therefore be required to select their gender equality targets in their next public report to the Agency, provided they made a public report in the period immediately prior and therefore have a baseline report.

Please click here to access the full Bill.