Gender Balance on Australian Government Boards Report 2019-20

The Gender Balance on Australian Government Boards Report is prepared annually by the Office for Women, and reports on the Government’s performance against its gender diversity target.

Executive summary

The Gender Balance on Australian Government Boards Report, prepared annually by the Australian Government Office for Women, outlines performance against the Australian Government’s target for gender balance on Australian Government boards.

The Government is committed to a target of women holding 50 per cent of Government board positions overall, and men and women each holding at least 40 per cent of positions on individual boards.

This target was introduced on 1 July 2016 and replaced the previous gender diversity target of women holding 40 per cent of Australian Government board positions overall.

Since the 2018-19 report, there has been positive progress:

  • As at 30 June 2020, women held 48.5 per cent across all Government board appointments, an increase of 0.6 percentage points from 30 June 2019.
  • As at 30 June 2020, women held 36.9 per cent of Chair and Deputy Chair positions across Australian Government boards, an increase of 1.9 percentage points since 30 June 2019.
  • In 2019-20, 49.2 per cent of people nominated for Government board positions by external organisations were women, up 14.8 percentage points from 34.4 per cent in 2018-19.

The findings for 2019-20 also show that further effort is needed to ensure there is no further decrease in overall board positions.

  • Of the 622 new appointments made over 2019-20, 50.5 per cent of nominees were women – a decrease of 2.2 percentage points.
  • The representation of women on Government boards decreased across six portfolios since 30 June 2019, including in two portfolios where women filled 50.9 per cent of board positions on 30 June 2019.

During the reporting period, a number of machinery of government changes affected the structure of portfolios. Some of these included changes to the Administrative Arrangements Order (see Appendix A). Where the 1 February 2020 change to Administrative Arrangement Orders has affected a portfolio’s composition, figures for 30 June 2019 have been calculated based on the portfolio’s current board composition.

The Gender Balance on Australian Government Boards Report — Guidelines determine the scope of reporting for portfolios (see Appendix B). During this reporting period the guidance material for data collection has also been clarified. Results in this report are comparable to historic reports.