Employer statement on pay and gender at AGD

The Attorney-General’s Department (the department) is committed to being a workplace leader in gender equality now and into the future, and has engaged in voluntary gender pay gap analysis since 2022. We welcome the publication of public sector gender pay gaps for the first time in 2025.

The gender pay gap is the difference between the average earnings of women and men, and is not the difference between 2 people being paid differently for work of the same or comparable value. It is important to note that this analysis excludes other genders, due to privacy considerations linked to the small size of the cohort.

As at 31 December 2023, our total remuneration pay gap was 7.3%. While this is higher than the public sector industry standard of 3.6% (specific to agencies of between 1,000 to 4,999 employees), I’m able to share that our gap continues to narrow year on year, with internal analysis indicating the department’s base salary gap has decreased by 0.8% since 2022.

This pay gap is wider than we would like to see, and does not yet reflect our progress towards improving the representation of women in senior leadership roles and creating a supportive and enabling culture. We have been proactive in addressing our gap and have conducted our own internal reporting with added analysis for the last several years, which has informed the development of our Gender Equality Action Plan 2023-25.

Internal analysis

There are a number of factors which our analysis indicates contribute to our gender pay gap. The primary cause of the gap is due to the different distribution of men and women across classifications. At the time of this analysis, of a total of 668 men at the department, 28% were at the EL2 level or above compared with 22% of the 1,585 women (see Figure 1). Another driver related to our gender distribution is the relative size of pay gaps at senior levels. This means that a higher proportion of men at the most senior classification cohorts has a larger effect on average pay. The high number of SES positions in the Australian Government Solicitor Group amplifies this factor.

Gender Equality Action Plan 2023-25

There is work underway to further narrow our gender pay gap and ensure that we are addressing gender related issues in the workplace. As such, the department has developed and is progressing our Gender Equality Action Plan 2023-25 (the GEAP). The APS Gender Equality Strategy 2021-26 informed this work which presents a pathway to realise gender equality across the APS.

The GEAP sets out actions we will achieve to implement, embed and drive gender equality outcomes across:

• leadership and accountability
• respectful workplaces and empowered people
• shifting gender stereotypes
• flexible ways of working
• gender data
• leveraging our external influence.

Since the release of the GEAP we have taken a range of tangible actions to address our pay gap and further equity in our workplace, including:

• introducing mandatory sexual harassment training for all EL2 and SES staff (as at 31 March 2025 we had a 77% completion rate)
• redeveloping our candidate information kit to ensure it was not reinforcing gender stereotypes
• securing accreditation as an Australian Breastfeeding Association ‘Best Practice’ accredited workplace.

Additionally, through enterprise bargaining we increased parental leave provisions and made our workplace more flexible.

Gender inequality affects everyone and so it is essential that all of our people feel included and represented through the commitments outlined in strategies such as the GEAP. My expectation is for our employees to be active and equal partners in our efforts to address gender inequalities and create an environment where we can contribute fully at home and at work.

Katherine Jones

Secretary

Figure 1: Representation by gender as at 31 December 2023

Figure 1 compares the distribution of male staff at each classification to the distribution of female staff at each classification. This data equalises representation of men and women in the department.