The representation of women in ACT Health is evident, with the most senior six roles in 2022-23 all being held by women. Indeed just two of the top twelve roles were held by men.[1] The most recent executive organisational chart demonstrates that this ratio has been maintained.[2] In professions classified variously as senior executive roles, technical officers, health professional officers and administrative officers, females are paid between 5.7 and 6.4% more than males. In the Education Directorate, the female executives and professional officers are paid respectively 10.2% and 12.8% more than their male counterparts.[3] Female information technical officers are paid 4.2% more than their male colleagues.
But these figures are not representative of the vast majority of female employees. In ACT Health, males working in professions classified as general service officers are paid a huge 25% more than their female counterparts.1 These roles equate to hospital orderlies, those managing messenger services, cleaning vehicles, packers and labourers. Mid-level, it includes tradespeople, maintenance workers, gardeners, contract compliance inspectors and kitchen staff. At the more senior levels, it includes middle and upper managers for non-clinical services such as linen, kitchen and patient transport services.[4] The gap in ACT Education Directorate, favours male general service officers a more modest 11%.
Notably, at the time of writing this post just four weeks shy of the 2024 Territory election, neither the Environment, Planning and Sustainable Development nor the Justice and Community Services Directorates reports discuss the gender pay gap. [5] [6] (More curiously, the most recent report for both JACS and ACT Policing is 2021-22, a year older than those of other departments, raising an unrelated but important question – why have they not published an annual report in 2022-23?)[7] [8] [9]
The general services classification encompasses a vast array of individuals, very many of whom are some of the less well-paid in the ACT public service. For all the Barr Government vaunts its ambitions of inclusivity and equality of opportunity, the persistence of a gender-biased wage disparity is incontrovertible among the trades and unskilled labour industries that underpin the infrastructure of the ACT public. The ACT Government can laud its female leaders, but with such a supposedly progressive leadership and after twenty years shouldn’t the “workers party” have done more to even the scales for the ordinary women of the Territory? How many women have they truly uplifted and benefitted materially and financially?
The question needs to be asked: has there been genuine effort made to narrow the gender pay gap for women in the ACT, or are the visible appointments indicative of a top-down approach that has never gone beyond the executive level? Does the ACT truly value the work of the women who work as cleaners, cooks, transport workers? When will wage parity and career progression extend beyond the upper echelons of the executive?
[1] ACT Health, Annual Report 2022-23. ACT Health Directorate.
[2] Executive Organisational Chart, August 2024. ACT Government.
[3] ACT Education, Annual Report 2022-23. ACT Education Directorate.
[4] Generic Work Level Description. Schedule 2 – General Service Officers: Part D: Schedules and Appendices.
[5] ACT Environment, Planning and Sustainable Development, Annual Report 2022-23. ACT Office of the Commissioner for Sustainability and the Environment.
[6] ACT Justice and Community Services, Annual Report 2021-22. ACT Justice and Community Services Directorate.
[7] Justice and Community Services Directorate, ACT Government.
[8] Annual Reports. ACT Policing.
[9] Open Government: Annual Reports, ACT Government.
