Transcript of Question & Answer Session

I’m delighted to introduce the next part of the evening, our outstanding panel. The panel will revisit the financial imperative for Australia’s past and future progress in the economic participation of women. Our panellists, Michele Bullock, Governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia; Belinda Hutchinson, Australian business leader, accountant, philanthropist, former CEW President and Companion of the Order of Australia; Dr Aruna Sathanapally, CEO of the Grattan Institute; Dr Leonora Risse, Australia’s leading gender policy economist; and our moderator for tonight, Hannah Wootton, Australian Financial Review reporter and AFR’s Rear Window columnist.

Before we hear from our highly esteemed panel, I’d like to welcome to the stage Michele Bullock to give her address. Welcome, Michele.

Well, good evening, everyone. I’d like to start by acknowledging the Wurundjeri Woi-Wurrung and Bunurong/ Boon Wurrung people of the Eastern Kulin nation as the traditional owners and the custodians of the land on which we’re meeting this evening. And I pay my respects to elders, past and present, and as well as that to any First Nations people here tonight or online.

So it’s great to be here to celebrate 40 years of Chief Executive women. I hadn’t actually intended to talk about the RBA’s policy responsibilities tonight, because we are here to recognise the progress in women’s economic empowerment. However, given what’s happened over the past week, I’m going to make a few short comments first.

So, inevitably, there’s going to be a period of uncertainty and adjustment as countries respond to the ongoing tariff announcements by the United States administration. It’s going to take some time to see how all of this plays out. And the added unpredictability means that we need to be patient as we work through how all of this could affect demand and supply globally. Financial market and economic volatility can be expected as this process unfolds. But there’s two points I’d want to make on this. The first is that we’re not currently seeing the same degree of impact as previous market events, like in 2008, for example. Second, the Australian financial system is strong and it’s well placed to absorb shocks from abroad. We’re closely monitoring financial market conditions here and overseas, as we always do, and we continue to engage closely with our fellow regulators in Australia and our central bank counterparts overseas. We’re sharing information and we’re working together.

We’re carefully considering several factors, including the response of our trading partners, additional counter responses from the US, the response of our exchange rate and adjustments in other financial markets. A key focus for us is how all this uncertainty is affecting decisions made by households and businesses in Australia. All of this, together with our usual detailed analytical work and scenarios, is helping us to build a fuller picture of the possible impacts as we prepare for our next Monetary Policy board meeting on the 19th and 20th of May.

There are a lot of moving parts. We’re bringing this together to form an objective assessment of what it means for the outlook for domestic activity and inflation here at home. We’re mindful of not adding to the uncertainty, and to that end, it’s too early for us to determine what the path of interest rates will be. Our focus remains on our dual mandate for price stability and full employment.

Now, back to our focus for tonight. So I’m going to reflect on the significant strides in women’s empowerment in the Australian economy and the progress made by women at the RBA over the past 40 years. As I do that, I’m going to provide some reflections on my own leadership journey and I’m also going to highlight the Reserve Bank’s efforts to build the pipeline of future female economists and business leaders.

Over the past 40 years, women’s representation and participation in the Australian economy has undergone a remarkable transformation. In the mid-1980s, women made up just under 40% of the workforce, with married women’s participation in the labour market particularly low. But through persistent efforts, including by organisations like CEW and many of the individuals in the room tonight, women’s participation in paid work has increased considerably.

Law reform has helped too, with the introduction of the Sex Discrimination act in 1984, paving the way for further reforms to advance women’s rights, particularly in our workplaces. This progress has been supported by a range of other factors, including greater access to education and childcare. And the increased availability of flexible working arrangements for women and men has also helped.

So we fast forward 40 years and women now account for almost half the paid workforce. This has given women greater financial independence and social equity, and that’s a worthy goal in and of itself. Beyond that, though, it’s expanded the pool of available workers, providing businesses with a larger and more diverse talent base. There are some estimates for the United States that show between 20 and 40% of productivity growth in the 50 years to 2010 could be attributed to better talent allocation. And the idea here is very simple. If there are more people working in positions that suit their skills, this maximises their ability to contribute to economic growth and better and more informed decision making within organisations. It’s good for women. It’s good for businesses, it’s good for productivity and the economy, and it’s good for society.

Now, while women’s labour force participation has increased, there is clearly further progress to be made. Research from the Workplace Gender Equality Agency shows that fewer than 20% of CEOs are women, while women made up only one third of board members. The Federal Public Service does better on this, with women holding more than 50% of Australian government board positions and 45% of chair and deputy chair positions.

The gender pay gap remains an issue. Since the mid-1990s, the gender pay gap has narrowed by about 3 percentage points, mostly in the past decade. However, men still earn $28,000 more per year on average than women. But there are positive signs, particularly for younger workers. Participation rates for those aged 25 and under are now equal for men and women, and that’s allowing young women to build skills and experience for future leadership roles.

Indeed, in addition to closing gender gaps being the right thing to do, analysis by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development indicates that it could boost GDP by an average of 9% across OECD countries by 2060. And given our ageing population in Australia, boosting labour force participation of working age women is not only desirable, but it’s essential for economic growth.

At the RBA, we have a wide range of responsibilities and rely on a diverse set of skills and experience to get the job done. Women play an essential role in all aspects of our operations, but this hasn’t always been the case. In the 1960s and 1970s, pioneers like Ann Catling and Margaret Campbell paved the way for gender equity at the RBA. Ann Catling was one of only 13 women on a men’s pay scale at the RBA in 1966. Yes, there was a men’s pay scale. And she made significant contributions to development, economics and gender equity. Margaret Campbell, who began at the bank in 1967, achieved equal compensation with men while studying full time at university. Some other notable figures include Gillian Broadbent and Kerry Schott, who Contributed to the RBA’s first econometric model of the Australian economy.

When I first joined the RBA in the mid-1980s, there were barely any women at a section head level. And in 1996 I was the first female to reach deputy head level in a policy department. And I think when I reflect on my journey, there’s probably three milestones I’d call out. The first was earning a scholarship from the RBA to undertake a master’s degree in economics at the London School of Economics. So this wasn’t just postgraduate training. It was also an early recognition that my leaders saw promise in me. The second milestone was a career move I made when I came back from maternity leave. I was appointed as deputy head of a new department called Payments Policy and it gave me a completely blank sheet of paper to build something on, something new. I had very direct and regular exposure to the Governor at the time and to members of the Payment System Board. And I had great leaders in that role, including a number of men who were encouraging me and other women as we progressed through the ranks.

The third milestone for me was my appointment as Assistant Governor Currency in 2010. I was the first female Assistant Governor. This was a really big change for me. I was moving from a policy to an operational area and I was not an expert in this. And the other thing was I had to lift my gaze beyond my area of responsibility to the enterprise level. So this was really important.

In the last decade, women’s representation at the RBA has improved significantly. In June last year, we achieved 40% of women in management roles with four of the seven executive committee positions held by women. 56% of promoted employees were women and 63% of those promoted to management were women. These promotions were all based on skills and ability. So I think this progress reflects the RBA’s commitment to inclusion and it’s also a testament, frankly, to the resilience and the determination of the women at the RBA.

There’s probably four things I think I’ve learnt in my leadership journey. The first is not to undersell myself. We women have to be prepared to promote ourselves, even if we don’t feel 100% confident. The second thing I’ve learnt is don’t be afraid to do something different. I always took opportunities when they were offered. Most often, actually, it was a sideways move, but ultimately it was a good move. Third, I found people who I trusted to guide me. Some of that was internal, people that I knew, and as I became more senior, I drew on people from outside the RBA. In fact, my contacts at CEW have been very important for me here. And my final learning, I think, was that the teams around me are my most valuable resources. They are professional, they know what they’re doing and they always give their best. My job, I feel, has been to draw on that expertise, support them and to guide them.

Now, finally, I want to say a few words on the work the RBA is doing to build a diverse pipeline of future economists, policymakers and business leaders in Australia. There’s been a sharp decline in the size and diversity of the economic student population since the 1990s. The trend raises concerns about economic literacy in society and the long term health of the economics discipline. This is an important reason for the RBA’s education program which engages with students and teachers. And it provides a range of resources that aim to inspire and support the next generation of economists. Some of our initiatives include school outreach programs and providing educational resources, research into economics education landscape and engagements with educational and curriculum bodies.

Today, males still outnumber females by 2 to 1 in high school and university economics. Our research confirms that a confidence gap exists for females, that female students tend to underestimate their proficiency when it comes to economics. It’s not the case that women can’t do economics, which I’m quite sure won’t come as any surprise to anyone in this room. Even among year 12 students who do study economics, a recent RBA study has found that there is low interest in pursuing economics at the university level, particularly for females. Instead, these students are more likely to enrol in commerce, finance or arts and social science courses.

One approach could be to increase the flow of high school students into university economics, could be to develop some tailored advocacy to emphasise the connections between economics and other preferred fields of study. I also think increasing the representation of female role models amongst economists, female economics teachers and female advocates for economics in the public domain could also help.

So while we’ve made significant strides in improving gender equity and increasing female participation both at the RBA and within the broader Australian economy, there’s still much more work to be done. I hope that my role as Governor of the RBA, the first woman to hold the role, gives encouragement to women coming up through the ranks of Australian businesses and the public service. You can do it. Thank you. So thank you CEW for the opportunity to speak to you ahead of what I’m sure is going to be a fun panel.

Okay, great. And now we turn over to our very esteemed panel. We would also like to acknowledge the Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung and Boon Wurrung people of the Kulin nation and acknowledge we‘re own stolen land. Thank you for coming and also thank you, Michele, for addressing the markets and meaning I don’t need to ask anyone about bonds tonight, which people are probably thankful for.

As you can see from our panel, we’ve got some of the leading economic thinkers in all of Australia here tonight and policy thinkers They just happen to be women, but that is something we’ll be discussing. To start, it feels like we’re in a world at the moment that is potentially moving backwards on diversity and inclusion policies, as Mr Trump affects workplace structures as well as the markets. So my question for you to start is, what does it mean to you to be leaders in this space? And if you had to narrow it down to one tip, Michele’s already given a few, to women wanting to push to gain economic equality or workplace equality, what do you think it would be? We might start with Belinda.

Thanks so much, Hannah. I think I’m a bit of an imposter being up here. I may have studied economics, but I’ve never actually been an economist.

I will also say that is what a woman would say on a panel and not a man.

But I can say that in terms of my roles, particularly as President of CEW and also a number of the other roles I’ve had on major company boards and other not-for-profit organisations, I absolutely see there being a really important role for me and other women to really promote the issues around gender equality, gender equity and to make sure that there is change. And I think Michele did a fantastic job talking through the massive progress we’ve made over the last 40 years. And I think there is a lot to celebrate, and I think we have to keep that in mind. And I think when you listen to what Lisa and Gillian had to say, as well as Michele, there is absolutely a proven economic case for this. It’s absolutely clear.

So I don’t think any of us can walk away from that. I don’t think you can walk away from something that is so fact driven and you can see the results of what’s happened. I think back on my own career, when I was a junior executive – there was no paid parental leave, there was no childcare support, and quite frankly, if you didn’t come back to work after two months, perhaps your job wasn’t going to be there. That was the way the world was. The world has seriously changed and we need to celebrate that. But I think in terms of the tips or the tip, I would try and think, I mean, if people know, I was the Chancellor of the University of Sydney and I served my final term last year. So you would say that – I would say – that getting an education is absolutely fundamental for women getting ahead. And I think you have to choose something you’re passionate about. I was passionate about economics and I’m so pleased I pursued that as my degree. As I said, I didn’t actually practice it.

But I think the other point I’d make, and I think it’s really more about thinking about what would be my advice to my younger self. Because I think that’s what we really need to think about. Because it’s about how do we really engender societal change? How do we give women the confidence to do what they need to do? I know that I was incredibly underconfident. I know that I didn’t take advantage of as many opportunities as I should have. I know that I should have reflected more on that. And when I meet and mentor – and I mentor a lot of young women today – and I think, and I listen to what they have to say, I think, why don’t you think you can put up your hand for that job? And why don’t you, when your boss approaches you and says he wants you to do that job or she wants you to do that job, you say, I’m not quite ready for it. That’s the thing that I think we need to really work on for women and for men, too. I think the same applies.

I think about my own career, and I almost gave up on one of those opportunities, which I was asked to go to Chattanooga, of all places. I want to go to London or New York. I was asked, when I worked for Accenture, to go to Chattanooga. And I thought about it and I thought, I’m not sure about that. But then I thought about it. It was the biggest project that the firm had ever had. And it turned out to be an extraordinary opportunity for me. I actually got a promotion to head office. I worked there for three years. I had a fantastic time. But it’s about how do we really engender confidence and that willingness to take a risk, to put up your hand and have a go. That’s what I think is so important.

Aruna, we’ve now got two panellists who’ve said to say yes to the opportunities in front of you. What would your advice be?

So, you’re going to get a lot of advice. That is a bit of a meta advice. You’ll get a lot of advice in your career. I’ve gotten some good advice. I’ve gotten some bad advice. And I think there’s something to be said for knowing that you cannot follow the advice you’re given. Sometimes you get advice that slots into steady boxes that people have in their heads, or advice that reflects the experience that people have had, but that doesn’t have to be your experience. So I’ve certainly gotten advice that I haven’t followed. And then I’ve gone back and been able to say, well, actually, you can do things a different way. And you should be able to back yourself to do things in a way that you haven’t seen done before.

Leonora.

Thanks, Hannah. So your question, what does it mean to be a leader in this field? I think in economics because it is traditionally male dominated – this is the values that we’ve brought to the Women in Economics Network as well – you’re not just doing it for yourself, you’re doing it for women collectively. And if you’re going to make a difference, it means doing things differently. So don’t be afraid to do things differently and putting forward the case for equality, gender equality, as our other panellists have referred to. There is an intellectual element and there is an emotional element and if you get the fusion of both of them, it’s incredibly powerful. So I think be ready to tap into both of those levers.

When it comes to giving a tip. I think maybe another way of saying be confident in yourself. And I heard this from Licia Heath, who runs Women for Election all around Australia. Maybe Licia is here or maybe people know the amazing work she’s doing. She worded it in a beautiful way. She said, be wary of the narrative that tells you that you can’t. And I would extend that, be wary of the narrative that’s already made the choice for you. The narrative that says, oh, that’s not for women or women just choose the caregiver role. And in a policy making space, be careful of the policies that have made the choice for you. So bring that lens of interrogation and question and challenge, scrutinise before you make your decision.

So, Michele, you’ve given us several tips tonight, but I’m also giving you --

I wanted to say something slightly different and it’s about the challenge for us as senior women. So when I was coming up through the ranks early in my career, I didn’t actually focus on the fact that there might be a gender issue. I hadn’t been brought up that way. I just figured everything would be fine and there wouldn’t be an issue being a female. But I came – and so I wasn’t really an advocate for it. I didn’t really – and it became clear to me as I became more senior, that actually I did have to try and step up here.

And so something that struck me, Uncle Shane said knowledge is meant to be shared. And so what I was thinking was it’s not so much a tip for those coming up, but for a tip for us all who are here and have leadership roles to share our knowledge with the young women coming up to make sure that we are including them and we are advocates for them, not a stopper for them. So I’ve slightly turned the question the other way around, but that’s sort of the way I am now thinking about my role in this.

Yeah, I think the phrase that comes up in that sort of sense is to make sure you don’t pull up the ladder behind you, make sure you keep it there for those coming after. We will pivot a bit to economics now because it would be remiss for us not to do so with these people at our disposal. But I don’t think it’s been disputed that lagging productivity can be a drag on our economy. And it’s something the RBA pointed out in their explanatory note when they cut rates in February, it certainly didn’t go unnoticed. But a question that is perhaps not asked enough is are we measuring productivity in the right way? So how does a gender lens evolve our thinking on this and our practices on productivity and economic policy in general? And this is so firmly in Leonora’s wheelhouse that it would be a shame to go to anyone else first.

Thank you, Hannah. So productivity, so it’s the buzzword at the moment and we know that economists care about productivity because it is the roadmap to improve living standards and prosperity and improved wellbeing. But we also have inherited a way of measuring productivity that’s really stuck in the past. So we measure productivity by way of the market price that we pay for goods and services. And we know our economy has evolved more towards services and more towards care services and human capital. So education and training and care. And the gender lens, Hannah, is that we know that they are female concentrated fields. So I’m sure there’s members in the room tonight who come from those industries, who work in those industries and we know how crucial they are to the fabric of society.

But it’s not well captured at all in our productivity measurements. So we’re looking at the data that’s saying Australia’s productivity is slowing down or it’s going backwards in some instances. And I’m sure if you work in healthcare or social assistance or education training or early childhood, you feel like you’re absolutely stretched to the limit in terms of what you’re doing per hour of work. So how do you reconcile that? And it’s about evolving the way that we measure productivity and encompassing a broader window of recognising the benefits of those human capital-oriented services.

So if we think about, if you’re measuring the value of caregiving, be it aged care, childcare, healthcare or education, that’s an investment in human capital which has benefits that go beyond that point of time that enhance that recipient’s capacity in the future to work productively, to make a contribution, to be healthy. But it’s not captured at all fully in the price that we pay in the market. It’s what economists would call spillover effects and externalities. So I think there’s a real opportunity there. If this is something that you care about and want to bring that gender lens to how we keep expanding and improving our economic measurements, this is something that you can advocate for, that you can talk about how do we keep expanding the way that we measure productivity to bring that gender lens and to recognise the value of female concentrated sectors, because they really are an engine for productivity and wellbeing.

If you, I suppose, think of who measures these things the most it is the RBA. So I might throw to Michele here.

We don’t actually measure them, we take it … I endorse all the comments and I feel a little bit of, speaking of imposter, talking about productivity with Leonora sitting beside me. But the point I would make is a slightly different one, and that is that there is a lot of evidence around that more participation of women in the workforce increases productivity. I quoted something in my earlier remarks, but there is other work around which shows this. And it’s not surprising, really, because women bring different skills to jobs and positions and each individual job is different and we are all different. So if you have a workforce which is leaving a whole lot of talents sitting outside the workforce that could be employed in the workforce productively, then we’re wasting it.

So I think there is lots of evidence that shows that bringing more participation of women in actually improves productivity outcomes. And I think that also the way women generally approach leadership is often slightly different and that can also have productivity, enhance productivity as well. So I think there’s a number of reasons for why just bringing more women into the workforce is going to be positive, even if we can’t measure it very well, is going to be positive for productivity and growth in the economy.

Absolutely. Just on that – just interested in your view on this, Leonora. What actually needs to happen to, I suppose, change how it’s measured then? Like, what’s the next step?

Yeah, it’s a really good point. And absolutely extending on what Michele has said, it’s also about really good job matching as well. So making sure that people – I mean, unpaid work and care is a big part of this. So we talk about women’s participation rate if they’re not in the paid workforce. We know that most women, and it’s predominantly women, are in the unpaid domestic space. So I think a starting point, Hannah, to answer your question, is what the ABS is doing to actually measure unpaid work and care. Because what it does, it gives visibility and validation to the importance of what that part of our society is and the volume and the value of it. And if we can get a better grasp on that, I think we can also then get a better appreciation for paid care work and paid human capital oriented work in the paid workforce as well.

There are econometric methods to try to measure the value of investing in early childhood education. For example, looking at children who do receive early childhood education compared to those who don’t, what happens in their future life course in terms of education and employment prospects, in terms of their health, in terms of their mental health. So we have a way of sort of measuring that at an individual level, aggregating up to measure and identify how that spills over into improved productivity and output and living standards at a population, economy-wide level as well.

But I think too, what I think, what we also need there is a signal to indicate this is important for innovation and investment. So we think of both sort of scientific innovation side and AI and technology. But at the moment, a lot of that’s going towards the industries where there’s a real profit return or a real private market return on that. And some of the care sectors really are in need of this type of innovation. But the market signal’s not there to attract that type of investment and the benefits are so diffused as well. So the benefits aren’t necessarily captured by an individual company. So bringing what we would call more of a sort of economy-wide lens to analysing the benefits is super important as well. So I know there are academic researchers out there who can do this type of modelling and the Productivity Commission itself I think as well.

And I’d just like to add that I think that Leonora’s absolutely spot on. I’m on the board at Goodstart, which is the early childhood care and education centre provider. And we’ve got 650 centres around Australia. We’ve got these amazing educators and teachers. Our educators were getting paid $28 an hour, they’re now getting paid $32 an hour. Just unbelievable. They’re looking after our most precious, precious future generations. Somehow, and I don’t think we’ve got it right yet Leonora. So I think the work that you’re doing is so important because we need to be able to have the economic model, the economic work done to actually demonstrate what happens with these children if they get into high quality early childhood care and education. And there’s a number of universities – I think University of Adelaide has been really important in this and I think your university – is actually trying to track these kids and be able to demonstrate the value of what is being done for these kids and what it will mean for the future of our country and the future prosperity of our country. So I think the work you’re doing is really important.

Thank you, Belinda. Thank you.

Just to finish that, not just, I suppose, looking at productivity, but this question of I suppose applying the gender lens and how we can benefit from it applies to policy in general. CEO of Grattan, major public policy think tank, Aruna, how do you see this playing out in how it’s applied?

It’s interesting because there’s a kind of intersection point between what we’ve been talking about and Michele mentioned during her talk the idea of allocation of talent as a really important driver in our economy. And frankly, people in this room don’t need that explained to them by economists. Right. Like if you run a business, that is a core part of what you do, you’re trying to get the best talent, you’re trying to create the systems around them so that they can create value.

One of the things we see in Australia is that we have some of the highest levels of gender segregation in our workforce. And so there’s a portion of the Australian workforce who work in gender balanced workplaces. Good for them. But there’s a much larger portion of the Australian workforce that work in a workplace that’s either dominated by men or dominated by women. And you have to have some pretty strong priors to believe that certain talents are distributed weirdly across the population for that to make sense.

So it doesn’t make sense, right? Like it’s not the outcome that you would expect if you had a fully productive workforce. So something’s happening along the way that means we’re seeing boys shuffled into men’s jobs and girls shuffled into to women’s jobs. And that is to, to the loss of those boys and girls in terms of the things that they may truly wish to do. And it’s to the loss of all of us because we’re not allocating talent in the place where it can generate the greatest value, whether that value is measured in our economic statistics or not.

And one of the things we see with the dynamics around pay is that there are structural reasons why feminised professions are paid lower. And there are historical reasons – we used to structurally pay women less because they were women. And over time we’ve slowly corrected for that, but it’s been incremental and it’s never really caught up. But one of the core economic intuitions is that people will follow signals on wages. And if we don’t tackle some of those wage disparities, it’s hard to anticipate men and boys going to do different sorts of jobs.

And so from a policy perspective, we spend a lot of time thinking about how can we get the most out of our society and economy. And tackling gender segregation in the workforce is something we’re looking at a lot this year. What are the policy measures that can slowly start to break down some of that gender segregation, particularly because it’s worse in Australia than countries that we would compare ourselves to. So we think there’s space to move there.

Well, on that front, we know that, we’ve heard the figures tonight, about just how educated women in Australia are, how much that’s been improving. Like going off what you said then, what actually needs to change in workplaces to better utilise women and fully realise their potential and value? We have so many business leaders here tonight. I suspect some of them hopefully have some sway over how their businesses handle this. From the work you guys are doing, what do you see as examples that can change?

Yeah, so one of the things that’s actually a really good news story is coming out of COVID, we’ve seen a level shift in terms of people being able to structure their work in a way that enables them to stay in full-time work where previously they may have felt compelled to go to part-time work. And one of the things we also see in Australia is a kind of embedded sort of one and a half earner model that we know holds women back because we know that once they end up in a part-time structure, the opportunities tend to dry up, the opportunities that might otherwise be available. But we’ve seen a shift post-COVID in people staying in full-time work, benefiting from a flexibility that enables them to meet other obligations in their life while not taking themselves off track.

So actually how we think about that flexibility and how we enable people to tackle the whole of their lives while continuing their area of professional expertise and retaining their skills and experience, that is absolutely something the private sector has driven and can continue to drive. And it’s something the public sector also has driven and can continue to drive across our economy. I think workplaces understand the way in which flexibility is enabling them to hold on to people who might previously have had to opt out. So I think policies that have embedded that, we shouldn’t be doing anything to go backwards, but we should really be looking at how do we structure those workforce models that get the highest, you know, the highest value where people are in person and how do we best enable that flexible working.

I would hazard a guess from that answer that you were among those relieved to see certain politicians work from home – sorry, work from the office, orders backtrack this week. On that front, we’ll move along the panel. What do you think can change, Belinda? But also I’m aware that you’ve got a long history with this organisation. We’re celebrating 40 years. Are there any examples you can think of, whether it’s an industry or sector that has really tried to address some of these more systemic barriers and benefited from it?

I actually think, you know, even though we talked about, you know, the social services side of things being really, you know, still needing a lot more change in terms particularly of the pay and, you know, because it’s just not – what I just spoke about is just, I don’t think, acceptable. But when you think about it, the healthcare sector and social services have absolutely boomed over the past sort of 40 years and women are absolutely fundamental to that.

So women make up 77 per cent of the healthcare sector. We used to have 20 per cent of the GPs being women. It’s now 50 per cent. I mean, that’s a fantastic change. So I think there’s been a huge transformation in the healthcare and social services sector in terms of increasing women’s workplace participation. And I think as a result, there’s been some really good work done, but there needs to be much more work done. Now, what enabled that? Obviously, the professionalisation of the training of nursing, allied health providers. All of those things. Obviously, flexible work. And we spoke about earlier that, Aruna has spoken about. Yes, we’ve got a lot more flexible around workplaces. We have got paid parental leave, we have got a whole range of support mechanisms for women.

In terms of childcare, childcare has really boomed in this country. You know, 10 to 20 years ago, you could not find a childcare centre for your child. Today there are childcare centres and they’ve got spaces available. That’s a real change. So I think healthcare and that sector is really a good one to point out.

I think about financial services and I think about my time when I joined Macquarie and Citibank – there was very, very few women. I was the only woman in terms of actually running a line business, a profit centre, when I was in those businesses. And I think today, look at Michele – I mean, who would have thought 40 years ago we would have a Governor of the Reserve Bank who was a woman? Who would have thought we’d have Shemara Wikramanayake as the CEO of Macquarie Group? I just think those are great examples of where we have made huge strides. Things are really so much better.

So I do think it’s important to celebrate. We’ve got a long way to go. I’m absolutely there and pushing for that. But I think we have to celebrate and say we’ve made some really big strides. And it is about education, it’s about all of the support we’re putting in place to get women into the workforce and keep them there.

That could be a good point to ask for first-hand experience. Because Michele, you’ve said how much in your time at the RBA it has changed – in the women, both in the workforce and in leadership has really increased. Is there anything you can point to that may have helped change, to better help women realise their potential?

I think there’s been a few things and there’s still many things we’re working on. I think the first thing was that we did have a number of male leaders in the organisation that did take responsibility for trying to improve women’s representation in senior roles.

We did another thing, we set a target. Now, I never thought I agreed with targets, but I changed my mind and I changed my mind because I saw that it had worked in other areas and I felt that it actually, in other areas you set targets and you try to strive to meet them and it challenges you to make decisions which are more – I think it challenges you to make decisions not in favour of necessarily a female, but challenges your assumptions you’re making. It forces you to do that.

So I think the target was good. I think the other thing that we’ve been doing is we have been recognising that leadership comes in different flavours and just the smartest person in the room with the best technical skills is not necessarily the best leader. And that has had a big advantage, I think, for women coming up through the organisation.

And finally, I think we’ve just made a much bigger effort when we have got a selection, a group that we’re selecting from, that if it’s all men, not good enough, go back and find some female candidates, actually go back and have a look at it. So I think there’s been a number of specific things that we’ve been doing.

Yeah, there definitely needs to be those structures. We see it when we are hiring. You need these set rules or people fall into biases.

Conscious of the time. So we might jump onto our final question. We are in the middle of an election. Well, nearly two weeks into it. Presuming it’s not to get rid of flexible work, I’m interested if any of you could choose one policy to help further gender equality in Australia, what would it be? And Leonora, we might start with you.

Sure. So, yeah, big question. One policy. I’m going to be like – you know when they say a genie offers you three wishes and the secret is to ask for endless wishes, to wish for endless wishes? Gender responsive budgeting, gender lensing. Because if you apply gender responsive budgeting, you are not just changing a policy, you are imbuing a gender equity lens into your policy making processes. So this is the gift that keeps giving.

So in terms of one policy, implementing gender lensing, gender responsive budgeting as part of the machinery, the process by which you design policy, you evaluate policy, you evaluate the impact of economic shocks. The Australian Government and various state governments, including the Victorian Government, have invested in that. But it is a volatile approach. It is a volatile policy. So in the 1980s, Australia was a leader in gender responsive budgeting. It wasn’t legislated and the process fell apart over time. So I think it’s something to really push for because if you’re imbuing the gender equity principle into your policy making architecture, you’ve got the foundations to hold onto it rather than just hoping for one policy at a time.

And it’s a very clever answer. Consider gender with everything. It would be a bold new and fantastic world. So, Belinda, I know you have thoughts on this.

I mean, I go back to education. I’m passionate about education. It is the most powerful tool to change the world. But the thing for women is we just don’t encourage women. And it gets back to a number of comments that were made earlier. We don’t encourage women into the STEM side of subjects at school. And it starts at a very early age. I actually think we should be mandating maths for men and women in high schools in Australia. Maths is so fundamental to actually – well women, particularly to getting into STEM fields. We need more women in technology, in digitisation, in AI. We need more women at QANTAS. I think about QANTAS – we need more female pilots, we need more female engineers. They can’t be that if they haven’t done maths. So I’m absolutely a fundamental believer in mandating maths at school and actually sciences as well. And I’d like to do economics, but that’s probably going a bit too far. But I do think maths is a really, really fundamental subject. And it’s also important for women’s financial literacy, and that’s a really big issue that we have, that women do not have the financial literacy they need.

So as we see mains sneaking out, we might finish with the public policy expert on this one.

Look, I mean, the data shows that something happens when people have kids. Domestic work, housework, is pretty equal and then it splits and care work splits and women end up in a lifelong world where they’re doing more housework and more care work. And so I think my one policy is something that really turbocharges male uptake of parental leave, because that’s the one policy that you can see has an impact on more equitable sharing of the personal responsibilities that we all have with the professional responsibilities.

On that front, please thank our panel.