Reporting compliance

Under the Workplace Gender Equality Act 2012 (the Act), registered relevant employers must lodge an annual Gender Equality Report to WGEA and meet all compliance requirements to receive a Certificate of Compliance.

Relevant employers that do not meet their compliance requirements may not be eligible to compete for contracts under the Commonwealth procurement framework and may not be eligible for Commonwealth grants or other financial assistance.

A relevant employer can be a corporate group with 100 or more employees in total across all employing ABNs (subsidiaries).

Failure by a subsidiary to meet its compliance obligations will result in the corporate group and/or the parent company being non-compliant and liable to be named as non-compliant as they are ultimately responsible for the subsidiary.

For further information, refer to Corporate Structures and Compliance overview.

Each year, relevant employers must prepare and lodge a Gender Equality Report with WGEA containing information in relation to employee and governing body composition and pay, as well as workplace policies and practices.

Reports must be lodged during the reporting lodgement period (or within an approved extension period).

For further information, refer to:

• Reporting overview
• Preparing to report
• Reporting dates

Relevant employers must not to give false or misleading information to WGEA. This requirement ensures the integrity of the information provided to WGEA for the purposes of monitoring and improving gender equality in the workplace.

It also upholds public trust and confidence in the public reporting of workplace gender equality and enables informed policy making.

In addition to WGEA potentially naming an employer as non-compliant for providing false or misleading information, the Act makes it a criminal offence which empowers WGEA to refer the matter to the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions for further investigation.

The Act aims to maintain the accuracy and reliability of the information collected by WGEA. This is essential for monitoring progress and implementing effective policies to address workplace gender inequality. CEOs of relevant employers are also required to sign off prior to the lodgement of the report.

You must generate and download:

• Public Report - Questionnaire
• Public Report - Employee Data Tables 

Before you can lodge your Gender Equality Report, your CEO (or equivalent) must view these documents and sign off. This sign-off is a critical step to ensure the accuracy of the information provided.

Employers that lodge their Gender Equality by the due date will have 28 days to edit the report. If data needs to be amended, it must be re-signed by the CEO prior to re-lodging.

After this 28-day change period, no further edits can be made. Please see Reporting dates for more information about the 28-day change period after lodgement.

For further information, refer to CEO sign-off.

The Gender Equality (GE) Standards require designated relevant employers to have policies or strategies in place to support each of the six Gender Equality Indicators (GEIs)

A designated relevant employer is any relevant employer that employees 500 or more employees in Australia.

For further information, refer to Gender Equality Standards.

Relevant employers that prepare and lodge a gender equality report with WGEA must share their public reports with employees and other stakeholders (shareholders or members of the employer) as soon as practicable after lodgement.

Providing the public reports to employees and other stakeholders and enabling them to provide comment promotes transparency and empowers employees by giving them important insights into their workplace and its gender equality performance.

For further information, refer to Notification and access requirements and Commenting on an employer's report.

The CEO (or equivalent) of a relevant employer is required to give a copy of the Executive Summary(ies) and Industry Benchmark Report(s) to each member of the governing body. WGEA will perform compliance checks to verify this has occurred.

Providing the governing body with key information about the relevant employer’s performance regarding gender equality in the workplace further embeds accountability into the reporting process and fosters transparency of gender equality challenges and progress within organisations.

For further information, refer to Executive Summary and Industry Benchmark report.

Where an employer lodges their report within the lodgement period (or approved extension period) and complies with all reporting obligations, the employer will be compliant and therefore eligible to receive a Certificate of Compliance.

Once an employer has been assessed as compliant, WGEA will email reporting contacts to advise the Certificates of Compliance is available to download from the 'Data and Insights' tab within the Employer Portal.

For further information, refer to Our Legislation | WGEA.