On the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (IDERD), Greens Deputy Leader and spokesperson for Anti-Racism, Senator Mehreen Faruqi, will announce the Greens plan to establish a Workplace Racial Equality Agency (WREA).
The proposed Workplace Racial Equality Agency (WREA)
The Greens will establish the Workplace Racial Equality Agency (WREA) to better document and understand the full extent of workplace racism and to ensure that work environments become thriving places of respect and safety for everyone, free from racism.
The proposed WREA would be a key instrument in assisting with continued data gathering on racism and measuring and reporting on racial equity in the workplace, covering both public and private employers. This will include indicators similar to the Gender Equality Indicators (GEIs) used by the existing Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA), such as composition of the workforce, composition of governing bodies, remuneration, racism and discrimination, and anti-racism strategies.
This will also support the implementation of the recommendations of the National Anti-Racism Framework that are specific to workplaces.
The Greens will:
- Provide $97.5 million over the medium term (costed by the PBO) to establish a Workplace Racial Equality Agency (WREA), an Australian Government statutory agency responsible for promoting and improving racial equity in Australian workplaces. WREA functions would include:
- Developing, collecting, and publishing information on racial equity indicators (e.g. composition of the workforce, composition of governing bodies, incidences of racism etc.)
- Assisting employers to take action to promote and improve racial equity and representation, including in recruitment and hiring procedures, retention, career progression and pay discrepancy
- Fostering workplace consultation between employers and employees on issues concerning racism in employment and in the workplace
- Monitoring compliance with laws and rules
- Developing industry-specific anti-racism training
- Undertaking continued research to monitor and tackle racism in the workplace.
Racial equity indicators will be developed in consultation with the Race Discrimination Commissioner, the AHRC and other relevant stakeholders and will include composition of the workforce, composition of governing bodies, remuneration, extent of racism and discrimination, and anti-racism strategies and practice.
The Agency will be modelled on the Workplace Gender Equality Agency and will have similar reporting requirements.
As stated by Senator Mehreen Faruqi:
"The Workplace Racial Equity Agency (WREA) will provide the proactive focus needed to eliminate racism in workplaces. Systemic and entrenched racism in workplaces is not going to go away by itself, it needs concerted effort.
"As Dutton and the Liberals mirror Trump to ramp up their attacks on diversity and inclusion in the workplace, we must double down on strong action for racial equity to address deep-seated racism.
"While many workplaces and organisations celebrate 'Harmony Day', their employees face racism every day. This agency will uncover the reality of racism at work.
"People tell me constantly about their stories of workplace racism and I'm no stranger to that experience either. Today I'm calling on workplaces to dump tokenistic celebrations of 'harmony', and instead sit down with their staff to listen to them and tackle the toxic racism harming them.
"It boggles my mind that in 2025 when racism is rife in this country that a majority of the ASX Corporate Governance Council would vote down diversity reporting rules. It is time to drag workplaces to the table whether they like it or not.
"For too long, racism has been neglected and hidden away by shallow celebrations of harmony while too many are targeted by the searing heat of this bigotry and discrimination.
"It is high time workplaces are forced to name racism and take action to make organisations anti-racist places. The time for platitudes is well and truly over."
BACKGROUND
Senator Faruqi has been pushing the Labor government to ditch Harmony Day and Harmony Week and instead revert to marking it as the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (IDERD) and the week as Anti-racism week.
This IDERD, the Greens are focussing on eliminating racism in the workplace. Senator Faruqi's work has led to a significant change in approach at the Australian Public Service, where the Commission has not only acknowledged the problem of racism in Australian Public Service (APS) workplaces but is now working to address these concerns. While this is positive, the problem extends all workplaces and more needs to be done.
Racism in the workplace is a common experience for people of colour. The National Anti-Racism Framework (NARF) identifies workplaces as "vital settings for addressing racism" and makes recommendations to address racism in the workplace. The National Anti-Racism Framework also has recommendations to improve data on racism, including "the development of a National Anti-Racism Data Plan".
The 5th Islamophobia in Australia Report published this month details the massive rise in Islamophobia and recommends addressing workplace discrimination by implementing stricter workplace anti-discrimination policies, providing support for victims to understand their rights and reporting options, and funding cultural competency training programs for employers and employees.
Research has long established the existence of hiring discrimination and resume racism. Research published more than 10 years ago shows that "To get as many interviews as an Anglo applicant with an Anglo sounding name, an Indigenous person must submit 35 percent more applications, a Chinese person must submit 68 percent more applications, an Italian person must submit 12 percent more applications, and a Middle Eastern person 64 percent more applications."
Things haven't changed. A 2023 study shows applicants with an Anglo-Celtic name are more likely to get an interview while another found that applicants from ethnic minorities were almost half as likely to receive a call back than applicants with English names when they applied for a non-leadership position.
Experiences of racism in the workplace are pervasive for First Nations and culturally and racially marginalised minorities, but documentation and data analysis have been ad hoc, such as the ABC's independent review into racism which laid out systemic racism at the ABC, and the Diversity Council Australia's Racism at Work report which found one in two Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander people experienced at least one incident of racial harassment or discrimination at work. There is little to no data on the numbers of culturally and racially marginalised people in our workplaces, let alone any data on markers of racial equity in workplaces, such as positions of leadership or pay parity.
Even when people do report their experiences of racism in the workplace, data is not properly collected. Reports from the Fair Work Commission do not disaggregate workplace complaints related to racial discrimination, and there is no way to examine how many complaints relate to racism, or what the outcomes have been (research provided by the Parliamentary Library). Similarly, while the number of complaints made to the Australian Human Rights Commission can be broken down by those made under the Racial Discrimination Act, it is not possible to access detailed data about these cases, for example, whether they occurred in a workplace and what the outcomes were (research provided by the Parliamentary Library).
Findings of a report in 2023 on 'The state of diversity, equity and inclusion in Australian workplaces' show that a majority of employers are failing to take basic steps to even monitor DEI (For example, only 44% of human resources professionals report measuring recruitment of ATSI people, and only 28% report measuring culturally diverse people).
Earlier this year, the ASX Corporate Governance Council voted down a proposal for diversity reporting rules for listed companies.
The 2018 AHRC Leading for Change report found that senior leaders (CEOs and other 'C-suite' leaders) in Australian organisations comprise only 4.7% people from non-European backgrounds and 0.4% Indigenous people, despite these communities comprising 21% and 3% of the population, respectively. As of 2024, there had been little improvement.
The 2024 Board Diversity Index found that 91% of board directors are from an Anglo-Celtic background. The report went on to say that, in "vital areas of diversity and inclusion, most boards are not even close to being representative" (p. 6). Also, "The overall percentage of board seats held by directors from culturally diverse backgrounds remains at 9%, unchanged from last year. However, in ASX 201-300 companies, the percentage of directors from a non-European background has dropped from 6% in 2022 to 3.81% earlier this year" (p. 16).
REFERENCES
1. Australian Human Rights Commission, November 2024, The National Anti-Racism Framework: A roadmap to eliminating racism in Australia
2. https://www.smh.com.au/opinion/job-hunt-success-is-all-in-a-name-201303…;
3. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-09-01/name-discrimination-job-hiring-b…;
4. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1048984322000583?via…;
7. https://www.governanceinstitute.com.au/advocacy/2024-board-diversity-index/
