Department of Industry, Science, Energy and Resources (DISER)

Summary

DISER AWEI 2021 Submission (17.9MB)

The AWEI is broken up into 10 sections. Section 1 has 4 sub-sections. Organisations can choose to “carry over” points from this section for up to 3 years. Sections 9-10 must be completed each year to gain points.

Commentary

• S1 Q15 – Signs indicate that men have access to female toilets; Only the Pride Network was consulted about toilet access.
• S10 Q43: “Our Pride network engaged with the management of Questacon and were able to light up their buildings in purple and rainbows for Wear it Purple Day”
• Ran a campaign to promote pronoun use, including stating pronouns in meetings and purchasing pronoun badges for staff.
• Provided LGBTIQ+ training to other agencies including: DFAT, PMC, Dept Finance, Dept Communications, Dept Education.
• Funded 3 staff to travel to Melbourne to attend the “Equality Projects Better Together conference”
• Changed reporting language so that “indeterminate gender” is now reported as “non binary gender”
• Engaged an LGBTIQ+ consulting firm to review Gender Affirmation Policy

DISER AWEI 2021 Scorecard (143KB)

This is the score and the comments received for each question in their 2021 AWEI Submission.

Invoices totalling $14,690.50 (600KB)

Survey Results

• Not supplied by DISER

Gender Neutral Toilets

DISER displays signage directing staff to choose whatever toilet they wish. Although the toilets are actually a shared public space, the sign describes them as “a private place for everyone to use”. Clearly the intention is to accomodate people who are not gender conforming, but it shows a failure to take the risks and safeguarding of single-sex spaces into account.

Only the Pride Network was consulted before introducing gender neutral toilets. Other stakeholders (women, disability advocates, men) were not consulted.