5.2 Increasing gender diversity in decision making and leadership

Improving gender and broader diversity at decision making and leadership levels means government is more reflective of the community that it serves. Diverse leadership and representation is important when communities experience events and crises that have disproportionate or specific impacts on particular cohorts.¹²⁸ This includes people of different genders, First Nations identity, age, race, disability, sexual orientation, cultural background and geographic location.

Diverse representation means government is better placed to have a diversity of ideas, capabilities and cultural intelligence to navigate technological, social, economic and geopolitical changes.¹²⁹

Recognising the benefits diverse representation brings to leadership and advice, the NSW Government established the NSW Women’s Advisory Council in 2023 to advise the Government on issues affecting women and girls across the State and to promote equitable policy outcomes.

The NSW Government is also establishing an LGBTIQ+ Advisory Council to be formed later in 2024. This new Advisory Council will provide ongoing advice to the NSW Government as it delivers on a range of initiatives to promote equality and inclusion for LGBTIQ+ communities. The Council will provide a mechanism for ongoing community consultation and also contribute to the development of the first NSW Government LGBTIQ+ Inclusion Strategy.

The NSW Government recognises that its workforce needs to reflect the community it serves. In recent years the public sector workforce has moved towards more equal gender representation. There have been significant improvements in representation of women in senior executive roles within the public sector.

Representation has increased from 30.6 per cent at June 2014 to 43.2 per cent at June 2023.¹³⁰ In addition, the number of First Nations leaders in senior executive roles has increased from 57 in 2014 to 170 in 2023.¹³¹ Women make up 46 per cent of State Owned Corporations and Public Financial Corporations board members as at December 2023.¹³²

The NSW Government is committed to greater diversity in government elections. The Office of Local Government and Women NSW are jointly committing $160,000 to support women running for local council. This will support two women’s organisations to host a series of candidate information workshops across NSW targeted at underrepresented groups of women, including First Nations women. A recent Candidate and Councillor Diversity report showed 39 per cent of councillors are women, 3.9 per cent identify as First Nations and 10.1 per cent identify as culturally and linguistically diverse.¹³³