Public Service Workers Face Pregnancy Discrimination

Four Corners reported that 24 women in Australia’s public sector said they faced pregnancy discrimination at work, including demotions, denied flexible work, refused promotions and, in some cases, redundancy or dismissal after pregnancy or parental leave. More than 100 people told the program they had experienced workplace discrimination after becoming pregnant or having children.

The public sector is meant to set a national standard for promoting gender equality. Four Corners gathered accounts from women who said they were denied a comfortable place to breastfeed, and from others who lost roles or opportunities after having children.

Flexible work denied

Until June, Alisha Warner served as a counterterrorism senior executive in the Department of Home Affairs. Before taking leave for her second baby, she worked full-time hours over four days under a flexible arrangement. When she asked to return on the same basis, she said, “I was surprised to be met with an immediate response that senior executives cannot work flexibly.”

Documents obtained under Freedom of Information laws show that Warner’s managers sought Human Resources advice about her request to return to compressed working hours. The advice said the department had “reasonable business grounds” to reject the request, though it acknowledged it was “arguable” that Warner’s four-day arrangement “remains in place.” In an email requesting a response to Warner, a department official wrote: “Confirming the intention is not to support the request, so I'd be grateful for a response on that basis.”

The department offered Warner a short transition period, then required her to work five days a week. Warner said she couldn’t get another day of child care for her children and that “going back full-time [over five days] is not always an option.” She said she received a strong message: flexible work “was not going to be supported anywhere.”

Her managers said the counterterrorism role needed five-day coverage because the work had changed. A Home Affairs spokesman said the Bondi terrorist attack had changed the role’s scope, complexity and sensitivity, and that it now required sustained senior executive oversight, leadership and decision-making. The department said it therefore couldn’t approve compressed hours.

Warner said she had remained available on her day off for anything critical under her previous arrangement. Managers made assertions about the workload, she said, but provided “not a lot of real tangible evidence or information about why it couldn't be performed under the same arrangement.”

Retention and the department budget

Warner eventually took voluntary redundancy and refused to sign a confidentiality agreement. She said non-disclosure agreements had left people feeling alone in what happened to them. “It's not a real choice when you don't feel like you have any other choices,” she said. Leaving a full-time, secure, senior executive role she had worked hard to get filled her with “absolute dread,” Warner said.

Former assistant commissioner of the Australian Border Force Kylie Rendina said some public-service managers viewed flexible arrangements as too costly, even though losing staff who needed flexibility could cost an agency more. Replacing an experienced staff member could cost 50 to 200 per cent of an annual salary, she said. Rendina called on agencies to change their attitudes to flexibility to reflect the demands of raising a family. One parent staying home much of the time, she said, “is just not reality anymore.”

A Home Affairs spokesman denied that the department had a culture of rejecting flexible work because of cost, while acknowledging cost was a factor. He said staff engagements and other resource spending must fit within the department’s budget and comply with the Public Governance Performance and Accountability Act.

Official standards, costly claims

Employment Minister Amanda Rishworth said the Australian public service, including the federal government, aimed to be a “model employer.” Taking flexible work shouldn’t mean an employee was seen as less productive or as not contributing, she said. “There is a right for flexible work.”

Warner took action against the Department of Home Affairs in the Fair Work Commission, alleging a breach of flexible-work provisions. Mediation ended without agreement, and she chose not to take her claim to the Federal Court. “I strongly believe in my case, but I also know how much lawyers cost,” she said. Warner worried that her experience would send women entering the public service a message: if they wanted children, they had to hold themselves back.