Gender status lost
THE AFL has lost its status as a leading gender equality workplace.
A year after becoming the first Australian sporting body recognised as a Workplace Gender Equality Agency “employer of choice” the league has been left off the 2020 citation list.
Eyebrows were raised last year when the AFL claimed that 40 per cent of its senior executive team were female — a key criteria for the WGEA award. The league explained at the time that it had reached the threshold because general manager of strategy Walter Lee did not report directly to chief executive Gillon McLachlan.
An AFL spokesman last night said the league had not reapplied this year because “a female executive member [corporate affairs chief Elizabeth Lukin] had resigned and her role was filled by a male [Brian Walsh]”.
The league’s current 11-person executive boasts just three women: commercial chief Kylie Rogers, inclusion and social policy manager Tanya Hosch and people and culture boss Sarah Fair. Documents released under Freedom of Information detail a series of emails sent between WGEA staff in February last year in relation to the AFL’s submission for a gender equality gong.
One email references “the unfortunate remark that Gillon McLachlan allegedly made in relation to hush money and settlements” relating to a sexual harassment case involving former Fremantle coach Ross Lyon.
The 2017 sackings of AFL executives Simon Lethlean and Richard Simkiss over inappropriate office romances and the removal of another league staffer “following a string of sexual harassment complaints” are also raised.