Limits and Possibilities: Rights‐based Discourses in Australian Gender Pay Equity Reform 1969–2007

Abstract

In 1969 and 1972 Australia adopted a highly distinctive approach to equal pay. Its unusual characteristic lay in its incorporation in Australia's system of wage determination. This reform was advantageous to women in paid work but key ambiguities emerged as to how the right to equal pay would be claimed in areas of highly feminized work. In 1993 the right to equal pay was introduced in statute and conjoined to a test of sex discrimination, a construction that was ineffective, particularly in the context of a decentralizing wages system. State jurisdictions in Australia developed innovative responses to this impasse that were founded on the concept of undervaluation. These approaches addressed a persistent flaw in rights‐based approaches, the requirement for women to demonstrate they are the same as men to claim equality. These approaches, although currently proscribed, demonstrated that particular constructions of rights‐based discourses can be effective if connected to the underlying dynamics of gender pay inequity and grounded in the instruments of industry and minimum wage determination.