A new report conducted by the country’s largest union, the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation (ANMF), in conjunction with The Australia Institute has revealed high-levels of exploitation and human rights abuses suffered by low-wage workers involved in the overseas production of every-day medical goods used by Australians. 

Australian businesses have recently been implicated in serious labour abuses, both within and beyond Australia’s borders. Recent examples to capture public attention are slave labour in the production of surf products by Australian brands in North Korea, human trafficking and labour exploitation in Vietnamese, Chinese and Thai fishing industries (the top suppliers of prawns to

This report by Catalyst Australia looks at the representation of women in leadership at companies included in the ASX50. This index lists Australia’s largest publicly-owned companies that are considered leaders in their industry. This research assesses the ASX50 companies and gender equality in four areas: boards, management, policies and practices, and the gender pay gap.

This report examines both the sustainability in the Australian and global banking sectors and the assessment indicators. Specifically, it assesses self-regulatory and voluntary measures aimed at producing socially and environmentally responsible banking.

The Australia Institute made a submission to the Senate Economics Committee inquiry into Corporations Legislation Amendment (Deregulatory and Other Measures) Bill 2014. Our key concern is that the repeal of the rule permitting 100 members to call an extraordinary general meeting . Repealing this rule would be an obstacle to civil society, which increasingly plays

At first sight child labour may not appear to be a material issue for Australian companies and investors: Australia has labour laws that prescribe the minimum school-leaving and employment age. Australia also has a rich tradition in worker representation and a trade union movement active in advancing labour rights. However Australia is not an island

Catalyst Australia welcomes the initiative of the City of Sydney in developing Wellbeing Indicators. We applaud the endeavour, and recognize that the process of developing the Indicators will promote community awareness of factors that contribute to social wellbeing as well as provide information to guide future policy-making by the City of Sydney and potentially the

The scope of the Inquiry is broad. In our submission we have chosen to focus on three areas of policy interest, drawing on our work over the past four years.

Our submission supports a minimum of 26 weeks paid leave. This would be funded through a mix of employment related and government transfer payments to families. The government transfers would be available to working and non-working families while employment related entitlements would apply to working women and men.