Community
18 September, 2025
Supporting equality
TERANG and Mortlake Health Service (TMHS) this week welcomed a special guest to help ensure a smooth transition to new legislation.
On Monday TMHS received a visit from public sector gender equality commissioner Dr Niki Vincent, who is helping to lead the implementation of Australia’s first Gender Equality Act.
As part of her role, Dr Vincent has been travelling across the state to promote the objectives of the act through supporting workplaces in complying with the act, developing best practice and resolving disputes.
“We have 300 duty-holder organisations under the legislation – duty-holder means they actually have a duty to comply with the legislation,” she said.
“It’s brand new legislation – it only came into effect in 2021.
“It’s big and it requires organisations to submit a lot of data, develop lots of action plans, make progress and so forth – that’s a lot.
“I spend a lot of my time on the road talking to each of our duty-holders, particularly in rural and regional Victoria.
“I’ve talked to around 200 of the 300 now, to help them get an understanding of why we’re doing this, why it’s important and what they need to do and how to do that.”
TMHS chief executive officer Julia Ogdin said the visit provided the opportunity to reflect on how the health service approaches ensuring gender equality.
“The commissioner’s visit was an opportunity to reflect on the way in which we address gender equity at TMHS both for our staff and the broader community who access our services,” she said.
“The whole process of formulating a Gender Equity Action Plan has been an opportunity for reflection and forward thinking about how we can be responsive to the needs of all consumers.
“We are proud of our work in this space and how our staff at TMHS have come on the journey to comply with this important legislation.
“It has been interesting to listen to incidental conversations about how our programmes and services impact our consumers and staff through the gender lens since we have been doing education in this space.”
Dr Vincent said she had been impressed with the way many regional health services had adapted to the legislation.
“It’s lovely. I’ve done literally hundreds of visits now, coming out to regional and rural Victoria, and I absolutely love it,” she said.
“I have the best time, I usually get the best reception and I see the progress organisations are making, which is really wonderful.
“I’m pleased with how the act is being understood and the seriousness with which it is being taken and I’m pleased with the progress being made. It’s really rewarding.”