Ms O'CONNOR - Treasurer, I note that the TASCORP board has something approaching a gender balance of two women, three men, including the CEO, which is great but the annual report -
Mr FERRALL - The CEO isn't on the board, so it's perfectly balanced.
Ms O'CONNOR - Okay. So, the faces that are in the annual report - there's five faces, three men -
Mr FERRALL - And one's the CEO.
Ms O'CONNOR - Two women. Okay. So, there is a definite gender balance on the board but the annual report shows a low proportion of women employed by TASCORP and an absence of women in the most senior positions. Does TASCORP have any strategies to address this gender imbalance?
Mr GUTWEIN - Thank you, that is a very good question for the chair and CEO.
Mr FERRALL - We do have concerns about it, and we do have strategies to address it. I don't think you would be advocating that we impose quotas, but you may. Basically, we look at getting the best candidates, and we are now finding that we are getting better candidates of all genders, and you would note that, probably for the first time ever, we have a senior female colleague, Emma, here today.
We continue to look at how we can adopt, internally, our approaches to things like flexible work, to effectively make our positions more attractive, because historically, they have not necessarily been attractive to not just women, but any individual who may have family and other duties. So, we are working through that, and we now have - how many people operating flexibly?
Adviser - Four.
Mr FERRALL - So, nearly a quarter of the staff are now working flexibly. It is a matter that we do discuss regularly at the board and try to work through strategies, but without sort of being an apologist, there is no simple strategy. I mean, we will never employ somebody on the basis of gender. We will always employ them on the basis that they are the best candidate for TASCORP, and we need to ensure we have approaches to the way we work that ensure that we are an attractive place for all genders.