Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA)

Overview 

Gender pay equity is a critical issue across the Australian workforce, with the Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA) collecting and reporting data from organisations with more than 100 employees nationwide.

At Shine, pay parity is not a compliance exercise — it is a core strategic priority. While WGEA provides a high‑level snapshot, its methodology does not always fully capture the complexity of organisations with diverse role structures and complex salary bandings. For this reason, we go well beyond minimum reporting requirements to ensure a rigorous and accurate assessment of gender pay equity.

Each year, as part of this commitment, Shine partners with Mercer, one of Australia’s leading independent remuneration research specialists, to help us determine our gender pay parity position.

The latest independent Mercer report confirms the Shine Lawyers’ gender pay parity result at ‑0.1%, meaning women are paid, on average, just 0.1% less than men for comparable work. This outcome demonstrates that pay parity has effectively been achieved across the organisation. This represents a significant improvement from ‑2.1% in the previous reporting period — a 2% positive shift and an exceptionally strong outcome by any Australian workforce standard.

Under the leadership of Group Chief Executive Officer Carolyn Barker AM, Shine Justice employs nearly 1,000 people, with women representing 76% of the workforce, including a significant proportion of senior and leadership roles.

“Gender equality cannot be reduced to a single number. While WGEA reporting plays an important role, we take a far more detailed and disciplined approach. Through regular, independent and internal pay parity reviews, we assess like‑for‑like roles, to ensure our remuneration decisions are fair, consistent and equitable,” Ms Barker said.

“This independent result reflects sustained, deliberate action and reinforces like-for-like remuneration decisions is being actively delivered in practice, not just in principle. While we acknowledge the improved gender pay gap result from last year, the unwavering focus remains on pay parity for comparable roles”.

WGEA Results 

In this current year, the WGEA results show an improvement in both Shine Lawyers and Shine Justice Gender Pay Gap as per the below table:

*Note: Shine Lawyers is the only firm within the Shine Justice group who employs over 100 employees, therefore, has a gender pay gap result. The Shine Justice result includes Shine Lawyers and all other firms within the Shine Justice group, collectively employing 1000+ employees.

Findings

A deeper review has identified several factors that have influenced our results for both Shine Lawyers and Shine Justice. These are:

Workforce composition

Shine’s workforce is predominately female and despite having strong female representation across all levels of the firm including leadership, there is a disproportionate number within the clerical and administration group. Consequently, this group is within our lower pay quartiles. Conversely, male representation is generally in more senior professional roles which are then paid in the higher pay quartiles. This composition impacts both the median and average results.

Median

The median gender pay gap calculates the difference in salary between the median female incumbent versus the male incumbent (represented as a percentage). Deeper analysis has identified, specifically for Shine Lawyers, that the median gender pay gap result was based on a female Senior Paralegal and a male Solicitor role. Two distinctly different levels of roles including formal qualifications, technical legal skills and practical experience.

Moving forward, WGEA expects all organisations to set measurable targets to support progress over time. Shine Lawyers is currently reviewing appropriate targets with the leadership team, informed by our latest workforce data and broader people strategy. These targets will be finalised and communicated following the next WGEA submission.

What we are focusing on now

Our current focus areas include:

• ongoing review of remuneration and progression frameworks

• improving workforce data quality and reporting

• embedding gender equality considerations into workforce planning

• leadership review of gender equality priorities and actions

• maturing internal capability about gender equality and remuneration practices

Shine believes in remunerating all employees fairly and based on merit. We have a structured framework to support remuneration, reward and promotions based on team members achieving successful outcomes for our clients and our business. While we acknowledge our gender pay gap result, we remain focused on reducing our own internal pay parity gap.