Sport Australia welcomes Champions of Change report

08 December 2021

Sport Australia congratulates the Champions of Change Coalition on the release of its 2021 Impact Report.

The report details coalition members’ action and impact on gender equality, advancing more women into leadership and building respectful and inclusive working environments for employees.

It acknowledges Sport Australia has achieved gender balance across overall employees, key management and other management personnel, including a 44.4% female representation on the Australian Sports Commission Board. Sport Australia also performed well under recruitment and retention measures, promotions, and in flexible work arrangements.

Sport Australia was also commended for implementing initiatives including investing in a new team to establish a national strategy to increase the number of women leaders in sport and a Family and Domestic Violence Policy.

Sport Australia Acting CEO Rob Dalton, pictured left, who is a member of the coalition, said the report reflected how much the organisation valued diversity and equality in the workplace.

“We believe sport is for everyone, and our team members should reflect our society,” he said.

“Gender diversity isn’t just sound ethical practice, it also makes sense in other areas. A diverse workplace fosters diverse thinking, problem solving and innovation.”

“Sport Australia is proud to play a role in increasing the number of women leading in sport through our successful Women Leaders in Sport (WLIS) program which has supported more than 26,000 women and more than 100 sport organisations to date.”

Sport Australia has also helped national sporting organisations increase the number of female CEOs from five to 16, continuing its push to improve the number of women leaders in sport.

Established with the support of the Office for Women, WLIS provides leadership development opportunities and helps sporting organisations create inclusive cultures and achieve gender equity.

The fourth annual Impact Report presents the actions taken from data contributions from more than 180 Member organisations operating in Australia and internationally and it is understood to be one of the largest cross sector voluntary public disclosures on gender equality measures globally.

The Champions of Change Coalition’s overall results this year demonstrate increases in women’s representation in all leadership categories and practical actions taken to accelerate change.

The coalition’s sport group was established in 2015 now includes 19 members including leaders from national, state and professional sporting teams across the country. It is committed to advancing gender equality and using the high profile of sport in Australia to help shift cultures and mindsets.

As the sport industry worked through the early impacts of COVID-19, the group focused on considering how use the return to sport to build back better, particularly on issues such as flexible work, succession planning and accelerating normalising women’s sport to grow opportunities for athletes and administrators.

The report lists four main gender-balance outcomes across the sport group for 2020-21:

• 43.5% women’s representation
• 50.8% women’s recruitment
• 44.3% women’s promotions
• Members achieved or moved closer to gender balance across 64.7% of leadership categories in 2021.

The Champions of Change Coalition includes CEOs, secretaries of government departments, non-executive directors and community leaders who believe gender equality is a major business, economic, societal and human rights issue.

The full 2021 Impact Report can be found at the Champions of Change Coalition’s website., opens in a new tab