(Photo: ABC)

Australia’s national broadcaster, the ABC, is all the better for having achieved gender parity, its Chair, Ita Buttrose, has said.

In an address in Sydney on 8 March to mark International Women’s Day, she said the ABC was once an organisation dominated by men but women now made up 55 percent of its workforce.

“The ABC has also achieved gender parity in its executive group. It’s all the better for it.”

Ms Buttrose said a lot of progress had been made by the women of Australia but there was a long way to go. Women were still badly under-represented in top management and on boards in Australia.

“It’s just not good enough. I don’t believe that Australian companies can claim to be run as well as they possibly can be in the absence of women contributing to the upper echelons of management.

“Gender balanced leadership leads to better decision making. Women make up more than 50 percent of Australia’s population and represent 70 percent of the nation’s buying power.

“Diversity gives us strength. It is by successfully using the synergy of both men and women that organisations of all persuasions can grow successfully and profitably.”