About the consultation
Skills Insight is the Jobs and Skills Council for Australia’s agriculture, food, fibre and environment-care industries. In early 2026, Skills Insight released a consultation paper inviting submissions on how to build safer, more inclusive and resilient workforces across these sectors. WHISE welcomed the opportunity to respond, drawing on national and international evidence, Victorian sector data and our applied experience through the Training for Respect project.
WHISE Submission
Women’s Health in the South East (WHISE) submitted a detailed response prepared by Kit McMahon and Dr Rachel Bush, arguing that workforce safety, participation and resilience in Skills Insight industries cannot be achieved without explicitly addressing the gendered structure of those industries and their training pathways.
Industries covered by Skills Insight — including agriculture, food processing, fibre and primary production — remain among the most gender-segregated in the Australian labour market. WHISE’s submission demonstrates that this segregation is not simply a diversity issue: it creates the structural conditions in which workplace gendered violence, including sexual harassment, bullying and discrimination, becomes predictable and prevalent. Data from WHISE’s Training for Respect project confirms these harms are already widespread within RTOs and TAFEs, and that under-reporting is structural rather than individual.
The submission argues that incremental or isolated responses — including stand-alone training units — are insufficient to address these dynamics. Meaningful change requires a transformational, system-wide approach.
Key themes of the submission
The submission responds to the four consultation themes — Leadership, Skills, Accessibility and Data — and makes twelve concrete recommendations. Its central arguments are that:
- workplace gendered violence must be recognised as a core workforce risk, not a peripheral or interpersonal issue;
- leadership and supervisory capability must be understood as a primary lever for psychosocial safety in gender-segregated industries;
- skills reform must move beyond stand-alone training to embed safety and accountability across qualifications, pathways and workplaces;
- participation strategies must prioritise safe retention and progression, not only recruitment; and
- workforce data must routinely capture psychosocial and gendered violence indicators so that harm becomes visible, attributable and addressable.
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