Hon. Pru Goward

She is a former Cabinet minister, Sex Discrimination Commissioner and was a pioneering television reporter with the ABC. Pru has a long history of promoting women’s rights, driving reform, getting it done and challenging business as usual.

Pru speaks across a range of subjects that reflect her decades of experience; gender discrimination and diversity, women and leadership, leadership, trust and values, ageing and age discrimination, mental health, domestic violence, paid parental leave, workplace bullying and harassment and the implementation of reform. She also comments on current political challenges.

Current work:

Pru Goward heads a consultancy company specialising in gender review and corporate communications, Bespoken Consulting and Communications.

She is a diversity and discrimination expert who has recently reviewed sexual misconduct for ministerial staff in the NSW Government and the staff of the NSW Supreme Court. Her review work is on-going and her unique ability to pull together data and insights based on her vast experience enable her to give powerful advice to some of Australia’s most talked-about organisations. Pru has been recently appointed to the National Plan Advisory Group, a small group of expert advisors established to oversee the development of the successor plan to Australia’s National Plan to reduce Violence Against Women and their Children.

Pru Goward is also Professor of Social Interventions and Policy at Western Sydney University, a board member of Anglicare, a regular newspaper columnist and commentator as well as a director with data analytics company, Taylor Fry. She likes to be busy.

Previous experience

Government: Pru Goward’s outstanding career as a senior government official and government minister saw reforms in Family Law and more recently child protection, social and affordable housing and urban planning. With her drive and many years of understanding, New South Wales completely overhauled how the state government approached domestic violence and is the only Australian state or territory to witness a decline in assault rates.

Prior to this, Pru Goward was Australia’s Sex Discrimination Commissioner for six years, promoting the landmark introduction of paid maternity leave, now a national entitlement. She also oversaw Australia’s first sexual harassment survey which continues to be the benchmark for governments and business and reported on the state of work-life balance for men and women in Australia. Pru was also the commissioner responsible for age discrimination.

Pru was the Australian Government’s official spokesperson for the Sydney 2000 Olympics and holds directorships on a number of boards.

Journalism: As a senior current affairs reporter with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation for 19 years Pru was ABC Television’s first female political correspondent, the inaugural presenter of Radio National Breakfast and the recipient of a prestigious Walkley Award for her courageous television profile of organized crime figure George Freeman.

Author: She has authored A Business of Her Own and co-authored a biography of John Howard.