The push towards gender equality in Australia has stalled with discrimination in the workplace rife, according to Sex Discrimination Commissioner Elizabeth Broderick.
After 25 years of sex discrimination laws, many people wrongly believe the job is already done with more women in senior public positions.
But in a report to be issued in Sydney today, Ms Broderick said Australian men and women had told her otherwise during a six-month ''listening tour'' where she spoke to more than 1000 people in metropolitan, regional and remote areas.
She said she found the pace of progress ''glacial'', with women and men both disadvantaged by an imbalance in the sharing of paid and unpaid work.
''We've got to a point in Australia where our progress to reach gender equality has stalled,'' she said yesterday.
''There is still systemic sex discrimination that exists in this country ... gender equality is not finished business.''
She said she wanted to take the campaign ''up a notch'' and include equality for both sexes. She also wants more leadership positions for women and pay equity as women earn on average 16 per cent less than men.
The Human Rights and Equality Commission will fund a national telephone survey to track trends and the incidence of sexual harassment, which will be used to design a public education campaign.
Ms Broderick said she also wanted to promote women's representation, particularly indigenous women, in decision-making roles, and to reduce the gender gap in retirement savings for older women, many of whom ended up living in poverty.
In a tour which began in November, soon after her appointment as commissioner, Ms Broderick was shocked to hear so many young women say they had experienced sexual harassment in their first or second jobs.
While appointments such as Quentin Bryce as Governor-General should be celebrated, Ms Broderick said they could have the unhappy consequence of masking what was happening at community level.
''Sex discrimination is still the reality of a lot of people's lives on a day-to-day basis ... what people told me loud and clear was that gender equality still matters,'' she said.
''When we talked about whether people would put in a complaint, there was an absolute feeling that complaining is career death.''
Ms Broderick also heard from older women who retire with little in the way of savings after having taken breaks from the workforce during their careers to raise children or care for elderly or sick relatives.
Focus groups with men were told of fathers feeling enormous pressure at being the sole breadwinner.
Ms Broderick said she wanted to recast the idea that gender equality as an issue was passe and that it was an issue only of concern to women.
''If it's the one thing I could do which would, I think, promote gender equality in this country, it would be the better sharing of paid and unpaid work between men and women,'' she said.
''While we keep it as a women's issue, I think our ability to make progress is limited; this is about men and women working together to create a fairer and more equal Australia.''