Major Australian employers are toning down their diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs and a handful have scrapped initiatives altogether amid a US-led “anti-woke” backlash, new research shows.
Some businesses have also cancelled their membership to Australia’s major workplace inclusion organisation, Pride in Diversity (PID).
A new report by PID found that one in 10 executives said their businesses were stepping back from DEI policies, or dropping programs entirely, according to a survey of 92 senior leaders, including board directors and executives.
Leaders at major organisations discussed the backlash anonymously with PID director Dawn Emsen-Hough, author of the National Conversation report.
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“What began internationally as targeted opposition to trans inclusion quickly broadened into resistance to LGBTQ+ workplace inclusion [and] a wider anti-woke campaign,” Emsen-Hough said.
“These currents are no longer distant, they are being felt in Australia.”
Executives said Donald Trump’s election and rollback of DEI measures had “opened the floodgates” globally and encouraged Australians to challenge local inclusion measures.
Leaders said the tone of their programs had alienated workers, especially those not belonging to minority groups, sparking dismissive language and dissent towards company policy.
“Language we have used has overstepped the mark: white, pale, stale male – very judgmental,” one executive said.
PID’s employee survey, the Australian Workplace Equality Index, found a declining share of Australians – three in four – supported their workplace’s LGBTQ+ inclusion efforts, while heterosexual white men often felt marginalised.
Growing hostility in public discourse led one company to stop running transgender inclusion training out of fears for gender-diverse staff, the report read.
Paul Zahra, PID patron and former chief executive of David Jones, said the retreat was misguided and could deter people from coming out as LGBTQ at work or home.
“Organisations pulling back [are] responding to imported culture war narratives that don’t reflect Australian workplace realities,” Zahra said.
PID member organisations were subjected to negative campaigns and some ended their partnerships, Zahra said.
The program still includes nearly 500 major employers, including ASX200 companies such as the big four banks, leading law and accounting firms, government agencies, universities and not-for-profits.
The international backlash
Inclusion programs have been in retreat internationally after US companies scrapped DEI measures after Trump’s victory and some multinational organisations in Australia told PID they faced growing overseas pressure to minimise inclusion efforts.
“We are having to remove the word diversity from presentations in case the US sees it,” one executive said.
Big Australian companies have quietly signalled declining emphasis on DEI over 2025. The Commonwealth Bank, Macquarie Bank and miner BHP were among those slashing references to their efforts in annual reports.
Most Australian companies were working to avoid backlash by softening language and broadening their inclusion programs, rather than scrapping measures, the report said.
Deloitte US is one of the companies to scrap its DEI measures. Deloitte Australia executive Pip Dexter, while not referencing the US changes, said the company’s Australian arm has stood firm on its aims for diversity and gender equity.
PwC Australia’s CEO, Kevin Burrowes, said inclusion measures were crucial to the firm’s success and popular with its young, diverse and vocal workforce.
“We would be foolish to retreat from that in any shape or form because the outcome of that would be we’d be less good at serving our clients,” Burrowes said.
He said the firm had turned its focus to ensuring majority groups did not feel excluded, symbolised by the planned renaming of its “diversity and inclusion” program to “inclusion and diversity”.
“We want to make sure that everybody feels included and if that’s young white males that we’re seeking to recruit or older white males … we want them to feel that they can have a fair go.”
• Do you know more? Contact luca.ittimani@theguardian.com
