Mentions of ‘gender’ scrubbed from Queensland Office for Women website amid alleged effort to ‘dewokify’
Guardian AU
•Tue, 04 Aug 2026 15:00:04 GMT
📰 What Happened
References to 'gender equality' and 'gender' have been removed from the Queensland Office for Women's website, with comparisons of live and archived pages showing more than 20 mentions scrubbed, including references to the gender pay gap and the phrase 'a gender equal Queensland'. Former staffers claim the state's Liberal National party government wants to 'dewokify' the public service, after guardian Australia saw an email from January tasking staff with scanning the site for the word 'gender' so it could be 'reframed'. Minister for women Fiona Simpson called the claims that she deems the word 'gender' 'on the nose' and 'loaded' utterly false.
🔍 The Backstory
The Queensland government is led by a Liberal National party administration that has openly pursued what critics describe as a conservative culture-war agenda. Removing gender-related language from a women's agency website parallels wider battles overseas over government language around gender and 'woke' terminology. The Office for Women's mission statement previously declared the office was 'working towards a gender equal Queensland'.
🎯 Why It Matters
The removals raise concerns about government transparency, the erasure of gender-equality commitments, and whether official policy language is being silently rewritten. Because the changes happened on an agency explicitly dedicated to advancing women, critics argue they signal a shift in priorities and could affect the data and programs used to address the gender pay gap. The dispute also reflects the broader Australian culture war over 'woke' terminology in public institutions.
References to 'gender equality' and 'gender' have been removed from the Queensland Office for Women's website, with comparisons of live and archived pages showing more than 20 mentions scrubbed, including references to the gender pay gap and the phrase 'a gender equal Queensland'. Former staffers claim the state's Liberal National party government wants to 'dewokify' the public service, after guardian Australia saw an email from January tasking staff with scanning the site for the word 'gender' so it could be 'reframed'. Minister for women Fiona Simpson called the claims that she deems the word 'gender' 'on the nose' and 'loaded' utterly false.
The Queensland government is led by a Liberal National party administration that has openly pursued what critics describe as a conservative culture-war agenda. Removing gender-related language from a women's agency website parallels wider battles overseas over government language around gender and 'woke' terminology. The Office for Women's mission statement previously declared the office was 'working towards a gender equal Queensland'.
The removals raise concerns about government transparency, the erasure of gender-equality commitments, and whether official policy language is being silently rewritten. Because the changes happened on an agency explicitly dedicated to advancing women, critics argue they signal a shift in priorities and could affect the data and programs used to address the gender pay gap. The dispute also reflects the broader Australian culture war over 'woke' terminology in public institutions.