AIATSIS executive director Caroline Hughes said it's 'mind boggling' how low staff are paid at the government agency

Dr Caroline Hughes, a Ngunnawal elder, said pay discrepancies across the public service which were negatively impacting staff at her agency were "an Aboriginal inequity".

"It's difficult being in that executive role and knowing how low the staff are in the organisation, the inequity of their pay, it's mind boggling," Dr Hughes told an Institute of Public Administration Australia event for International Women's Day in Canberra on Wednesday.

"I must say that with AIATSIS, when we look at pay equity, for an Aboriginal organisation we have the second lowest pay of the Australian Public Service."

"That is an Aboriginal inequity that is happening in the Australian Public Service, and that is impacting Aboriginal people and non-Indigenous people working in that organisation," she said.

"That shocked me coming from the ACT public service, where that's just not heard of, where one directorate would be paid less than the other for similar work."

Dr Hughes also said that after earning her role as executive director she "laughed" at the remuneration she was initially offered, because it was so poor.

"When I won my position as an executive director and I was offered my pay, I laughed at them," she said.

"And I said, 'Why would I leave a job that I love to go there with more responsibility? No way.'"

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"I think it's really important that females feel empowered to challenge what they're offered," she added.

In 2018, analysis of public service salaries found that there was a $52,647 difference between the highest paid EL1 at the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres and the highest paid EL1 at the Australian Office of Financial Management.

APS-wide bargaining set to begin by the end of May will look to address pay discrepancies across the Australian Public Service.

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