Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for the Public Service) Share this | Hansard source

That is right—a few of them. One of the reasons for that is that this government believe in helping families and we want to encourage women in particular to enter the workplace and to give them the choice of either staying at home with their families or, on occasions, going into the workplace. Since we were elected to government in 1996, one million more women have entered the workplace in Australia. There has been a 35 per cent increase in part-time work, participation rates are at all-time highs and the pay gap between men and women has narrowed. So we are getting to a better position in relation to the pay gap. In fact, the World Economic Forum’s Global gender gap report 2006 described Australia as a leader in closing the gender gap.

This is all in addition to our other initiatives in which we have doubled the number of childcare places, introduced and extended the family tax benefit, introduced the baby bonus, introduced the childcare benefit and provided up to $4,000 in tax deductibility for child care, helping to provide choice for Australian families.

The interesting thing is that under the Labor Party between 1993 and 1996—and note that their workplace changes were made in 1993 by Laurie Brereton and Paul Keating—the last three years of Labor, the wages gap between men and women grew; and it has narrowed under the coalition. That is what happens when you have a centralised system. That is what happens when you have an inflexible workplace system that does not take into account the aspirations of women. The Labor Party now want to return to that system. I note that Greg Combet yesterday sank to a new low when he wheeled out research—

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