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

Since March 1996, more than one million women have joined the workforce and the female participation rate has increased from 53.7 per cent to 57.5 per cent. As we are talking about statistics, the ABS released data showing wages growth of over four per cent over the year to the December quarter 2006. That is with inflation at around 3.3 per cent. Women coming back into the workforce in particular are looking for flexibility—the sort of flexibility that the Labor Party and their union bosses could never give them through the awards system and the sort of flexibility that they never got under the Labor Party’s centralised wage-fixing system.

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