Tanya Plibersek (Sydney, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Housing) Share this | Hansard source

We know that women in Australia have been more dependent on awards to underpin basic pay and conditions than men. About one in five working women is reliant on an award, compared with about 13 per cent of working men. So the safety net that is provided by the award system has always been more important for vulnerable workers and for many women workers.

We had so many examples during Work Choices of pay and conditions being stripped away from working women. The system was undermined by having the rug pulled out from under it. There were the Spotlight workers asked to give up their leave and loading for an extra 2c an hour. There was the vegetable packer who saw her hourly rate fall from $16 an hour to $11 an hour after Work Choices. There was Janis, a cleaner, who had to apply for her own job after more than 30 years with her firm. There was Marianne, sacked without notice by her employer by email—example after example.

We also know that women who were on AWAs earnt significantly less than women who are on award pay or collective agreements. In fact, women on AWAs actually earnt about $90 a week less than women on collective agreements did. We know also that the gender pay gap—the difference between women’s earnings and men’s earnings—was much greater for women on AWAs compared with women on collective agreements. We know that the Work Choices system and AWAs in particular made balancing work and family much more difficult. Only about a quarter of AWAs had family-friendly provisions. That is not good for men or women, but we know that working women in particular are often the ones who have to make the arrangements to pick the kids up from child care.

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