Ms Julie Bishop (Curtin, Liberal Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

My question is to the Deputy Prime Minister, the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations, the Minister for Education and the Minister for Social Inclusion. I refer to the minister’s attack on the Liberal Party’s support for working women and her reference back to the Menzies era. I ask whether the minister is aware of the statement of former Labor Prime Minister Paul Keating, who said in this House of the then coalition government:

In the last couple of years the government—

as in coalition—

has boasted about the increasing number of women in the workforce. Rather than something to be proud of, I feel that this is something of which we should be ashamed.

Doesn’t this demonstrate, Minister, that even 39 years ago the coalition—

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