Rowan Ramsey (Grey, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I suggested she go and negotiate with her employer and tell them how good she was, actually.

I started off by saying that I do not think many of the Australian public understand or realise that we do have a pay equity issue. They think that if you are getting $15 an hour for work, males and females will get paid the same, and by and large across most workforces that is the case—apart from lawyers, of course. So prima facie they do not see the problem out there. But we dug deeper, and I do not think there is any doubt that we do have issues. I hope the recommendations address most of those. Certainly we laboured over them long enough. I am probably lucky I sat on the committee for nine months and not 18. It has created a lot of interest amongst women’s groups back in my electorate. I spoke to Zonta about this particular issue and they are very keen for some recommendations and some changes out of it.

I commend the report broadly to the House notwithstanding the fact that the opposition has a few different emphases on the recommendations.

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