Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

Oh, Jenny; how you have sold your soul! One would have thought that a left-wing member of the Labor Party would have welcomed the opportunity to remove discrimination against women in the workforce. You would have thought the same of Tanya, the member for Sydney. How welcome this initiative should be to remove the in-built discrimination against women in the workforce! Under our proposal, businesses will no longer have a significant financial disincentive to employ women.

Overwhelmingly, women are the ones who take parental leave. Overwhelmingly, women are the ones who take time off to care for a newborn child. Every business during the course of employment ultimately considers behind closed doors the potential costs associated with turnover of staff and maternity leave payments. Under our scheme, whether you are BHP with a small proportion of women workers or you are Woolworths or Coles with a very large proportion of female workers, you are treated exactly the same and there will be a financial incentive to put in place mechanisms that treat women as the equal of men.

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