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

I thank the member for Hasluck. She has a very good history of standing up for the men and women in her electorate and also a very good history of standing up in this parliament for important issues like pay equity, so it is very appropriate that she should ask this question. The Rudd government has committed to practical action to improve equality between men and women. One ongoing issue is the inequality in earnings between men and women and the lifelong effect that has, as women are less able to save for their retirement than men. Women’s work patterns differ from men’s in most cases, especially for the 80 per cent of Australian women who have kids. We know that it is usually mothers who have broken working patterns while caring for children and often other relatives as well. Australian men are in paid work for an average of 39 years, while women generally average 20 years in the paid workforce.

New initiatives in the budget are part of our ongoing efforts to improve economic security across the lives of Australian women. The government’s superannuation reforms in Stronger, Fairer, Simpler: a tax plan for our future will deliver substantial improvements in women’s superannuation retirement savings. Increasing the superannuation guarantee to 12 per cent by 2020 is a big win for Australian women. It will mean more superannuation savings for women and will boost their lifelong economic security.

We are also improving equity for low-income earners by in effect refunding contributions for those on marginal tax rates of 15 per cent or below. In 2012-13, around 2.1 million women will be eligible for the up to $500 low-income earner superannuation rebate. That is 60 per cent of all the recipients of the rebate. We are also helping over-50s top up their super. We know that a lot of women have that broken working pattern but that when their kids are older they are able to return to the workforce, are able to concentrate on paying off family debts and are able to focus on putting extra money into their super. We have allowed over-50s to top up their super balances when they are most able to do so by keeping their $50,000 concessional contributions tax.

Because of these reforms, a woman who is now aged 30, who is likely to have two kids and maybe some part-time work with some time out of the workforce—a pretty typical pattern for many Australian women—will be $78,000 better off on retirement. That is a very significant boost, and it comes on top of last year’s budget commitment to paid parental leave—a fully costed, fully funded scheme, not a $3 billion a year new tax on business despite a promise to not introduce new taxes on business. It comes on top of the IR changes that protect the most vulnerable workers, many of whom are women, and it comes on top of the pension reforms from last year. We know that the majority of single pensioners are women—72 per cent of single pensioners. Because of Labor’s changes, those people are $100 a fortnight better off. This is an ongoing program of building better economic security for Australian women across their lives—their working lives and their retirement. These super changes in particular will be super for those women.

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