Terri Butler (Griffith, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker Hastie, I appreciate receiving the call. Elevating the status of women is both a test of our national character and a building block for national prosperity. Australian women continue to face barriers to full, fair and equal access to economic opportunities in the workforce, in their lifetime earnings and in their retirement savings. The latest data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics shows that Australian women are currently earning 17.3 per cent less than men, earning on average $277.70 per week less than men. This gap has barely moved for more than over two decades. Westpac has put the dollar cost of this gender pay gap at $123.4 billion per year. Australian women's earnings peak on average at age 31 when average full-time earnings are about $75,000. By contrast, men's earnings peak closer to age 40 when average earnings have climbed to $91,000.

The percentage of Australian women in full-time paid work is roughly half that of men and has improved by just six percentage points in the past 40 years. It is still the case that only 36.5 per cent of women are in paid full-time work. The underemployment rate for women aged 35 to 44 is more than double the rate for men the same age. Around 14.6 per cent of women in this age group want to work more hours but cannot get them. These facts help to explain why Australian women have an average of $90,000 less in superannuation when they retire and why older women represent one of the fastest-growing cohorts experiencing homelessness. I met one of those women myself last weekend—a woman who was working who could not get enough hours. She was 50, she was divorced and she was couch surfing. It was an absolute shame in a rich country like ours.

The Grattan Institute estimates that, if Australia had the same female workforce participation rate as Canada, Australia's GDP would be about $25 billion higher. The G20 has acknowledged that one of the world's most significant barriers to global economic growth is the persistently low level of women's participation in the workforce compared with men. While hosting the G20 conference in my home town of Brisbane in 2014, this government committed to the G20 target to reduce the gap between women and men's workforce participation rates by 25 per cent by 2025. Accordingly, I ask the minister to respond to some questions about how we are going to meet this gender participation target. To do so, it should be noted that we need to create an additional 300,000 jobs for women.

So I ask the minister: is the government on track to reach the G20 women's workforce participation target? Which agencies are tracking progress toward this target? What arrangements have been put in place to report on this progress to government, parliament and the wider community? What specific steps has the government taken to advance this goal? Why has the government delayed proposed reforms to childcare arrangements which disproportionately benefit women seeking to enter or re-enter the paid workforce?

The government has pitched parts of its superannuation package, particularly the catch-up concessional contributions measure, as helping women achieve a more secure retirement. What evidence or analysis does the government have that women will be the primary beneficiaries of this measure and not well-off men? Is it correct that Treasury has not actually conducted this analysis and has no idea if this will improve lifetime superannuation savings for the majority of women? How many women represented the coalition parties in the 44th Parliament? How many women do so in the 45th Parliament? Could the minister explain how having the lowest number of women sitting on the government benches since 1993—the year that I was in grade 11 at high school—demonstrates a commitment to advancing the participation of women in the economic, social and political life of this country? Thank you very much for the opportunity.

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