David Feeney (Batman, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Justice) Share this | Hansard source

It is a pleasure to rise in support of the Fair Work Amendment (Protecting Take Home Pay) Bill 2017, which protects the take-home pay of some of our lowest paid workers. There are over 11,000 people in my community of Batman who work in the retail and hospitality industries. While the economic arguments for cutting penalty rates remain nonexistent, the case for their retention is clear. Penalty rates are essential for low-paid workers in Australia to keep the lights on and to keep food on the table. Penalty rates also recognise the sacrifice weekend workers make by giving up time with their families.

Today, however, I would like to speak on an aspect of this debate that I think deserves greater attention—the disproportionate impact that penalty rate cuts will have on women and what that means for gender equality in Australia. Acknowledging the gender aspect of this issue is important because it not only demonstrates the cruelty of these cuts but is also symptomatic of this government wilfully ignoring gender equality in its policy-making process.

Experts have warned that the Turnbull government's decision to allow penalty rate cuts to proceed will have a disproportionate and negative impact on women in our society. Marian Baird from the University of Sydney states that 54 per cent of employees in the hospitality and retail sectors—the sectors most affected by these cuts to penalty rates—are women. She notes that, for many women, working on weekends is their only option because conventional career work on weekdays is too inflexible for them and there is no child care. When we talk about the gender pay gap, we must recognise this refers not only to the difference in pay between men and women in the same positions but also to the fact that industries with disproportionately large female workforces are often the lowest paid. When you attack the lowest-paid workers in this country, you are disproportionately attacking women, and, in particular, young women. For example, Marie Coleman from the National Foundation for Australian Women notes that penalty rate cuts are a 'fair smash at younger women and female-headed families'. A policy that disproportionately and negatively impacts young women and female-headed households is, by its nature, contributing to gender inequality in Australia. For the Turnbull government to gleefully ignore this fact is shameful.

Marie Coleman has also raised an important point about the broader policy setting in which these cuts to penalty rates are taking place. These cuts are coming at a time when the Turnbull government's broader budget policy package is introducing measures that, when combined, hit women very hard indeed. A recent analysis by the National Foundation for Australian Women found that changes to the Medicare levy, the student loans repayments and the family tax benefit contained in the budget could lead to an effective marginal tax rate of 100 per cent, or even more for some women. Effective marginal tax rates measure the proportion of additional dollar earnings that are lost to both income tax and the reduction of means-tested government payments. Lower-paid graduates with a family will be the ones caught between these Turnbull government policies, to their severe detriment. Under these combined policies, a graduate earning $51,000—the majority of whom are likely to be women—will have less disposable income than someone on $32,000. So much for encouraging women to join our workforce!

When my colleague the member for Jagajaga asked the Prime Minister about this unfair policy setting, the Prime Minister not only sought to undermine the study, despite obviously having never read it, but proceeded to say that his policies were fair and equitable and that he was getting the balance right. This statement by the Prime Minister goes to the very heart of this issue. Just as the Prime Minister chose to brush aside the member for Jagajaga's question, this government has chosen to brush aside deeper issues of gender inequality in Australian society. When policy development occurs in a vacuum with little reference to the lives of real Australians, the cumulative impact can be disastrous. If we are serious about addressing gender inequality in Australia, policy development—in particular, those policies relating to the welfare of the workforce—needs to also be considered through a gender lens. Labor has for many years undertaken to prepare a women's budget statement to look specifically at the impact of the budget on women. The coalition has refused to follow Labor's lead. The bill before the House right now offers those opposite and crossbenchers an opportunity to protect our lowest-paid workers and to demonstrate our shared commitment to gender equality. I urge every member of this House to take this opportunity.

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