Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

Everything the Leader of the Opposition has just said, unsurprisingly, is untrue. First of all, the recession that has been caused in this country has been caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. This is a fact that seems lost on the Leader of the Opposition and the shadow Treasurer. And every time he ignores the impact of COVID-19 on the Australian economy he demonstrates his lack of understanding of the Australian economy. If you want to do this job, there are two things you particularly have to know about. You need to know about economic management, and you need to know about national security—two issues that this Leader of the Opposition has shown no interest in, in his more than 20 years in this place.

But the Leader of the Opposition raises a very important point, and that is the economic opportunities for women in this country. It may come as some surprise to the Leader of the Opposition, but women run small businesses. Women pay tax. Women hire other Australians in their businesses. Women want to drive on safe roads. Women want to go to university, and they want to study science and technology and engineering and maths, like the minister for industry did, becoming an accomplished engineer before she came into this place. They want to get apprenticeships. They want to get traineeships. They want to get jobs. And 60 per cent of the jobs that have come back in measured employment since the pit of the COVID-19 recession have gone to women.

We are on the road to trying to restore the record participation of women that we were able to put in place before the COVID-19 recession hit and the gender pay gap was reduced to its lowest level. And those jobs are coming back for women. But, not content with that, we had in this year's budget the Women's Economic Security Statement. That statement is $240 million of specific initiatives to support women in their businesses, their entrepreneurship, their training and their mentoring support and to increase their participation in the labour force.

But it's not just that. In this budget we have listed Lynparza, the ovarian cancer drug. And I can tell you why we have been able to list so many drugs that support women in this country. It is because we've provisioned for it, we've budgeted for it and we've run an economy that can pay for it. When those opposite were in government, they cut funding to the PPS and they didn't list drugs. The Australian people saw that at the last election, and that's one of the many reasons they decided not to put those opposite on the Treasury benches. We back women, because we're getting women in jobs.

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