Zoe Daniel (Goldstein, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak today in support of the Jobs and Skills Australia Bill 2022. I support this bill because it will provide a plan and a road map at a time of great challenges, change and opportunity. However, in this context, as I said at the recent Jobs and Skills Summit, I am advocating for direct and achievable actions, particularly when it comes to women in the workforce. At a moment when we have more women in this parliament and indeed on this crossbench than ever before, we must not let this moment slip past with talk and without action. I, for one, will not. Empowering women to work must cut across all legislation, and all policy and legislation forthwith should include a gender impact statement. As I said at the summit, women are done with being secondary. This legislation is highly relevant to this conversation. Jobs and Skills Australia and its commissioner must be laser focused on empowering women to enter the workforce. At a time when we have chronic workforce shortages, there's no better time to finally shift this dial.

The good news is that we know how to do it. The minister says that Jobs and Skills Australia will have an important role in planning, forecasting and developing a pipeline for skilled workers—great. More good news: we already have them. Our women are an untapped resource. As the Grattan Institute's Danielle Wood said at the Jobs and Skills Summit:

I can't help but reflect that if untapped women's workforce participation was a massive ore deposit, we would have governments lining up to give tax concessions to get it out of the ground—

the quote of the year! Women around Australia nodded their heads furiously, I'm sure.

Businesses large and small across my electorate of Goldstein are crying out for staff. So what can we do? The government's childcare measures must be brought forward. If we can afford stage 3 tax cuts, we can afford this. The numbers say that expanded child care would contribute billions to economic growth. These changes to child care, though, must cater for women who do not work nine to five Monday to Friday. Tens of thousands of women cannot access child care due to irregular and short shifts. Government, business and unions need to reach agreement to ensure that major employers upgrade their rostering so that part-time and casual workers know their work hours ahead of time and can plan their care responsibilities. No woman should be left behind. Getting more women working, at their full capacity, is central to a healthy society while improving productivity and, in the current circumstances, alleviating workforce pressures.

Despite all the progress that we've made, women still tend to be the ones who stay home or work part time, because they usually earn less, and when child care is expensive, inflexible or unavailable that becomes the default position. This is not good for fathers, in heterosexual families, either. Traditionally, being the family breadwinner creates a habit in which men find it hard to stay home with the baby, because they commonly have a higher income than their partner. Only true equality will create real choice for men and women in this space.

Highly feminised care industries must be revalued. This means closing the gender wage gap by recognising the importance of their jobs, and then providing cheap, accessible child care and early childhood education so that both women and children—indeed, families—can thrive. Currently, women in feminised industries with a bachelor's degree or a certificate IV earn roughly a third less than men in male dominated industries. This is not because they don't work hard or add just as much value; this is simply a societal mindset issue. And it's time to change it. This is where Jobs and Skills Australia can channel its energy.

Recent data from a partnership between Chief Executive Women and Impact Economics and Policy found that increasing women's participation in the paid workforce would address Australia's current skills shortage and have a long-lasting impact on productivity. The study found that engaging women in paid work at the same rate as men could unlock an additional one million full-time skilled workers. Grattan Institute data also estimates that a six per cent increase in female workforce participation would add $25 billion to Australian GDP. Yet we continue to focus on the cost of child care rather than the blindingly obvious opportunity that is staring us in the face.

There is also the opportunity to enable women to retrain, with subsidised study in mid-life and possibly a study wage to enable families to cover financial commitments while expanding skills. We also need to consider the fact that the current structure of the workforce means many women do not work nine to five and are grappling with short and fragmented shifts that, in many cases, make working more expensive than not working, due to the cost of care.

The sandwich generation, in which women are frequently caring for not only children but also elderly parents, also requires consideration and flexibility to enable women to work while managing their personal responsibilities. Paid parental leave must also be expanded and superannuation paid on it, in order to close the gap between women and men. At the jobs summit I suggested amendments to the Fair Work Act to strengthen an employee's capacity to request flexible arrangements. Currently, a request can be made by an employee but no appeal is available. Women of the sandwich generation are caring for children and elderly parents, and true flexibility is key. There's also a need to improve the unpaid parental leave provisions in the Fair Work Act to make them more flexible and shareable.

Jobs and Skills Australia must also focus on apprenticeships in feminised industries. Apprenticeships are traditionally male dominated. We must not be blind to this. Australia's fashion industry, for example, has had out-sized success overseas. Foster it. Women should get a fair crack at apprenticeships, if that is a focus of this government.

We must also develop a strategy now to channel girls and women into the industries that will emerge from the coming renewables revolution. If we don't, we'll have yet another trades based sector that is neither attractive nor, indeed, safe for women. We need our girls talking about working in renewable energy and climate risk mitigation industries with their parents around the dinner table. We need these discussions happening in schools from an early age. Girls care about climate and they want to do something. It's incumbent on us and Jobs and Skills Australia to foster those girls.

I will say this: we must equalise the conversation that often focuses on hard infrastructure like roads and bridges and shift our gaze to our growing service industries, the biggest growth areas of our economy.

I also placed on the jobs summit agenda pay gap transparency, and I was pleased to see it included in the summit communique. This is a space for Jobs and Skills Australia to administer and monitor performance reporting for employers, public and private. Transparency on performance on the gender pay gap, women in leadership and workforce flexibility is appropriate. This transparency has led to substantial pay gap reductions in other countries. In Denmark, for example, this simple measure led to a 13 per cent increase in women's wages. This is a no-cost measure that creates natural competition between organisations, public and private. In my view, it should be led by the Commonwealth Public Service as a leader of best practice.

I close by saying that lip-service has been paid to equality and safety for women. That is a big part of why I'm standing here. This representation deserves and requires substantive action. I look forward to Jobs and Skills Australia delivering on this. Rest assured that I will remain the squeaky wheel throughout my time in this parliament as an advocate for the empowerment of women and girls.

See this speech in context