Michelle Ananda-Rajah (Higgins, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That this House:

(1) notes that:

(a) the social, economic and health disadvantages that women experience are the consequence of interacting and intersectional factors that entrench gender inequality;

(b) these factors result in less income over the course of a woman's life, fewer assets including superannuation, and greater vulnerability following trauma, such as relationship breakdown;

(c) the economic trade off associated with motherhood was overlooked by successive Coalition Governments who failed to introduce reforms that improved women's economic equality; and

(d) insecure work thrived during the former Government's era, disproportionately affecting women who fell further behind under the pressures of the COVID-19 pandemic, contributing to their attrition from the care and knowledge economies; and

(2) acknowledges that the Government has a suite of measures crafted in consultation with stakeholders and informed by record representation of women in its ranks—these measures include but are not limited to:

(a) cheaper childcare;

(b) addressing gender pay equity;

(c) greater representation of women in key decision-making positions; and

(d) addressing sexual harassment in the workplace.

I am pleased to move this motion. Gender equity is core business to me and to the Albanese government; however, for too long it has been seen as something of a utopian goal. The World Economic Forum, not known for its hyperbole, states in their 2022 Global gender gap report that it will take 130 years to close the global gender gap. The good news is that this is actually an improvement on 2021, when the gap was 136 years.

So how are we doing? Australia is 43 out of 146 countries, while New Zealand is fourth. Why such a disparity? What happened? A decade of neglect, where women were de-prioritised by those opposite—that's what happened. Then came a public health crisis that kicked women when they were already down on one knee. They did the double shift, juggling carer and home duties, driving themselves to exhaustion. And for what reward? Precious little, it seems, according to Australia's gender equality agency, who last year declared that it would take 26 years for the full-time gender pay gap to close. Fantastic. A quarter of a century. Why did this not make headlines? The clue is in the fine print. They said that the gender pay gap for executives could close in the next decade, but in that time workers in feminised industries like the care and community sector may not see a change, if ever.

All of this translates to a gender pay gap of 14.1 per cent—likely an underestimate—that has been stubbornly resistant to change. Being on average $263 per week less, it has an outsized impact over a lifetime. Less pay means fewer assets, less super, and less resilience to shocks like relationship breakdown or trauma or a global pandemic. Not fixing gender equity has meant women over the age of 55 are the fastest-growing group who are becoming homeless, and domestic violence is the No. 1 reason for that.

What did successive coalition governments do? Clearly not enough. They failed to address the growing pressures on women, like ballooning childcare costs or inflexible workplaces, and allowed insecure work, which disproportionately affects women, to thrive like a toxic weed. Well, we are the weed killers. The Albanese government is intent on hardwiring gender equity into work and our societal culture by zeroing in on two things: pay equity and representation. This program is backed by record representation of women in our ranks; at 52 per cent, it is the highest in Commonwealth government history.

The measures are the largest investment—$4.7 billion—in early childhood education and care. We are expanding paid parental leave, which was originally introduced by the Gillard government, by up to 26 weeks by July 2026. With use-it-or lose-it provisions, this reform challenges norms that stereotype men as breadwinners and women as caregivers. We are introducing IR reforms that aim to promote job security, close the gender gap and stimulate wage growth, with the main beneficiaries being the feminised industries. It means outlawing pay secrecy clauses, limiting the use of rolling fixed-term contracts that lock women into precarity, and improving access to flexibility in the workplace. We will be making gender pay equity an object of the Fair Work Commission, backed by two expert panels focused on pay equity and the care economy. We are not forgetting our knowledge workers. We are making gender pay parity an object of peak research bodies like the National Health and Medical Research Council. I was a recipient of one of those scholarships once upon a time.

We are tackling sexual harassment and victimisation in the workplace by implementing all the recommendations of the Respect@Work report. On housing, an estimated 4,000 homes from the $10 billion Housing Australia Future Fund will be allocated to women and children fleeing domestic violence. Our recently formed Women's Economic Equality Taskforce, comprising 13 eminent women, is currently providing independent advice to the government on improving gender equity. We will also compel businesses with 100 or more employees to report on their gender pay gap, because transparency is a great motivator.

Finally, we are increasing women's representation in prominent public office, including the High Court, the Climate Change Authority, the Ambassador for Climate Change and the Domestic, Family and Sexual Violence Commissioner because you can't be what you can't see.

After a decade of indifference and inertia, the Australian people have blasted the cobwebs off this House. They understand that when we lift women up we lift up our nation. When we fail women, we all fail.

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