James Stevens (Sturt, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I too rise to speak in support of the Workplace Gender Equality Amendment (Closing the Gender Pay Gap) Bill 2023 and absolutely welcome the opportunity to take important steps forward when it comes to closing the gender pay gap. To begin with, I commend the contribution of the Deputy Leader of the Opposition, who was, of course, the lead speaker for the coalition on this bill earlier today in the House. Many speakers have shared some important experiences that they have had as far as inequitable treatment in the workplace goes, and the deputy leader reflected on some of the experiences from early in her career. Those were important to listen to and reflect on, because it's always very helpful to have that kind of informed personal experience to contribute to discussions on bills such as this.

Of course, this is a bill that has support from all sides of the chamber. It comes out of a review that commenced in 2021, and I think it is going to bring some important transparency to the issue of businesses of a certain size or greater that are now going to have this requirement to report on—and therefore have some scrutiny of—the situation of the gender pay gap in their businesses.

We know the statistics about the gap as it is now, and it has been even worse in the past. We see this as an opportunity to improve upon the statistics and hope that for businesses—while many, I'm sure have been making good progress in this area—this will add an additional level of incentive to make sure that they are very seriously looking at what issues are contributing in their business to a gender pay gap, if one exists. We know, of course, based on the industry-wide statistics and the national statistics that clearly that is probably the case in the vast majority of businesses. We also look very closely at the Public Service and what we in the different levels of government do. In my personal experience with the Public Service, I think the Public Service has been a commendable employer when it comes to improving and eliminating the gender pay gap.

I think we need to be really nimble in this debate, and once this legislation is enacted and we see it working. There were some stakeholders who didn't not support the bill but just had some hesitation around privacy issues to do with this sort of reporting. I think that those are addressed in the bill, but we might want to ensure that through regulation and the like that people's privacy is not inadvertently breached. I don't anticipate that, but I think we should look very closely at that and ensure that we monitor this as we see it implemented and make sure there aren't any unintended consequences. But, as I say, I don't foreshadow that. I expect that there will not be those issues. We hope that this will be the next step. We've come a long way, but there's still a long way to go.

I was particularly pleased to speak on other legislation that has been through the parliament in previous months and that I think will provide important tools in addressing the gender pay gap. Those are areas that have further to go. Paid parental leave is obviously something that is very important, and so is child care. We on the side are particularly concerned about child care and the equity of access to child care. Whilst the government has undertaken reform in child care, there is nothing to address the childcare deserts that occur, particularly in regional areas and regional electorates. We would like the government to look very closely at that.

I am also very interested in looking at issues around tax deductibility for child care, and giving more flexibility to parents, depending on their situations. We obviously want a really good universal system—and it is not universal for the reasons I just outlined—but we in the coalition also believe in flexibility and giving people as much flexibility as possible to make their own arrangements and not have their decision-making overly skewed by what the government does and doesn't let them do to provide for the child care of their children. Tax deductibility is something that I think is well worth looking at closely, as an option on top of the current scheme that exists for a tapered subsidy. Certain people in certain income brackets may want to make choices or can't get access to the subsidy because of means testing. Child care, I think, is worthy of being considered as a deductible expense in the course of earning your assessable income. I think that's very relevant to this debate because I think it's equally as important that high-income-earning women have no disadvantage, the same as the population at large, when it comes to managing how to balance the raising of a family and not having an unfair cost to your career. I certainly know in my own family's circumstances and those of friends and from what constituents raise with me that there is a gap there, where high-income-earning couples have enormous costs to meet around child care. It's not a deductible expense on your assessable income. That is something that I think we should consider looking at. I think that would be very relevant to what this bill is about, which is addressing the gender pay gap. I think that anything we can do to provide flexibility in the workplace and give more options in the workplace when undertaking the delicate balance that occurs around progressing a career and managing family responsibilities is a good thing.

I think it is excellent that culturally we have changed so much, particularly in the last 10 or 15 years. In the period of my adult life, I have noticed that there is much more equitable burden sharing around family responsibilities. I have a lot of friends where that has been very clear in the way in which they share the responsibilities when it comes to starting a family, raising children and not having those old attitudes that expect the man to prioritise his career and the woman to prioritise responsibilities of the family and children in particular. We live in a much more equitable and shared era now, and that is a good thing. I think that culturally that is something that is well and truly engrained in this country now, and we want to see that continue into the future.

I think it's always good to improve our awareness of challenges. This is a bill that is going to ensure we have more transparency around this challenge. I think the more information we as policymakers have access to the more we therefore have a greater ability to look for an opportunity to continue to drive reform.

I will close on this. I think we have made progress that we should not dismiss, but we still have a long way to go. I think that this is a bill that can be used to help us continue to progress further in making sure that we close the gender pay gap, get rid of it entirely. Hopefully in a few years time we will be considering some of these measures and looking at their success and reflecting very proudly on days like today when we have come together in unity as a parliament to work together on addressing something that we all agree is a very important priority in this country. I strongly commend the bill to the House.

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