Melissa McIntosh (Lindsay, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Mental Health and Suicide Prevention) Share this | Hansard source

From the outset, I note my support for the count workplace Gender Equality Amendment (Closing the Gender Pay Gap) Bill 2023, and that of the opposition. Put simply, the pay for men and women should be equal for those doing the same job with the same qualifications and experience. I didn't think that I would necessarily quote from President Obama, but I do note that way back in 2013-14, in his State of the Union speech, he declared that a woman deserves equal pay for equal work. It's quite extraordinary that even in those times such a declaration needed to be made. But, globally, we have made some progress since then, with women achieving the highest levels in all sorts of occupations.

I can remember my first corporate job, probably more than 20 years ago. I was very ambitious and very young, working really hard. Then one day I was told by my boss that I was earning $20,000 a year less than my male counterpart. We were in the same role, and I have to say that it changed pretty quickly, but it took one boss to make that change. At that time it wasn't an organisational thing to do that. It shouldn't take one boss to stand up for a woman in the workplace; it should just be like that.

I retain that work ethic to this day, and I'll continue to stand up and fight for this cause—and for those right across my community as well—when I meet fantastic women. But your position and your pay shouldn't have anything to do with your gender these days. It's quite extraordinary that we're in 2023 and we are still talking about this, because we've been talking about this for a very long time.

When I was director of the United States Study Centre at the University of Sydney, I ran a women in leadership initiative. At the time, I'd written an op-ed for the ABC on gender equality issues, which might be surprising as well. I was looking back on some notes, and I had written at the time that the global gender pay gap was 23c in the dollar, and now, according to Forbes, it's 17c. At that time, the US government was appointing well-qualified women to top positions. When this occurs it sets a standard, and that standard sets earnings and positively impacts the gender pay gap and does reduce inequality.

The Australian government's Workplace Gender Equality Agency says the national pay gap currently stands at 13.3 per cent. That figure is from November 2022. The average weekly pay for women was $1,653.60, compared to $1,907.10 for men. That's a $253.50 difference, equating to over $13,000 each year. That is an extraordinary amount.

The gender pay gap had improved from the May 2022 to November 2022 period in every sector analysed by the agency except financial services—funnily enough, going back those 20 years, I was working in financial services —administrative services, construction, the arts, mining, utilities and waste services, and accommodation and food services.

As a member in the previous parliament, I was keen to see the recommendations of the coalition government's review of the Workplace Gender Equality Act. The review was an initiative of the former government in 2021, and this bill implements in part or in full the recommendations of that review. I note that the coalition government did publicly agree to implement each of the recommendations and delivered over $18 million to the Workplace Gender Equality Agency to support the implementation of that review. The review was released in March of last year and made a firm conclusion that Australia's gender pay gap was not closing at a fast enough rate. Unfortunately, through 2021 and 2022 there was a stalling of the gender pay gap.

The review considered whether the Workplace Gender Equality Agency had the powers and instruments it needed to assist in making a positive difference to the lives of so many women across Australia by closing the gender pay gap. The review laid out 10 recommendations to ensure the rate at which the gender pay gap could be closed would happen more rapidly to reduce inequality and to reduce certain reporting mechanisms by businesses to the agency. Measures outlined in the bill seek to implement in part or in full the following recommendations from the review. Recommendation 2 was to publish organisation gender pay gaps to accelerate action to close them. I think that's a really good thing. Recommendation 3 was to bridge the 'action gap' with new gender equality standards. Recommendation 5 was to support Respect@Work implementation to prevent and address workplace sex-based harassment and discrimination. Recommendation 9 was to set WGEA up for future success to support employers to drive gender equality in Australian workplaces.

I understand there's been some consultation by government on the bill with key groups, including employee organisations, the business sector, not-for-profit sectors, higher education providers, users of the agency's datasets and the Commonwealth, state and territory government agencies. I note collaboration on the bill with the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the Diversity Council of Australia, the Business Council of Australia, Business and Professional Women and the National Council of Women.

The bill includes six amendments to the Workplace Gender Equality Act 2012, including: requiring the Workplace Gender Equality Agency to publish the gender pay gap information of relevant employers of over 100 people for each reporting period; requiring relevant employers to provide an executive summary and industry benchmark reports to all members of the governing body; renaming the current 'minimum standards' as 'gender equality standards'; including sexual harassment and harassment on the ground of sex or discrimination as gender equality indicators; changing the title of 'director' of the Workplace Gender Equality Agency to the 'chief executive officer'; and a technical amendment to the definition of the reporting period.

I also note the legislation was sent to the Senate Finance and Public Administration Legislation Committee for a short review. I thank my Liberal Party, Labor and Greens colleagues and the committee secretariat for their work on the report, which was recently presented.

I acknowledge the work on this bill and policy by the Liberal Party's deputy leader and shadow minister for women, the honourable member for Farrer. I would also like to make a few comments about the former coalition government's work in the space of women's economic security, safety and health. The previous government led with the review which is informing the amendments in the bill, and previous ministers like Senator Marise Payne, Senator Anne Ruston, Senator Jane Hume and former senator Amanda Stoker were heavily involved.

The coalition government, from 2013 to 2022, had a strong track record of jobs. Around 1.9 million were created, of which 60 per cent were taken up by women. Female workforce participation jumped by 3.5 per cent to a record high of 62.2 per cent, with a similar drop in the gender pay gap since the Rudd and Gillard governments. In the two previous budgets, there was an incredible $5.5 billion to drive women's leadership, safety, workforce participation and health outcomes. Also, let's not forget the almost 300,000 more children in child care, which assisted more women in being able to get back to work. We saw a near doubling of support for families accessing child care to $11 billion this financial year from $6.2 billion at the end of the second Rudd government.

In the 2022 budget, the coalition committed to an additional $1.3 billion to tackle domestic and family violence. Just as a note on that—and I don't like highlighting it, but I also feel like every time I talk about domestic violence I should highlight it—Penrith in my community of Lindsay always, unfortunately, tops the list when it comes to domestic violence in the state of New South Wales. From community organisations to government, we all have a role to play in stopping this. It breaks my heart every time I think about the actual people behind these statistics and I vow that I will do everything I can while I'm in parliament to make a change.

In the 2022 budget, we had that $1.3 billion and we also did some really good work on the mental health challenges that can impact women, particularly girls, very differently to men. We know the impact that social media has on young people. We have seen terrible reports recently about social media and violence to do with young people. I think we as members of parliament should be addressing this quite seriously.

Just as before I wrap up I would like to say that, in the last women's budget statement, the coalition proudly led with further investment in breast screening and funding for outreach of breast cancer services. We also sought to invest in cervical screening and funding for work in reducing pre-term births. A lot of work was done in that time. I would like to acknowledge, again, that it is women that show leadership, like women in this place, and lead by example that inspire young women to take up careers in politics and other traditionally male dominated fields, such as the automotive industry or manufacturing. I know when I go out to my schools I feel really positive about the work that is in place now in schools that certainly wasn't there when I was at school to get more young girls into STEM and having aspirations and beliefs that they can absolutely achieve anything, including going to space. I feel strongly about ensuring we have strong manufacturing industries in this country when it comes to Australia's future in the space industry. I acknowledge that the administrator for NASA was here in Canberra just last week, inspiring a new generation.

The final words I want to say are: we have come some way since the words that I wrote in 2014, but we have a long way to go. I sincerely hope this bill helps us get there.

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