Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party, Shadow Minister for International Development and the Pacific) Share this | Hansard source

by leave—Yesterday, when I opened my contribution to this, I quoted my daughter's Facebook page, in which she quoted that famous women's empowerment line:

Here's to strong women. May we know them. May we be them. May we raise them.

Indeed, we want to have strong women. We want to have women, be they strong or whatever, getting the same pay for the same job, and that is why the Workplace Gender Equality Amendment (Closing the Gender Pay Gap) Bill 2023 is important. It is important for any number of reasons but mostly for equity, for equality and for fairness. The parliament should always be about equity, equality and fairness.

No technical change, as I said last night, is required of employers in terms of reporting processes, and that is important because we do not want to have a burden placed on businesses already doing it tough with red tape, doing it tough with changing legislation. Presently, organisations with more than 100 employees must provide remuneration data to the Workplace Gender Equality Agency. The main change is to allow the WGEA to publish this data publicly by organisation as opposed to just industry type. It is vital to note that businesses in Australia were first required to report this data to the WGEA under this act from New Year's Day 2013. The reporting requirements for businesses are nothing new.

This is a set of reforms that, had we been in government, we would be introducing, as we committed to implementing it. We provided $18½ million in funding to ensure these steps could and would be taken, and we proudly take ownership of these reforms.

I know that often a lot is made about the other side being pure in spirit and sometimes us being not so—for reasons unknown to me! But we did provide that funding and we did commit to making these changes. That's why, obviously, we support this. We have a longstanding track record of achievement in reducing the gender pay gap, as well as in boosting workforce participation by women to record highs. In fact we only have to look at the record of the former federal coalition government: 815,600 female business operators as at August 2021. We have to remember that that was at the height—or maybe 'depth' would be a better word—of the global pandemic, the COVID-19 virus, when it was so hard for small businesses. This was despite that.

I still remember the news of the first death from COVID-19, James Kwan, on 1 March 2020 and the rippling effect that had, not just on those who sat around the table and implemented the measures by which we were going to combat the effects of the virus as a nation but indeed right throughout the nation. The JobKeeper measures, brought in so brilliantly by the former member for Kooyong, saved 700,000 jobs and 11½ million Australians benefited from tax relief. Many of those jobs, and much of that tax relief, were about women. You could almost argue that most were women.

We were proud, and still are, of our achievements for women in the workplace. At the time we had eight women in cabinet, and that was the most ever. I know that a lot is made by those opposite about the number they have in the parliament—and, good on them: we need more women in parliament, and I acknowledge the two women sitting opposite me now. At the time, 50.2 per cent of government board positions were held by women. Here's an interesting statistic: more than half of the government board positions under us were held by women, and that was up from 41.7 per cent under Labor prior to 2013. That's something that I think we should be proud of, and it's something that we are proud of. The fact is that we increased that number. I know that the media makes a lot of play about female participation and the numbers of females with those opposite, sitting in the parliament and on the front bench, but our achievement is something that we should be very proud of.

I just want to talk about the wonderful women that I, as the Deputy Prime Minister and the Minister for Infrastructure and Regional Development, gave powerful positions to. That was not because I just wanted to do it as a tokenistic measure but because they earned those jobs. They deserved those jobs and they will continue to make a huge contribution to our society. I'll mention Julieanne Alroe, who was chair of Infrastructure Australia, and the role that she played in that important position. Pip Spence continues to be an outstanding chief executive officer and Director of Aviation Safety with the Civil Aviation Safety Authority. And Romilly Madew was the chief executive officer at Infrastructure Australia. Those are three dynamic, vibrant women—can-do females who will continue to make and take bold, brave and good decisions to help Australia be its best self. As I understand it, they were the first females to occupy those three positions that I mentioned. I gave them those roles, and I gave them those roles because they deserved them—they earned them. But if we take the clock back 10 or 15 years, perhaps those three leaders would not have got those positions because of the glass ceiling which, unfortunately, existed back then.

We can look at someone like Lea Vesic, who is taking great strides in aviation. Aviation has been—some might argue continues to be—a very male-dominated sector, particularly at the highest levels. I am proud of what Ms Spence has done but what Lea Vesic, who is running an airline pilot academy in Melbourne, has done for female participation in aviation is second to none, getting women not only behind the controls of planes but also doing jobs on the tarmac, doing jobs in airport terminals, doing jobs in aviation. Lea was my aviation adviser when I was the transport minister and did a marvellous job, and I wish her all the best for the future.

This is another coalition record: 90 per cent of families had access to a childcare subsidy of between 50 and 85 per cent. That was our record and is a record of which we are very proud. In 2021, the coalition government commissioned a review of the Workplace Gender Equality Act. In 2022, in the women's budget statement, the coalition also provided, as I said before, $18½ million dollars to the Workplace Gender Equality Agency to support the implementation of recommendations from that particular review. It is interesting if you look at that review, which was released in March 2022. It concluded that the gender pay gap in Australia was not closing at a fast enough rate. Almost similarly, we are taking great strides and making great progress in closing the gap for the Indigenous population but we need to do better in this regard too. I stand here and admit that. Whilst there has been a lot of work in progressing women's economic equality in Australia, there has also been slow progress on closing the gender pay gap, with progress stalling at 22.8 per cent in 2021 and 2022.

Women's superannuation is often talked about by members on both sides. This is difficult because women, obviously, sometimes—in the past certainly—have been the major caregivers in a family, often during those years where a male—generally—really gets that superannuation lump sum increased. The women in the past haven't had that opportunity because of the fact that they have taken leave from work—in some cases unpaid—to have children, to raise them and to rear them.

I know we have come a long way. My mother, Beverley Shaw, a wonderful woman, often tells me about how in the past the moment women got married or, in some cases, fell pregnant, that was it; they were then required to step down from the workplace. She tells horrendous stories about women having to go to their male boss to get a key just to go to the toilet. I mean, that is extraordinary. But the work she has done in Wagga Wagga as a marriage celebrant and, perhaps more importantly, as the person who officiates at funeral services, has been very well received. I and our city thank her for her efforts.

After the coalition came to government in 2013, we created around 1.9 million jobs. Around 60 per cent of these went to women. Female workforce participation was around record highs at 62.2 per cent when we left government. That is compared to 58.7 per cent when we took government in 2013. The gender pay gap reached 13.8 per cent under the coalition, down from the 17.4 per cent it sat at under the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd years. We delivered landmark funding—$5½ billion dollars for women through our two women's budget statements. That is a good record and that is a record that won't be shouted from the rooftops because everything, it seems, that we did, certainly under the Morrison years, has been demonised and condemned.

But let me tell you that I steadfastly maintain that we were a good government. We helped women. Could we have done better? Yes, of course we could have. Could the Albanese government do better? Yes, of course it could. Let's hope it will. Let's hope this bill is part of the way that we can continue to further progress women's participation in the economy and close the gender pay gap. I thank those brave, bold and visionary women who do so much for our economy and so much for our communities and our families.

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