Sharon Claydon (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

YDON (—) (): What an honour it is to rise to speak on this ministerial statement regarding the World Economic Forum Global gender gap report rankings. It should be no surprise to anyone in this House that I, and also all of the Labor women who stand behind me and who have made such terrific contributions today, would want to speak to this, because this is what Labor women do.

The latest gender pay gap report from the World Economic Forum shows that we have so much to celebrate. It shows that, since the election of an Albanese Labor government just 12 months ago, Australia's world gender equality ranking has jumped a very impressive 17 places. From what was an all-time record low for Australia 12 months ago under the former government, when we were positioned at 43 on those world rankings, we have jumped 17 places, up to 26, the largest increase since the index began in 2006.

In no small part, that jump is due to Labor's steadfast commitment to gender-equal representation in politics. This is not some woke new agenda we've just cottoned onto here; this is a project that has been at the heart of Labor's work for three decades. That is why we stand before you—three women; there are two with me in this chamber now. For the first time in Australia's history since Federation in 1901, the Australian parliament has a government that is a majority of women. It is by no accident that this happens. To those opposite, if you still think that there isn't a role to play around rule changes in your party rooms and having a very conscious program for addressing the inequities that exist in political representation in many parts of this country, then you are kidding yourselves.

The global gender pay gap index is something that annually benchmarks the current state and evolution of gender parity across four really key dimensions. I've just spoken about the amazing work that we've done in terms of political empowerment for Australian women. But there are also the economic participation and opportunities that are assessed in these rankings, along with educational attainment, health and survival—all critical parts for quality of life by anyone's measures. As I said, our ranking has improved out of sight in the field of political empowerment and, importantly, is not going backwards in any of those other measures.

Our government is the first in this Commonwealth's history to have a majority of women. The number of women in cabinet is 10 out of 23, the largest number of women ever in an Australian federal cabinet. Women make up the vast majority of the Australian Senate—let's not forget that other house. Labor's commitments to gender-equal representation in politics have seen our rankings jump from 50th in 2022 to 29th in 2023. What a difference 12 months makes. This is no accident; it's the result of hard, deliberate, conscious and purposeful action. It is because of this commitment that our global ranking on the women-in-parliament indicator has jumped up from 48th position to 38th position. When it comes to women in ministerial positions, Australia is now ranked 19th, up from a measly 62nd. We were ranked 62nd in the world for ministerial positions for women. Twelve months later, after the election of a Labor government, we ranked 19th in the world. What a great result. We should be celebrating that. Having 53 per cent women in an Albanese Labor government ensures that gender is no add-on for us; it sits at the centre of everything we do.

The World Economic Forum knows that better gender representation leads to better outcomes. We've known that for a long time. When women are in the room, we are part of the decision-making. Make no mistake; we are participating at every step along the journey—every step. When it comes to reflecting on some of Labor's progress, I think of the very first woman to serve in the portfolio of the status of women, Labor's Susan Ryan. She was elected and took up the position in 1984. Susan Ryan started the practice of having a women's budget statement. Again, it was hard fought. When we reflect on that journey since 1984, Australia led the world in gender-responsive budgeting practices. It meant that we were conscious of what we were spending and how that was distributed and we were measuring the outcomes of that. Then there was a little glitch in the program back in 2014, a year after I had just been elected—the then Prime Minister Tony Abbott decided he'd make himself the Minister for Women. We were all pretty excited about that! And then he decided he'd scrap the gender budgeting process because Australia didn't need that anymore. Well, we saw the results of that. We slipped down those rankings because nobody in the coalition bothered to keep an eye on progress—or, as the case turned out, decline—over those years. Again it was left to a Labor government to clean up what had been an appalling track record for Australian women since 2014.

When we entered government, we started to see progress. The Australian Bureau of Statistics figures released just last June showed that, since the Albanese Labor government came to power, women's total employment has gone up by 249,000 women; 233,500 women have joined the labour force; women's part-time work has increased by 20,500 women; women's full-time jobs have boomed, increasing by 228,600 women; and women have accounted for 59.3 per cent of the growth in full-time jobs. That is good news for Australian women, because we know the importance of having employment security as well.

The gender pay gap is persisting across all industries, but progress to close that pay gap has typically been uneven and terribly slow in Australia. We are, again, acting on that front, because we say that women who work full time and somehow end up earning $253.50 less per week than a man doing a full-time job is unacceptable. I don't know whether that is by anyone's measure regarded as being okay. It's not good enough. Women should not be paid less than men, and it's really that simple. The Albanese Labor government is taking decisive action on this issue to close the gender pay gap, progressing gender equality and improving women's economic security through the passage of the Secure Jobs, Better Pay legislation.

We have made sure that we are enabling bargaining to open up for workers in low-paid industries that are most likely to be female dominated. We have seen the amazing difference it makes to everyday lives when you increase the pay of the lowest-paid workers, like our aged-care workers, who just got a 15 per cent pay increase recently. And let's not kid ourselves; we know it is women who are in those low-paid, insecure jobs.

It's terrific to see the expansion and modernising of the Paid Parental Leave scheme under the Labor government as well. This will expand an employee's entitlement to flexible unpaid leave from 30 days to 100 days, ensuring that from 1 July this year employees can use their government funded paid parental leave more flexibly. That is a great outcome.

We have progressed on Respect@Work. We've expanded single parenting payments. We've got Australia's first-ever paid domestic and family violence leave. There is so much that we have done. There is still so much to achieve. We will never sit back and rest on our laurels. Labor promised to make Australia a world leader in gender equality again, and that's exactly what we are doing.

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