Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Hansard source

but maybe I shouldn't be surprised, given what Senator Canavan had to say. I do, as the Prime Minister said, single out the fact the Deputy Leader of the Opposition came out yesterday in a media conference saying, 'I reject all those comments.' Then this morning, in an interview with Patricia Karvelas, who asked, 'Why do you disagree?' he gave it straight and just said: 'Because they're wrong. I'm taking this issue seriously.' You would have thought, on an issue as important as the gender pay gap, it wouldn't only be the Deputy Leader of the Opposition who was taking the issue seriously and calling out the comments of Senator Canavan, but there was not one word from the Leader of the Opposition in response to the extraordinary comments from Senator Canavan.

We have a situation where the gender pay gap is the lowest it has ever been. Unequivocally, this side of the House says, 'That is a good thing.' We have a situation where wages are now growing at roughly double the rate they did under those opposite, and, unequivocally, we say, 'That is a good thing.' We said we would get wages moving. We said we'd lower the gender pay gap. What we said would happen with wages is occurring, and that is a good thing.

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