Ms Catherine King (Ballarat, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Canberra very much for her question and for her continuous advocacy for policies that benefit Australian women.

In just a little over three months Labor's tax cuts for all Australians will be delivered, helping with the cost of living for all taxpayers but particularly for women. Our plan will see Australian women taxpayers on average receive a tax cut of $1,649 from 1 July, and it will see a bigger tax cut for 90 per cent of Australian women taxpayers, who will receive an additional average tax cut of $707. That's 5.8 million women receiving a bigger tax cut. And that matters. It matters that we have women in the room making those decisions to ensure that we have these policies that actually benefit Australia's women. That tax cut equates to a boost of over 630,000 additional hours per week worked by women.

That is what happens when women sit around the cabinet table, when women are preselected and when women are in the majority in the party room. Delivering for women is in Labor's DNA. That's why we've delivered paid parental leave reforms. It's why we're so focused on closing the gender pay gap across Australia. It's why we want women's retirement income, making sure superannuation is paid on paid parental leave so that women's retirement incomes are not affected by their time out of the workforce having children. These things matter. All of these things are issues that the Liberal and National parties have been, frankly, absolutely incapable of doing. You have to wonder if that is because of their inability to preselect women and have women in the party room.

Senator Hume—

An honourable member: Do you think two is a big number?

Two is a big number.

See this speech in context