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

Thank you, I was getting to that. We made changes to the stage 3 tax cuts that were going to see workers under $45,000 getting absolutely nothing. We have changed that to ensure that they do now get a tax cut. They are predominantly women who work in child care, disability and aged care. They are nurses and teachers in highly feminised professions, and we are making sure that they actually earn more and then get to keep more of what they own.

Yesterday, of course, we delivered our commitment to increase the paid parental leave scheme to 22 weeks, a really important reform to paid parental leave. But we're also making sure that we're paying superannuation on paid parental leave, and that will have a huge impact on women's retirement incomes in the years ahead, something I'm very proud of, on this side of the House. We've also ensured that we have the award wages increase, with 2.6 million Australians benefiting from wages increases. Again, these are some of the lowest paid workers in this country, predominantly women. And, of course, we are increasing superannuation overall, which will also assist women to make sure that they've got retirement incomes. We are delivering energy bill relief, freezing the cost of PBS medicines, making sure bulk billing is going up so people can afford to see a doctor and getting a fairer deal for consumers at the supermarket checkout. Women's equality is a central driver of everything that we do on this side of the House, something of which I'm very proud.

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