Sharryn Jackson (Hasluck, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On behalf of the Standing Committee on Employment and Workplace Relations, I present the committee’s report, incorporating a dissenting report, entitled Making it fair: pay equity and associated issues related to increasing female participation in the workforce, together with the minutes of proceedings and evidence received by the committee.

Ordered that the report be made a parliamentary paper.

Pay equity or the lack of it was one of the issues that sparked my interest in politics and social justice. As a young woman I was outraged that someone could or would be paid less for their work because of their gender.

It angers me that over 30 years later, despite some progress, this is still the case. Sadly, the average industry gender pay gap still stands around 17 per cent today.

Many Australians are unaware of the existence of a ‘pay gap’ between men and women’s earnings. Evidence to the inquiry has shown that once people become aware of the pay gap most believe that it should be addressed.

Australian women have much to celebrate. They have achieved high public office. Women are CEOs, business and community leaders, Nobel Laureates, academics, parliamentarians, local councillors, sporting heroes as well as mothers, sisters and partners.

Australian women have more choices about their lives, their studies, their careers, their families and how they chose to live them than ever before.

However, in the business sector women represent less than two per cent of our CEOs and chair only two per cent of our top 200 ASX companies. Women are more likely to be employed in low-paying jobs with little or no career paths and are more likely to be employed as casuals and part-time workers.

Women have not fared as well as men in enterprise bargaining or under systems of individual contracts.

Women miss out on the opportunity to accumulate superannuation because of interruptions to paid employment for family reasons (to have and care for children) compounded by lower pay, and are more likely to be dependent on pensions in retirement.

This is not good enough and the time to act is now.

Some will say that we should wait; for what I am not sure—divine intervention? It is 40 years since equal pay was granted by the Australian Conciliation and Arbitration Commission. Haven’t Australian women been waiting long enough?

Australia should take a proactive approach to address the gender pay gap. Increasing women’s participation in the workforce will lead to increases in productivity for the nation. Perhaps we should ask: how can Australia afford not to do it?

Education campaigns promoting community and business awareness of pay inequity alone do not work. We have tried that and the pay gap has widened.

At the heart of the gender pay gap is the failure to truly value traditional women’s work—paid or unpaid.

To continue to undervalue women’s work is simply not just. It is difficult to think of any other policy equivalent that clearly disadvantages such a large class of Australians that we do not rush to correct.

This report sets out a scheme to act to close the gender pay gap. It includes proposed amendments to the Fair Work Act 2009, greater powers for the Sex Discrimination Commissioner to act on wage discrimination and the establishment of a specialist pay equity unit within Fair Work Australia with a broad mandate for change.

We have called for change in other policy areas such as the removal of the $450 per month earnings requirement in compulsory superannuation and the implementation of comprehensive portability of employment entitlements legislation.

Evidence from the private sector provided examples of best practice and the benefits for companies in addressing pay equity issues within their organisation. We have avoided creating regular reporting obligations for small and medium enterprises as we recognise the burden that red tape has on this sector. There should be no requirement for small businesses to supply information already collected by government agencies. Requirements from small business should be confined to one-off reporting and only when it has been established that there are significant issues within that industry. We have also reduced the existing reporting requirements for larger companies. However, those large companies that have been shirking there responsibility will no longer be able to do this.

We acknowledge there are significant gaps in the data available for collection and research into pay equity and other issues affecting women’s participation in the workforce. In particular we have recommended the introduction of an Australian industrial relations survey. This improved data is necessary for more effective and strategic policy decision making.

We have also recommended that the Australian government provide leadership by acting on pay inequity within the Australian Public Service as well as applying pay equity principles in all its administrative approaches. The Australian government’s decision to deliver paid parental leave in this year’s budget was a welcome reform and there are also reviews into taxation and childcare policies, all of which will help break down the barriers to greater workforce participation by women.

The minister has also recently announced that the Australian government will be a participant in an important pay equity test case for employees in the social and community services sector. I applaud this decision.

I want to thank the members of the committee and especially the committee secretariat for their hard work and participation in the inquiry. It has been a long but worthwhile journey for all of us.

I commend the report to the House. (Time expired)

Barry Haase (Kalgoorlie, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Roads and Transport) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On behalf of the coalition members I thank the secretariat of the Standing Committee on Employment and Workplace Relations for their efforts in assisting the committee in the publication of the report Making it fair: pay equity and associated issues related to increasing female participation in the workforce. The coalition accepts the motivation for the inquiry and many of the recommendations of this report. However, we cannot entirely endorse it because we believe there are other factors of significance that have not been detailed. We were disappointed by the lack of private enterprise evidence presented to the inquiry and, therefore, these recommendations should be considered as some of the stepping stones for future reform.

The majority of evidence adduced from this report has been from organisations, individuals and groups who are more likely to be aware of and able to enforce gender pay equity, sectors that in one form or another are supported or funded by state and/or federal governments. Very little evidence has come from the private sector, which will also be directly affected if this report is adopted, and as such the recommendations should first be applied to public sector agencies to measure their impact. The costs associated with the implementation of these recommendations are currently unquantifiable and must not be imposed on the private sector until the ramifications of such adaptations are known. Without a cost-and-benefit analysis of these recommendations being undertaken, we are at risk of imposing processes that may in fact further disadvantage women from either entering or remaining in the workforce.

The Fair Work Act 2009 is in its infancy and, as a number of recommendations are focused on changes to this act, the coalition is mindful of endorsing measures that alter the aspirations, processes and results of legislation that has not yet been fully implemented and suitably tested. This report will not revolutionise the female workforce and I believe the issues that dominate this inquiry do not address the major factor in gender pay equity. I deem the dominating factor to be the mindset of Australian society and until such time as Australians as a whole change their beliefs in relation to the role females have traditionally held in society the gender pay issue will never be solved. We have a cultural hurdle to overcome that women are the primary care givers and are expected to be the bosom of our society. The Australian vernacular terms of ‘stay at home mothers’ and ‘working mothers’ are firmly embedded in our language and therefore our culture. You may on occasion hear the term ‘stay at home father’, but I have never heard the term ‘working father’ bandied around and there lies the difference in attitudes towards men and women in Australia. This will always negatively affect female earnings, participation and conditions as opposed to their male counterparts.

The test we use today examines the working life earnings, including superannuation, accumulated by a female employee compared to that of a male. Whilst women are the primary care providers, time spent in the workplace will always be less than their male counterparts. The singular change to the workplace that will increase participation is the provision of at-work childcare facilities for children and the formal support by government of after school supervision and mentoring facilities. The staffing and resources generally of such services will be a huge financial impost, and this will necessitate support or compensation from the government of the day.

I once again thank the members of the secretariat: specifically, secretary, Dr Glenn Worthington; inquiry secretary, Ms Cheryl Scarlett; senior research officer, Mr Raymond Knight; and office manager, Mr Daniel Miletic. (Time expired)

Peter Slipper (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Does the member for Hasluck wish to move a motion in connection with the report to enable it to be debated on a future occasion?

Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the House take note of the report.

In accordance with standing order 39, the debate is adjourned. The resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting.