Gai Brodtmann (Canberra, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Time is running out. Under this out-of-touch Prime Minister, under this out-of-touch government, in just 10 days time, millionaires will get a tax cut, and, in just 10 days time, 700,000 Australian workers right across the nation—13,000 of them here in Canberra—will get a pay cut. Mark the difference: in 10 days time, there will be a tax cut for the top end of town and a pay cut for those workers—those hardworking 700,000 workers right across Australia, 13,000 of them here in Canberra.

The thing that is so galling about this is the fact that these penalty rate cuts target, disproportionately, women. They make the gender pay gap even worse. And it will not affect just their take-home pay today. This pay cut will have a knock-on effect for these women's lives for decades and decades and decades because it does not affect just their take-home pay today; it impacts on their super—on their retirement incomes. So these outrageous cuts are going to have a knock-on effect for decades and decades and decades, and they are going to disproportionately affect the women of Australia. Outrageous! Shameful!