Sharon Claydon (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is a great pleasure to rise again in this chamber. Tackling inequality is central to the work of Labor. It sits at the very core of our being and is a focus of all our policy pursuits in this parliament. As chair of Labor's status of women caucus committee, that focus is always at the centre of my mind as I travel across Australia as part of our national conversations on gender equality. We've called this consultation process 'Setting the Agenda' because Australian women, whatever state or territory they might reside in, are very keen to see a political party put forward a suite of serious policies to address gender inequality in Australia. There are some members I know who might say, 'Look, things aren't so bad', and, 'We have certainly made very significant gains in Australia', but the point is that those gains can be very readily lost. You can go backwards quickly, and that is why our recent slide backwards in the gender equality rankings for Australia is such a worrying trend.

Labor has been holding national conversations around gender inequality. We've had conversations with women in Docker River, Uluru, Hermannsburg, and in the seats of Cowper, Sydney, Melbourne, Longman and Brisbane—inner and outer metropolitan and remote and regional communities across most states and territories. We will head back to WA soon, and then Tasmania. The thing that unites women in all these states and territories is a real thirst to address the root causes of inequality in Australia. They are thirsty to talk to people, to policymakers who bother to ask their opinion and ask them to map out the problems and possible solutions.

I was enormously proud to host one such conversation in my electorate of Newcastle. Tanya Plibersek, Labor's deputy leader and shadow minister for women, accompanied me. She came on invitation to Newcastle back in July to talk with an extraordinary group of women in Newcastle, who were delighted to be asked for their opinions and to be taken seriously in the development of policy for Labor. I look forward to working with Tanya Plibersek to bring these policies to fruition.