Michelle Ananda-Rajah (Higgins, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That this House:

(1) notes that:

(a) the social, economic and health disadvantages that women experience are the consequence of interacting and intersectional factors that entrench gender inequality;

(b) these factors result in less income over the course of a woman's life, fewer assets including superannuation, and greater vulnerability following trauma, such as relationship breakdown;

(c) the economic trade off associated with motherhood was overlooked by successive Coalition Governments who failed to introduce reforms that improved women's economic equality; and

(d) insecure work thrived during the former Government's era, disproportionately affecting women who fell further behind under the pressures of the COVID-19 pandemic, contributing to their attrition from the care and knowledge economies; and

(2) acknowledges that the Government has a suite of measures crafted in consultation with stakeholders and informed by record representation of women in its ranks—these measures include but are not limited to:

(a) cheaper childcare;

(b) addressing gender pay equity;

(c) greater representation of women in key decision-making positions; and

(d) addressing sexual harassment in the workplace.

I am pleased to move this motion. Gender equity is core business to me and to the Albanese government; however, for too long it has been seen as something of a utopian goal. The World Economic Forum, not known for its hyperbole, states in their 2022 Global gender gap report that it will take 130 years to close the global gender gap. The good news is that this is actually an improvement on 2021, when the gap was 136 years.

So how are we doing? Australia is 43 out of 146 countries, while New Zealand is fourth. Why such a disparity? What happened? A decade of neglect, where women were de-prioritised by those opposite—that's what happened. Then came a public health crisis that kicked women when they were already down on one knee. They did the double shift, juggling carer and home duties, driving themselves to exhaustion. And for what reward? Precious little, it seems, according to Australia's gender equality agency, who last year declared that it would take 26 years for the full-time gender pay gap to close. Fantastic. A quarter of a century. Why did this not make headlines? The clue is in the fine print. They said that the gender pay gap for executives could close in the next decade, but in that time workers in feminised industries like the care and community sector may not see a change, if ever.

All of this translates to a gender pay gap of 14.1 per cent—likely an underestimate—that has been stubbornly resistant to change. Being on average $263 per week less, it has an outsized impact over a lifetime. Less pay means fewer assets, less super, and less resilience to shocks like relationship breakdown or trauma or a global pandemic. Not fixing gender equity has meant women over the age of 55 are the fastest-growing group who are becoming homeless, and domestic violence is the No. 1 reason for that.

What did successive coalition governments do? Clearly not enough. They failed to address the growing pressures on women, like ballooning childcare costs or inflexible workplaces, and allowed insecure work, which disproportionately affects women, to thrive like a toxic weed. Well, we are the weed killers. The Albanese government is intent on hardwiring gender equity into work and our societal culture by zeroing in on two things: pay equity and representation. This program is backed by record representation of women in our ranks; at 52 per cent, it is the highest in Commonwealth government history.

The measures are the largest investment—$4.7 billion—in early childhood education and care. We are expanding paid parental leave, which was originally introduced by the Gillard government, by up to 26 weeks by July 2026. With use-it-or lose-it provisions, this reform challenges norms that stereotype men as breadwinners and women as caregivers. We are introducing IR reforms that aim to promote job security, close the gender gap and stimulate wage growth, with the main beneficiaries being the feminised industries. It means outlawing pay secrecy clauses, limiting the use of rolling fixed-term contracts that lock women into precarity, and improving access to flexibility in the workplace. We will be making gender pay equity an object of the Fair Work Commission, backed by two expert panels focused on pay equity and the care economy. We are not forgetting our knowledge workers. We are making gender pay parity an object of peak research bodies like the National Health and Medical Research Council. I was a recipient of one of those scholarships once upon a time.

We are tackling sexual harassment and victimisation in the workplace by implementing all the recommendations of the Respect@Work report. On housing, an estimated 4,000 homes from the $10 billion Housing Australia Future Fund will be allocated to women and children fleeing domestic violence. Our recently formed Women's Economic Equality Taskforce, comprising 13 eminent women, is currently providing independent advice to the government on improving gender equity. We will also compel businesses with 100 or more employees to report on their gender pay gap, because transparency is a great motivator.

Finally, we are increasing women's representation in prominent public office, including the High Court, the Climate Change Authority, the Ambassador for Climate Change and the Domestic, Family and Sexual Violence Commissioner because you can't be what you can't see.

After a decade of indifference and inertia, the Australian people have blasted the cobwebs off this House. They understand that when we lift women up we lift up our nation. When we fail women, we all fail.

Andrew Wilkie (Clark, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is the motion seconded?

Joanne Ryan (Lalor, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I second the motion and reserve my right to speak.

Monique Ryan (Kooyong, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Higgins for putting this very important issue to our parliament. The challenges women face in their homes, in the workforce and in their retirement are persistent and pervasive. They are structural, social and economic. We know that when women can share the domestic load, participate in the workforce equally and achieve financial security at all points in their lives our whole society benefits. The 2018 KPMG report Ending workforce discrimination against women found that halving Australia's gender pay gap would increase our GDP by $60 billion by 2038 and that reducing the difference in average earnings of women and men by just 50 per cent would see our households better off by $140 billion over the next 20 years.

When women earn more by having the opportunity to work or by being paid more equitably they can spend more and they can save more, creating greater financial security throughout their lives and into retirement. Right now, many women who have spent their adult lives working in the home, raising families and creating the social fabric of our society have been unable to accrue superannuation or savings. If those marriages end, those women often struggle. Women over 55 are the fastest-growing demographic of people who are homeless. Unless we address the structural barriers preventing economic gender inequity, women over 55 will remain at increased risk of poverty and of homelessness. Superannuation must be appended to maternity and other care-related leave as an essential step towards financial equity for women in retirement. In recent months, I've been pleased to help legislate important reforms to help reduce the gender pay gap, including recommendations of the Respect@Work inquiry and changes to eligibility for subsidised child care hours. I take this opportunity, though, to again call on the government to accompany the cheaper-child-care package, which increases the amount of subsidised care hours for working women, with an urgent intervention into the crisis in the early childhood education workforce.

A crumbling early childhood education workforce harms gender equity twice over: firstly, because the childcare workforce comprises some of the lowest paid women in this country and, secondly, because workforce participation of women is dependent on the accessibility of child care. Australia has some of the highest levels of education for women in the world, but we are ranked 38th in the world for workforce participation. As the Grattan Institute's Danielle Wood has suggested, if untapped women's workforce participation was a massive ore deposit, we would have governments lining up to give tax concessions to get it out of the ground. Treasury estimates that the government's the cheaper child care package will fund an extra 1.4 million hours of workforce participation each week. This is a significant equalising measure for families lucky enough to get a spot in a childcare centre. But therein lies the problem. There are already insufficient day care positions for our children. Increasing the childcare subsidy without increasing child care enrolments won't get women back to work. It will just cut the cost of child care for those who are already working.

Qualified early childhood educators are leaving our workforce at an alarming rate, with 15 per cent having left that workforce since October 2020. Fewer people in the early childhood workforce means fewer women in our national workforce. The benefits to households, communities and the national economy when we advance gender equality are clear. I'm very pleased to support the motion moved by the member for Higgins today, and I will continue to work for legislative solutions to increase women's workforce participation and to close the gender pay gap.

Joanne Ryan (Lalor, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is said that in human endeavour we often take two steps forward and one step back. This certainly sums up the journey to gender equity in this country and, ostensibly, globally. I stand here today on the shoulders of the women who came before me in the Labor Party. I want to mention Susan Ryan and the work she did in this parliament to progress gender equity. I want to mention my predecessor, Julia Gillard, who was our first female Prime Minister but also, more importantly, as a young woman, was critical in commencing movements within Victoria and a founding member and life force—with the assistance of Joan Kirner, former Premier of Victoria—behind the creation of EMILY'S List, which drove women's representation in the parliament in Victoria and in this parliament from the grassroots up.

But it does feel like two steps forward and one step back, and it has done for my nine years here, while I've watched our side of the parliament grow to having 52 per cent representation of women and the opposite benches reduce in the number of women, year on year. This is at the core of the problem and why women's equity has been stagnating across the last decade. It is about attitudes and it's about actions.

I am absolutely thrilled to follow the member for Higgins today and to thank her for putting this forward. She's outlined many of the things that this government has committed to doing in its first six months in government to get gender equity back at the front of the decision-making for an Australian government. I am very proud to be a member of that government and proud to see the women's budget back, central to the October budget delivered by the Albanese Labor government. It is actions like this that change the way people think. It is actions like this that drive the changes that drive gender equity in our communities. I would echo both speakers before me in the reflections they made on how limiting the situation we are in now is for us nationally.

I welcome, of course, the child care changes that will see 37,000 effective full-time workers—women, potentially—back into the workforce. I welcome the lift of the ban around declaring what you earn, so that people know what they can aspire to earn. It has limited gender equity for some time. I welcome that transparency about salaries.

I welcome 10 days domestic violence leave and what that means. We measure what we care about, and in this country—and in most countries—if it has an economic impact, it will see action from government. Believe me, we know that domestic violence is having an economic impact. We just need to demonstrate it through measurements, and DV leave is a key way to demonstrate the economic impact of domestic violence in our workplaces. Therefore, we'll see governments of all persuasions commit to getting rid of it, on economic grounds if not on human grounds.

I welcome also the National Plan to End Violence against Women and Children, launched by Minister Rishworth most recently. I welcome the 15 per cent pay rise for the aged-care workers in our care economy, and the changes of the Fair Work Commission just in terms of having a government that supports wage increases. I welcome the five per cent wage increase to those on the minimum wage, of whom we know an enormous number are women. I share the member opposite's concerns around the childcare workforce and how we're going to attract and retain women in that care and education industry. I know that that will start when they can earn more doing the most important work of early education. When they can earn more doing that then they can stacking shelves, then we will be able to attract and retain workers in that most important industry. I welcome the changes to paid parental leave, which will allow families to make decisions, to spend the time they need with their families and to rejoin the workforce. I commend this motion to the House.

Zoe Daniel (Goldstein, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Gains for women in this country have been few and far between over the past decade. I agree with the mover of this motion, the member for Higgins, that the government's first budget has delivered some important progress towards a more gender equal future. But it has to be said that women in Australia are starting from a long way back—a very long way back.

Australia is ranked 43rd of 146 countries in the latest World Economic Forum global gender gap index. The official gender pay gap have hovered between 13 and 19 per cent over the past two decades, but in many industries it is more like 30 per cent. Women are more likely to live below the poverty line. Older women are the fastest-growing group to experience homelessness in Australia. On average, women retire with approximately half the level of retirement savings of men. And women spend twice as much time on unpaid work as men. The moral and economic case for investing in women is strong. Gender inequality is the root cause of the social, economic and health disadvantages that women face.

Today I want to focus on one area of gender inequality, because it's urgent: women's safety. According to Our Watch, on average, one woman a week is murdered by her current or former partner, one in three women has experienced physical violence since the age of 15, one in five has experienced sexual violence since the age of 15, and family and domestic violence is a leading driver of homelessness for women.

This budget was sold as a bread-and-butter budget. Women's safety is a bread-and-butter issue, or at least it should be. The new National Plan to End Violence against Women and Children is comprehensive and ambitious. But it needs more investment if we're to end violence against women and children in a generation, as the plan strives to do. A woman's ability to access services to be safe after domestic violence or rape is critical and needs proper funding. Right now there are major gaps for women's safety that must be addressed. Until this happens, there will be no broader equality in the workforce or elsewhere. Women who are trying to escape family and domestic violence are still unable to the safety and support that they need. More investment in specialist case management services is needed so women trying to build safer lives can access the support they need to be safe. More investment in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community controlled organisations is needed to support First Nations women affected by men's violence. More investment is needed in trauma responsible for rape and sexual assault survivors so they can access counselling support.

As it stands, survivors are being told to wait months for trauma counselling. In the eastern region of Victoria, the waitlist for counselling is six to eight months. The Sexual Assault Crisis Line is the central after-hours coordination point in Victoria for responding to sexual assaults. It can consistently respond to only 65 per cent of calls because it's understaffed and underfunded. Waiting list times for men's behaviour change programs are too long. Men using violence are also on months-long waiting lists. Experts in the sector have said a minimum of $1 billion of federal funding is needed annually to start addressing gender based violence in our communities. The commitment to a new National plan to end violence against women and children in the budget only gets us just over halfway to the funding that's needed over the next four years.

Fair Agenda, a movement of 43,000 Australians campaigning for a future where our gender doesn't determine our worth, say:

This budget still leaves so many women in danger …

They are calling on the government to deliver a 'major funding boost' during this term of government, starting with the next budget in May. I also encourage the government to increase its commitment to women's safety in the May budget. This government has rightly made gender equality a national priority. If the government is serious about wanting to re-establish Australia as a global leader on gender equality, it must address these glaring gaps in women's safety. I thank the member for Higgins for this motion.

Andrew Charlton (Parramatta, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

HARLTON () (): I rise to support the motion put forward by the member for Higgins. I support this motion in recognition of the fact that gender inequality is an issue that continues to confront and unfairly challenge Australian women and girls, made worse by the COVID-19 pandemic and a decade of inadequate action by the former coalition governments.

It may come as a shock to many that Australia today ranks 43rd out of 146 countries on the World Economic Forum's Global Gender Gap Index. In 2006 we ranked 15th. Today, ranked in the immediate spots above us are Panama, Ecuador and Bulgaria. While we are ranked 43rd, New Zealand, a country which in so many other ways is similar to us, is ranked fourth. In the span of 16 years, we have dropped by 28 spots.

It's hardly surprising that today women generate less economic income over their lifetimes than men; hold fewer assets, including superannuation, than men; and suffer greater vulnerability following trauma than men. We saw this divide exacerbated by the COVID pandemic, where women were amongst the groups that were most disproportionately affected by its pressures, which entrenched the inequality that exists between men and women in this country.

Why is it so important to address gender equity? First and foremost, it's a human rights issue—a fundamental inequity that is an affront to every Australian. Second, it's an economic issue. Australia faces many challenges to our economy, including slowing productivity growth and international challenges associated with the slowing economies around us and amongst our trading partners. If we're to lift economic growth and productivity, then we cannot allow gender inequity to continue in our economy. We cannot allow a gender wage gap. We cannot allow differences across careers. We cannot allow the differences in participation rates between women and men. This is one of the primary drivers of stronger economic growth over the next decade—a driver that we must not ignore.

Last week, with the Minister for the Environment and Water, I had the opportunity to visit a site that might be considered ground zero of women's inequality in Australia. Within my electorate, the Parramatta Female Factory is, on the one hand, one of the crown jewels in our trove of heritage assets but, on the other hand, a stark reminder of the history of inequity and marginalisation towards women within Australia. As the Minister for the Environment and Water said during her visit last week, the Parramatta Female Factory is a brilliant example of Australia's social welfare history. It was a place where women were sent if they were unmarried or unutilised and where they were left to engage in manufacturing, in often appalling conditions. The site tells the tragic story of institutionalised women and girls over the 19th and 20th centuries. The site plays a pivotal role in our nation's colonial history, with thousands of women passing through the factory as prisoners and later patients in what was then the Parramatta asylum.

The female factory was also the site of Australia's first industrial action, a moment when the female inmates of the Parramatta Female Factory rose up and demanded better treatment. In the famous female factory riot, they stood up to their captors, protested against the treatment they were receiving and demanded better conditions within the factory. Today the factory serves as a constant reminder of how far we've come in the story of gender equity in Australia, but also how far we have to go. How can we reach our aspiration of a more egalitarian and equitable nation without action on gender equity?

On 21 May 2022, a decade of inaction and neglect was broken when the Albanese Labor government was elected. I stand here today as a proud member of a government which has begun to deliver real change, addressing the key factors that have entrenched gender inequity for so long. I'm proud to be part of a government that is investing in cheaper child care. I'm proud to be part of a government that is recognising gender equity as a key part of fair working conditions and making gender equity and job security objects of the Fair Work Act. (Time expired)

Jenny Ware (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the motion by the member for Higgins. In principle, I support any moves that will help to address the gender inequity issues that we currently have in our country. It is important that we shine a floodlight on the barriers that might limit women building their financial security, and focus on practical measures to help change that—because, when Australian women do well, their families do well, our economy does well and our nation prospers.

One of the largest barriers to women earning an income equal to men is the predominant responsibility for family and caring duties which falls largely to women. As a first-time mum, I temporarily stepped away from my legal career in order to raise our twin sons, James and Nicholas, full time. Even in 2006, when my sons were born, I battled against the perception in my own workplace that it was not appropriate for me, as a senior lawyer and a partner in a national law firm, to work in a part-time capacity. Unfortunately, this story was all too common amongst my peers at that time. Women in 2022—or even back in 2006—should not have to choose between a family and a career.

Today marks six months since the election. And I ask: what meaningful practical change has the government actually brought about to help address the social, economic and health disadvantages still experienced by Australian women? The recent budget was a missed opportunity for the Albanese government to deliver a road map—a strategic plan—to demonstrate how it will address the issues relevant to contemporary Australian women.

The motion moved by the member for Higgins speaks about the government's purported record in bringing about cheaper child care and gender pay equity and addressing sexual harassment in the workplace. However, if I turn first of all to the government's cheaper child care bill, it was touted as a win for families in allowing more women to re-enter the workforce. However, the bill did not go nearly far enough. The government, in fact, voted against very sensible amendments put forward by the member for Moncrieff which would have provided real, positive change for women and their families accessing childcare places. The bill, for example, was silent on salient details. It had no plan to address the current workplace shortages and the pressures that have been raised by childcare educators themselves. There was no plan to address access to care and, in particular, no plan to address the chronic shortage of places in rural and regional Australia. The bill simply did not address the supply issues. Demand for childcare places around Australia is still well outstripping supply. The child care bill and the budget did nothing to alleviate that problem or to set out a road map as to how this matter would be dealt with by the government.

It is certainly appropriate that subsidies are available for parents to enable them to make choices appropriate for their particular circumstances. However, if we don't address the supply concerns raised by our childcare workers, Australian mothers wanting to return to the workplace simply won't be able to.

I now turn to the government's record on sexual harassment within the workplace. The government's proposed dismantling of the Australian Building and Construction Commission in the Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Secure Jobs, Better Pay) Bill 2022 is a disgrace. We are well aware of the reports of bullying and harassment against the 150,000 Australian women who work on construction sites throughout Australia. As at March of this year, the CFMMEU was in the courts and was found to have contravened existing workplace laws on no less than 1,663 separate occasions. It is hard, then, to see how the dismantling of the ABCC can be considered to be anything other than the Labor Party rewarding its CFMMEU friends.

I conclude: when Australian women do well, their families do well and the economy and nation prosper.

Sally Sitou (Reid, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Around the world, progress towards gender equality has been extraordinary and awe inspiring, but at the same time deeply disappointing and dispiriting. Why the mixed emotions? Because it is an incredibly mixed bag of outcomes. On the whole, there has been slow and steady progress towards gender equality in so many countries. However, in some countries that progress has stalled or we've seen a dangerous backslide.

In the United States, some women are being denied access to reproductive health care. Girls in Afghanistan are being denied access to secondary education. Iranian women face the threat of violence daily. The regression of rights for these women is deeply distressing, and we stand in solidarity with women around the world fighting to make our society more equal. For me, these world events are also a reminder that progress is neither linear nor guaranteed. Unfortunately, the rights our mothers and grandmothers fought so hard for can be taken away if we do not actively and persistently fight for them.

Here in Australia, with the change of government in May there was a pivot towards recognising the value of gender equality. This government has placed gender equality at the heart of what we do. It's an approach that spans the entire government. We have set ourselves an ambitious goal: to make Australia one of the most gender-equal countries in the world.

It's important to outline two of the critical policy decisions made by this government in just its first six months. From July next year the childcare subsidy rates will lift for 96 per cent of families using care. It's good for parents—mostly mothers—who are getting back into work. It's good for children because they have access to that great early education and it sets them up for life. It's good for our economy by increasing productivity. It was our single largest election commitment in our most recent budget.

We know women are not getting a fair deal when it comes to pay. On average, a woman working full time earns $263 less per week than a man working full time. The gender pay gap has remained at around 14 per cent for far too long. We must do better, and this government will do better. That's why the Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Secure Jobs, Better Pay) Bill 2022 is so important. It goes directly to the core of the problem. It makes gender equity and job security an object of our industrial relations framework. It ensures the Fair Work Commission factors in gender equity when considering the minimum wage and changing awards. But it does much more than just change the function of the commission. It gives workers in those highly feminised industries the ability to secure the benefits of enterprise bargaining.

No longer should it be the case that female-dominated industries receive the minimum award rate and male-heavy industries receive better enterprise agreements. There's more to do, and we need to recognise the varying and sometimes more acute impact of gender inequality on Indigenous women, women from culturally diverse backgrounds, women with disabilities and older women, but this is a government that is starting to take those important steps. It's not a coincidence that these significant changes have been made when, for the first time in our country's history, we have a majority female federal government. Fifty-four of the 103 government senators and members of parliament are women. It is the most diverse government our country has ever had, which means it better reflects the communities we aim to represent. That is significant because it means our policies are better for the community.

An honourable member: Well said!

Russell Broadbent (Monash, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It was well said, and I congratulate the member on her contribution. I can only go on my own experience as an employer of women over a long period of time. Most staff in my businesses were women. We had to be as flexible as possible within our community. The experience of my own family and the flexibility needed for them to contribute to our business as well was transferred immediately to the employees. If they needed to get their kids to school but also wanted to be home when they arrived home from school, their hours were reflected within the business of that operation. I don't think I was the only business to approach work that way, but we didn't have the facilities of child care and family day care in those days. I'm talking 40 years ago. For 40 years we've been grappling with these issues of inequality. Of course it's important to address gender inequality. I believe that the Labor government is putting a whole lot of work into that area to make a difference long term. When addressing these issues in the past, governments have tried to make a difference long term, but there are some entrenched longstanding cultural barriers. This issue is far more complicated than some of the presentations that have been made around the issue that it's a simple, easy job to make the change. These problems include discrimination related to pregnancy and parental leave, especially mothers returning to the workforce after parental leave. I've even heard claims of women being more fearful of returning to work as a so-called part-time mum than they were the birth. And some of the distressing stories I've heard from these women back that up.

The OECD has acknowledged that a lack of support for motherhood is hurting women's career prospects. My inspiration has always been around the whole family, not just the mum. How do we support the whole family so that the mother involved in that situation is able to contribute in the way that she wants to contribute, not the way that we want to tell her how to contribute? In other words, I'm not demanding that people go back to work to have some substance within communities. One of our former speakers chose to look after her twin sons, to leave a legal practice and work on bringing up her two boys, who are now 16 years of age. She thinks it's all over at about 16. I can tell her, no, it's only just beginning. My twins are now 44 years of age, around there somewhere. I'm not saying there are still issues—they're wonderful boys—but kids never leave you; they're there for life.

I want to acknowledge that families play a major role in the contribution their mum can make to community. My point is that they can make that contribution however they like. If we can find ways for women to have more flexibility in the workplace, that's a role that government can take on to make it easier for women to contribute. While having regard for their special circumstances, government can find new innovative ways to make sure they have the opportunity not only to contribute but to contribute on an equal level to anybody else. On top of that, we have a growing cohort of homeless women over the age of 55. In fact, I could now say over the age of 50.

Therefore, as a very wealthy community with ample opportunity to make a difference, we in this place need to look at that cohort of women and say in this term, before these members of parliament finish their term, that there won't be that gender inequality and there won't be people who are missing out and unable to look after themselves in their later years—not that 55 is 'later years'! I'm just saying that here's a contribution that we could be making very solidly and very forcefully and having regard to that. And I do congratulate the diversity of the parliament, which has changed so dramatically since I was first a member in 1990.

Louise Miller-Frost (Boothby, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

LLER-FROST () (): I'm pleased to rise to speak on this very important motion. We often hear that the fastest-growing demographic of people experiencing homelessness is women over 55, and what sits behind that is women's poverty. No matter what the story, no matter what the life course, poverty always sits behind homelessness. Each person has their own journey and their own story, but I'm going to talk about a typical story from my experience in the sector. We'll call her Susan.

Susan is 58 years old. She married relatively young and had a couple of children. Although she loved her career as a nurse, she and her husband decided that she would stay home to look after the children. About 20 years ago, she and her former husband divorced. The children were teenagers, so she returned to work part time and rented a property in the leafy eastern suburbs of Adelaide, near their school. When the children left home, she returned to work full time, but her nursing qualifications were no longer current, so she did a cert IV and worked part time and casually in three different aged-care centres.

Susan considered her life secure. She lived in a nice area in a lovely townhouse and had work that she found meaningful, until she got injured. And it might not be an injury—it might be a cancer diagnosis or an illness, a relationship breakdown or a redundancy. Susan could no longer work in aged care, and age and gender discrimination meant she couldn't find any other work. Initially, she used her savings to pay her rent, but when the savings ran out she put her belongings in storage, gave up her rental property and started house-sitting—until the house-sitting jobs dried up, and she found herself couch-surfing and sleeping in the car. Within the space of six to eight months, she had gone from living a secure life to being homeless, sleeping rough—something she could never have imagined would happen to her. Susan's story shows the perfect storm of gender disadvantage and where it ends up—a career path interrupted by caring duties for children, for a husband or partner and sometimes for elderly parents as well and insecure work in low paid, female dominated caring professions.

The Albanese government knows that this perfect storm of gender disadvantage needs to end. Women have had enough of hearing that things will get better by themselves or that they will be better for the next generation. That didn't work for my generation, my mother's generation or my grandmother's generation. So what are we doing about this? The Cheaper Child Care bill means women will be able to return to work earlier after having a child if they wish. This will help address the career gap that cripples women's economic prospects and, in Susan's case, might have meant that her degree qualification remained current and she could have continued to work as a nurse at a higher pay rate. That would have meant that she would have more superannuation. She wouldn't have paid the double penalty of a career gap and lower pay rates impacting superannuation contributions.

We also know that the national gender pay gap remains, despite nice words over so many decades. In May 2022, the national gender pay gap sat at 14.1 per cent, which means on average a woman working full time earns $263.90 less per week than a man working full time. If you include full time, part time, overtime and salary sacrifice, the total gender pay gap is 29.7 per cent. The Secure Jobs, Better Pay bill will add gender equity to the modern awards and minimum wage objectives and adds the need to improve access to secure work to the modern awards objective. This sets a clear expectation that the Fair Work Commission must consider gender equity when performing all its functions: when setting a minimum wage, when considering changes to awards and in all other decisions. This means that gender equity will be front and centre in the minds of the industrial umpire when it sets minimum pay and conditions and makes other decisions. The bill will also strengthen the Fair Work Commission's ability to order pay increases for workers in low-paid, female dominated industries by setting up two new expert panels in the Fair Work Commission. I also welcome the full implementation of the recommendations of the Respect@Work report. While I didn't touch on this in Susan's story, it is a common feature in the lives of so many women.

There is much to be done to address gender equality and I welcome these bills that will improve the lives of Australian women who are 51 per cent of the population.

Andrew Wilkie (Clark, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There being no further speakers, the debate is adjourned, and the resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting.