Sam Rae (Hawke, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am incredibly humbled to stand here today on International Women's Day amongst my Labor colleagues, some extraordinarily strong, kind and principled women. We in the Albanese Labor government can be incredibly proud of the efforts and the achievements that we have made in a relatively short period of time with regard to furthering the interests of women and the issues of gender equality in our society. Even in the last 10 months, we have pushed through cheaper child care; we have put in place paid leave for family and domestic violence; and even this week we passed some very important legislation to improve the gender equity arrangements around paid parental leave.

There are so many women in my community who play leadership roles, whether it be in their families, in their workplaces or in the community more generally who I am so proud to be associated with, who I get to learn from and who I get to work with to achieve great things for our community.

At a personal level, today I also pay tribute—as I have done previously—to my own mother, who was a teacher, who devoted her life to education, and to my partner, Zoe, who guides me in all things. I wish them both a happy International Women's Day.