Cassandra Fernando (Holt, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister representing the Minister for Women: what action is the Albanese Labor government taking to help close the gender pay gap?

Ms Catherine King (Ballarat, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank very much the member for Holt for her question but also for her longstanding advocacy for equality for women. All of us in this place agree Australian women deserve fair and safe working conditions. They deserve equal opportunity and equal remuneration for their efforts. I'm very pleased to report this House has passed the Workplace Gender Equality Amendment (Closing the Gender Pay Gap) Bill 2023, and I thank all members for their support for that. It fulfils a major election commitment to close the gender pay gap at work, including by boosting pay gap transparency and encouraging action to close gender pay gaps within organisations. These reforms will be a key driver for employer action, transparency and accountability and will help speed up progress towards gender equality in our workplaces while at the same time streamlining reporting for employers.

For the first time the Workplace Gender Equality Agency will report gender pay gaps at the employer level, not just the industry level. It will certainly help encourage companies to prioritise gender equality and to work to close their gender pay gap, and it will accelerate progress towards gender equality. It will give us more information about gender pay gaps and put employers on notice to take action. Estimates indicate that at the current rate of progress it could take as long as 24 years to close the gender pay gap. Women have waited long enough, and it is very pleasing to note that this place and the Senate have agreed that that is too long.

The average weekly full-time earnings of a woman in Australia across all industries and occupations is lower than the equivalent for men by $253.50 per week. We see a gender pay gap from the moment women enter the workforce and a gender pay gap accumulated over our lifetimes, and it has real consequences. Women have on average 23.4 per cent less super when they come to retirement age than men. The gender pay gap is also holding our economy back, with $51.8 billion a year lost when it comes to women's pay.

This bill, now passed through both houses, is a critical step towards achieving women's economic participation and women's equality. The bill is getting on with the job of closing the gender pay gap for women in Australia. I thank very much everyone in this place for the passage of this bill, but also it has taken a majority Labor government to get this done and to start to finally close the gender pay gap for women in this country.