Brian Mitchell (Lyons, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. What do today's labour force figures tell us about economic participation, particularly for women, and how have the Albanese government's actions contributed to these positive indicators?

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Lyons for his question. Indeed, today's employment data demonstrates that when you remove barriers to participation in the workforce it does make a real difference: more than 465,000 jobs created in the first 12 months in which we've been in office, almost 76,000 jobs added in the last month. The participation rate is now at a record high of 66.9 per cent. But, importantly, women's participation is at a record high as well, of 62.7 per cent.

Let's not forget what we inherited just over a year ago from those opposite. When it came to women's position in our economy, Australia had fallen to 70th in the world for women's economic participation and opportunity. We went from being the 24th most equal country in the world for women and men to 50th during those opposite's time in office. But my government have put enhancing economic opportunity for women at the heart of our agenda. We see this as part of developing the national interest. Under our government, the gender pay gap fell to its lowest level on record recently. There is more work to do but we're making progress. Closing the gender pay gap will help close the superannuation retirement gap as well.

More women than ever before are now in full-time work. Women got two-thirds of all the full-time jobs created in the past 12 months—two-thirds!—and almost 233,000 women have entered the workforce since last May. All of this, of course, has been led by the exceptional Minister for Women, Senator Gallagher. Senator Gallagher has presided over an expanding of paid parental leave, making child care cheaper, implementing all 55 recommendations of the Respect@Work report, establishing 10 days paid domestic and family violence leave, investing $2.3 billion to end domestic violence, funding a 15 per cent pay rise for aged-care workers and developing a national strategy for the care workforce, which we are doing. Of course, importantly, Senator Gallagher was one of the key reasons for us improving the single parent payment, helping 52,000 single mums out there to actually be able to participate much, much more equally in our society. All of these things make us a stronger nation.

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I give the call—

The member for New England will cease interjecting immediately. I give the call to the member for Parkes.