Sam Lim (Tangney, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That this House:

(1) recognises the commendable efforts of the Government in addressing the status of women and promoting pay equality;

(2) applauds the initiatives the Government has taken to improve conditions for working women, supporting their safety and economic equality;

(3) acknowledges that women still experience economic inequality, including a national gender pay gap of 13 per cent and an average of 47 per cent less super for women compared to men, equating to an $85,000 difference for the average superannuation fund;

(4) highlights the:

(a) disproportionate impact on working mothers who currently predominantly take parental leave and experience a significant gap in superannuation contributions during this period; and

(b) Government's significant expansion of paid parental leave which increases the scheme to 26 weeks by July 2026, and provides each parent four weeks of reserved leave from July 2026 when the full scheme is implemented in order to encourage shared care and send a strong signal that both parents play a role in caring for their children; and

(5) supports the continued efforts by the Government to close the gender pay gap and support women's economic equality over their lifetime.

Women are the backbone of this nation, and I'm proud to be part of the team that has 53 per cent women representing the 47th Parliament. I want to commend the effort of the Albanese Labor government in addressing the status of women and promoting pay equality, which will improve conditions for working women across Australia in addition to supporting their safety and economic wellbeing. We all know that true progress cannot be achieved without the active participation and inclusion of women from all facets of society. We have implemented a comprehensive set of policies aimed at dismantling barriers and fostering an environment where all women can triumph.

First and foremost, our government has made huge leaps in closing the gender pay gap. We have reformed the workplace relations system through the secure jobs, better pay bill, which improved how the workplace relations system supports women. This reform included making gender equality an objective of the Fair Work Act 2009, banning pay secrecy and legislating a statutory equal remuneration principle. This will produce tangible results in reducing wage inequality and ensure that women receive fair compensation for their labour.

On top of this, our government's most recent decision with Labor's tax cut will also have a bigger impact on the majority of working women, by increasing the amount they can take home at the end of the financial year compared to what they would have under the previous government. These tax cuts are testament to our government's vision of a fair and inclusive Australia, where the benefits of economic growth are distributed equitably.

Furthermore, we have championed an initiative to promote economic empowerment among women. We have invested in education and skills training programs, with fee free TAFEs seeing strong uptake by women, who represent 60 per cent of all enrolment. Our cheaper childcare policy, with increased subsidy arrangements, makes it more affordable for families to return to work. I'm glad to see that women across the nation are breaking down barriers and shattering glass ceilings, contributing not only to their own economic wellbeing but also to the prosperity of our nation.

In addition to addressing economic inequality, the Albanese Labor government has been a trailblazer in expanding access to paid parental leave. The significant expansion of paid parental leave, which increases the scheme to 26 week by July 2026, provides each parent four weeks of reserved leave to encourage shared care and send a strong signal that both parents play a role in caring for their children. But our work is far from over.

Despite the progress that we have made, there are still challenges that lie ahead in our journey towards gender equality. I acknowledge that women still experience economic inequality, with a disproportionate impact on working mothers who do take parental leave and experience a significant gap in superannuation contribution during this period. This, coupled with a national gender pay gap of 13 per cent and an average of 47 per cent less super for women compared to men, equates to a difference of $85,000 in the average superannuation fund.

The Albanese Labor government remains committed to addressing issues such as gender-based violence, workplace discrimination and the underrepresentation of women in leadership roles. Through continued collaboration with stakeholders across all sectors of society, we will work tirelessly to build a future where every woman and girl can fulfil her potential and contribute fully to the prosperity and wellbeing of our nation. As we look to the future, I remain committed to advocating for gender equality and a more prosperous future for all Australian.

James Stevens (Sturt, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is the motion seconded?

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

Yes. I second the motion and reserve my right to speak.

Allegra Spender (Wentworth, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Women's economic empowerment is one of the issues that I care about and have cared about for many years. I have been searching everywhere for silver bullets to close that gap once and for all. What I have found from all the work that I've done and the work that so many other people have done on this topic is that there is no silver bullet. It is the complicated intersection of policy, legislation, business practice and Australian culture that is holding women back. That complicated soup of causes is what we need to address as we consider how to continue to close that gap.

Let's start with facts about why we have this gap in women's economic empowerment. KPMG recently did some work to disaggregate the gap. What they found was that a quarter of the pay gap at least in hourly earnings was due to the career choices of women and men, with women going typically into jobs that are less well paid on the hour compared to men going into mining and construction and women more strongly represented in the various caring sectors. Secondly, about a third of the gap is represented by women stepping out of the workforce or having fewer hours in the workforce and the fact that women in Australia take on more part-time work. You see in the average Australian family that men spend about 36 hours a week working and five hours caring for children or disabled or elderly relatives, while women spend around 25 hours working and about 11 hours caring. Frankly, those numbers do not quite add up with my own personal experience. I don't know how anyone gets away with only 11 hours caring, but that is how it really feels, I think, in many Australian families. The third explainer of the gap is around the age of women in the workforce compared to men, with women typically being younger in the workforce than men and on an hourly basis are being paid less. Finally, and probably most concerningly, there is a third gap, which is about a third of the difference—about 36 per cent of the difference between men and women's pay—that is put down to gender discrimination. It is 'other'. It can't be explained by career choices and it can't be explained by years in the workforce; it is basically just the gap that you get for being a woman that cannot be explained by anything else.

Those are just the gaps when it comes to hourly earnings. You also see additional drivers when it comes to the differentiation of women's wealth and women's overall earnings over their lifetime. For instance, on wealth, when you look at, say, the support for women's start-ups, you see that start-ups involving women as one of the founding CEOs only get seven per cent of the share of investment funding—only seven per cent out of 100. Women currently are only six per cent of Australia's ASX 300. So you can see that opportunities to build wealth are reduced for women. Also, similarly, you see a situation where women's financial literacy is around a third lower than men's financial literacy. That also affects how the wealth and economic empowerment of women has evolved. We have all these different challenges that women in this country experience in terms of getting to that economic empowerment. The question is where to, and how do we, fix this?

I acknowledge what the government has done in terms of stepping up on women's economic empowerment. I think, frankly, this has been a key priority of the government, and I particularly acknowledge the work they have done on child care and paid parental leave, including making parental leave more shared between men and women. But if I was going to pick one thing to focus on even further, that's what I would be focusing on: how do you share the caring more? Currently women have a 55 per cent what they call 'mothers tax', a motherhood penalty where women's earnings are reduced by 55 per cent in the first five years after parenthood while men's—when they join the parenting lot—aren't reduced at all. The other key areas we need to continue to focus on are child care—how to reduce the cost and increase the availability—and how we work with women around career choices and how we improve financial literacy.

Finally, it is up to all of us to drive the cultural change. That missing third comes down to gender discrimination—that is, women leading from the front and men sponsoring women from the front as well so that we can close this gap once and for all.

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

I thank the member for Tangney for moving this important motion. I'm really pleased to be part of a government that has reduced the gender pay gap to 13 per cent, the lowest gender pay gap in Australia ever. To be clear, the correct gender pay gap should be zero. It doesn't seem too much of a stretch to say that you should paid the same amount for the same job irrespective of gender. Thirteen per cent is a great step forward, but this still means that, on average, working women, women working full-time, can expect to take home $252.30 less per week than men; that's a significant amount. We have a way to go.

In May 2022, under the previous government, the gender pay gap sat at 14.1 per cent—so to see it turn around so quickly under this government, to record low levels, is very pleasing. We've also seen a turnaround in Australia's rating at the World Economic Forum global gender gap index; we are now rated 26th out of 146, up from 43rd in 2022. These sorts of changes don't happen by accident; they happen because the government cares about gender equality and implements deliberate policies to address it.

We've made significant investments across our first two budgets that support women—in child care, paid parental leave, women's safety and wages. We expanded the eligibility for parenting payment single. We're delivering cheaper child care for working families, resulting in an 11 per cent average drop in cost across the country. We expanded the government's paid parental leave scheme, making it more flexible for families to give them more choice in how they share care and encouraging fathers to also take parental leave because it's important to normalise parenting leave for men.

We're also abolishing the punitive ParentsNext program. I am part of the select committee that looked into this, and we heard so many stories from mothers; it was primarily targeted, 95 per cent, at single mothers. Imagine a government program cutting all income support for a mother with a nine-month-old baby if she missed playgroup because the child was sick and she hadn't called in on time. Imagine knowing your attendance at playgroup—supposed to be a bonding time, promoting child development—was being monitored.

Another important step to closing the gender pay gap is the key reforms in the Workplace Gender Equality Amendment (Closing the Gender Pay Gap) Bill 2023, which will require the WGEA to publish gender pay gaps at employer level. From 27 February 2024, WGEA will, for the first time, publish employer level gender pay gaps for employers with 100 employees or more. Publishing this information increases pay gap transparency, assists employees to make more informed choices about where they want to work and encourages employers to take action to close gender pay gaps in their workforces.

Gender pay discrimination is often a hidden disadvantage for women and can affect women at all stages of their career. We know there is data that shows that female university graduates in their first job are, on average, paid less than their male counterparts irrespective of grades—and it goes through to executive. I personally experienced this in a workplace as one of three executives of equal level and responsibility. I discovered I was being paid significantly less than my two male counterparts. I had to fight to have this addressed. I shouldn't have had to fight.

If you add to this the mummy tax of the lost career momentum that women experience from taking parental leave and working around child care and schooling arrangements in their prime career years, there is a significant impact on women's finances, not to mention the loss to our economy of their talents. And, of course, those years that they aren't working or are working reduced hours at reduced pay are the very years they need to be maxing out their superannuation payments. The lifelong pay gap has very real consequences. Women retire with significantly less superannuation, savings and assets, and so women retire into poverty. It's not surprising that older women are overrepresented in the homeless population.

The fact is that 50.7 per cent of the Australian population is female and our experiences of society, community, health services, careers, economics and much more are different. Certainly, our outcomes are different. I have used the example of superannuation, poverty and homelessness. So it's important when we make decisions in this place that we think about how those decisions will play out for both women and men.

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

I rise to speak on this motion that relates to Australian women's economic inequality, paid parental leave and closing the gender pay gap. In the short time I have been in this place, I have used every available opportunity to speak about supporting measures that will improve the lives of Australian women, Australian mums and Australian families overall. Closing the gender pay gap is a crucial step in ensuring that we have gender equality going forward. It is important that we shine the floodlight on the barriers that 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 Australia does well.

One of the largest barriers to women's financial security, workforce participation and earning capacity is that the predominant responsibility of family and caring duties still falls to women. Women should not be discouraged in their employment through their intrinsic role in childbearing. Australia's Paid Parental Leave is an integral component of our workplace relations system. It assists Australian parents to manage their work and parental responsibilities so that the needs of children and families may be met in the context of a modern Australian society. It also supports dads and partners. Paid parental leave is a classic representation of liberalism, where the role of government is to facilitate an environment that enables Australians to make choices that work best for their individual circumstances. This is why the coalition has supported legislation that will expand government funded paid parental leave to 26 weeks, commencing from July 2026.

However, the government has again missed an important opportunity to address a very crucial part of women's financial security, and that is the superannuation gap. It's a massive gap that exists between Australian men and women. This motion does refer to the national gender pay and superannuation gap, and I commend the member for bringing this important matter to this place. However, the member is part of a government that could have used its 18 months to legislate to include superannuation guaranteed payments on parental leave pay. This is a government where the Minister for Finance is also the Minister for Women. I will shortly be writing to the honourable Senator Gallagher about this issue in the lead-up to the next budget. Parental leave is still the only commonly taken form of leave on which superannuation is not paid. This gap directly contributes to women retiring with an average of one-third less superannuation than men. This is effectively a financial penalty women pay for having children. It is time that that changed.

In that context, another thing that really needs to be addressed—and this is a matter close to my heart—is that it's time that things changed for mums and families with multiple births. As we speak about paid parental leave and women's equality, those women who give work birth to multiples—twins, triplets or more—remain significantly disadvantaged. As a mother of twins, I fully support the policy changes recommended by the Australian Multiple Birth Association to assist these families, which amount to over 4,000 each year. Multiple-birth families face a range of unique challenges in comparison to families with singletons, including pregnancy complications, in particular premature births. I know from personal experience all about premature births. Mothers of multiples face a number of potential health impacts, including things like lower breastfeeding rates, higher rates of postnatal depression and other issues.

The Australian Multiple Birth Association is advocating for increased financial payments to families with multiple births and also to increase parental leave. That is to recognise that twins and triplets are far more likely to come early and to spend significantly more time in hospital. In my personal experience, my son spent 11 weeks in hospital, and that 11 weeks was not a period that was then added onto the parental leave that I had available. It would have made a massive difference to me. It would make a massive difference to other families experiencing this, and so I call upon the government to make the changes that are being advocated by the Multiple Birth Association as we are now coming into the prebudget submissions.

Libby Coker (Corangamite, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'd like to begin by thanking the member for Tangney for moving this important motion. It holds great personal significance for me as a mother of two young women and as a member of Australia's first female-majority Labor caucus. Pay equality is an issue that resonates deeply with me as it reflects both the progress we've made and the challenges that still lie ahead. Since Albanese government came to office in 2022, we have made it a priority to lessen the disparity in wages between men and women, and we are having success, with Australia climbing from 43rd to 26th in the global gender gap rating.

Despite the significant advancement in the fight for gender equality, women do continue to face persistent wage gaps and often earn less than their male colleagues. Our government recognises this and is acting to further bridge the gender pay gap. Our government's tax cut package will significantly benefit women in the workforce. It will mean 90 per cent of women will receive a tax cut and they will receive a $1,500 tax cut on average. These are the teachers, the nurses and the aged-care workers who play such an important role in caring for our children, our neighbours and our older community members. These are the same workers who are at the centre of our industrial relations reforms to lift the minimum wage in female dominated industries. We have also increased the wages of aged-care workers by 15 per cent in line with the royal commission recommendations. From these reforms to the employment white paper, we have been placing women at the centre of our agenda and have made pay equality a key economic imperative. We're continuing this work through our expansion of paid parental leave to 26 weeks by 1 July this year.

For young mums in my electorate, this can't come soon enough. They want to see this pass the parliament as soon as possible. I recently visited a local playgroup in Torquay where Gemma Smith, the mother of one-year-old twins, said the changes to paid parental leave would have made a dramatic difference to her life when her boys, Angus and Charlie, were born. Gemma welcomed the extra flexibility in how parents could take leave, which she said encouraged gender equality. She said: 'It is so much harder to go back to work when you have twins. This would have been so helpful. Our family would have had a steadier income sooner.' More paid leave will ease the cost-of-living pressures for young families like Gemma's and, importantly, create greater capacity for parents to share parenting, build a career and earn a pay packet.

With its rapid growth—almost the fastest in the nation—my electorate of Corangamite is home to many young mothers facing challenges similar to this. Our government and I recognise that many women want to return to work or re-enter the workforce to extend their career and, importantly, contribute to the family budget. That's why our government boosted the cheaper childcare subsidy: so that mothers can get back to work, earn a good wage, build their careers and boost their superannuation. The data shows that this has had significant impact across the nation and particularly in my electorate of Corangamite. Since the subsidy was boosted, the average reduction in out-of-pocket expenses across the sector has been 11 per cent for centre based day care, 8.8 per cent for outside school hours care, 12 per cent for in-home care and 13.8 per cent for family day care.

While we take pride in these accomplishments, our government understands that there is much to do. The current national gender pay gap means that on average women working full time earn $253 less each week than their male counterparts. The national gender pay gap is at 13 per cent, and women have an average of 47 per cent less super compared to men, equating to an $85,000 difference for the average superannuation fund. These things matter. I understand they matter, and we must do more, but we are working hard because we believe in fairness and justice in wages.

In closing, I note that over recent years, the voices and experience of women have helped change public perceptions. We are listening to those voices, and women are changing public policy. It's time to build on this and to continue to work to reduce the gender pay gap. Together, as a nation, we will all be better for it because, when women do well, we all do well.

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

The women of Australia have spoken. Thousands of Australian women contributed to the development of the Women's Economic Equality Taskforce report, and what they want is secure work and respect. At the UN Women breakfast in parliament last week, chair Georgina Williams said that, when women are empowered to have their own voice, agency and meaningful participation in economic decision-making at all levels of society, everyone benefits. Despite some progress in recent years, Australian women don't have economic equality. Australia ranks equal first for women's education but 43rd for women's economic opportunity. Australian women are much less likely to work full time than women in many other OECD countries. Gender segregation persists across the economy. As an example, 76 per cent of employees in the healthcare sector are female, and 86 per cent in the construction industry are male. Most casual workers are women, and some of the most highly feminised sectors are the most casualised. Women do most of the care work, which is generally low paying. In the early childhood education and care sector, 92 per cent of workers are women. Women continue to shoulder a disproportionate burden of unpaid labour, and there's a stubborn gender pay gap of 13.3 per cent.

Goldstein includes an increasing number of lower and middle-income workers—many of them women, more than 25,000 of whom work in feminised industries—and almost 9,000 of those women who work in the care sector. These are among the millions of women I've been talking about repeatedly since I was elected and, indeed, before then. At the Jobs and Skills Summit and in conversations with ministers, I've strived to convince them of the need to place a gender lens over all legislation. The Australia Institute's Centre for Future Work found that on average an Australian woman earns $1 million less than an Australian man across her career and $136,000 less in super over her working life.

There are attitudinal barriers that keep the inequality ticking along too. According to the WEET report, 30 per cent of Australian men don't think gender inequality exists. I'll just pause so you can digest that, ladies. Gender inequality is real, and it's a moral issue as well as an economic one. Currently Australia is underutilising 50 per cent of its economic potential. According to Deloitte Access Economics, the Australian economy would be boosted by $128 billion if the persistent barriers to women's full and equal participation were removed. That equates to $12,000 extra a year per household.

As I've said before in this place and elsewhere, we need to turbocharge our efforts. At the Jobs and Skills Summit in 2022, I called for gender impact statements on all new legislation and the mandating of gender pay gap reporting—two simple measures to create fairness and accountability. The member for Tangney is right when he says that the government is taking steps to improve conditions. Expanding paid parental leave to 26 weeks by 2026 is evidence of that. But, as the WEET report outlines, 52 weeks of paid parental leave is where we need to be, and this should be phased in and achieved by 2030. We need to legislate the payment of superannuation on all forms of paid parental leave. We also need to legislate to establish and invest in universal, high-quality and affordable early childhood education and care and abolish the childcare subsidy activity test. More broadly, we need to elevate the status of care work and attract a diverse and skilled workforce by valuing and adequately compensating care workers.

We must generate policies to get more women into male-dominated industries. Let us not let women miss yet another revolution, the renewables revolution, by leaving it to hi-vis male trades. Australia has one of the most highly gender-segregated workforces among OECD countries, with women making up only three per cent of the trade workforce. Only when we have all these reforms will we unleash the full capacity and contribution of women to the Australian economy.

The final point I'll make is that we can't ignore the link between women's economic insecurity and violence. Recent data from the ABS exposes a staggering reality: 2.7 million women have experienced partner violence or abuse in Australia. When women have financial independence, they have the power to make their own decisions and they don't have to make the hideous choice between poverty and violence. Women's economic security can be a life-and-death conversation which deserves the full attention of the whole parliament. Australia's competitive advantage, economic growth and future prosperity depend on it.

Bridget Archer (Bass, Liberal Party) 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.