Susan Templeman (Macquarie, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. How will Labor's new tax cuts benefit women, and is there any opposition to the government's work to put economic opportunity for women at the very heart of our agenda?

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

I thank the member for Macquarie for her question. Of course, as a result of the decision of the Senate last night, the government will deliver a tax cut for every Australian taxpayer—all 13.6 million of them. But 84 per cent of taxpayers will get a bigger tax cut than they would have under the Liberal scheme. Importantly, 90 per cent of women will be better off under this proposal. Indeed, 98 per cent of young people will be better off as well. We are making sure that women are earning more and keeping more of what they earn. On average, a woman working full time in Australia now earns $135 dollars a week more than when we came to office, and they will get a tax cut of some $2,000 a year. Women's workforce participation is at a record high, and this has been helped by changes such as cheaper child care, expanding paid parental leave and more flexible working arrangements. We know that, when women with children are making decisions about how many hours they work, an increase in their take-home pay is a powerful incentive. We've introduced, of course, a 15 per cent pay rise for aged-care workers, the vast majority of whom are women. And the gender pay gap is at a record low. We are requiring companies to publish their gender pay gaps, because transparency and accountability are how we can close the pay gap.

I commented yesterday about Senator Canavan's statements, but last night he doubled down. He went on as part of a panel of four men discussing the gender pay gap in Paul Murray's man cave. I kid you not. He said this:

It's a whole hill of nonsense … It is a completely useless report … There's just no real evidence here for a large gender pay gap in Western countries.

Not only do they want to do nothing about it, they want to pretend it doesn't even exist. If you don't identify where there are problems with policy, no wonder you don't come up with any solutions. But Senator Canavan has been out there now day after day, and I give the Deputy Leader of the Liberal Party credit, because the Deputy Leader of the Liberal Party has distanced herself from Senator Canavan's comments. But you know who we've heard crickets from? This bloke here. The Leader of the Opposition has had nothing to say about Senator Canavan—not a single word. He'll allow him to go out there, press those buttons and get in that man cave, but he has nothing to say to distance himself from those comments.