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 the member for Newcastle for the question. There are 78,000 taxpayers in her electorate that, as of 1 July, have benefited from Labor's tax cuts, including a substantial number of women. We have deliberately placed women and gender equality at the centre of our economic plan. This hasn't happened by accident. We know that women work incredibly hard across our economy, and we do understand that people are under pressure and that some are doing it tough. That's why we are working to ensure that women earn more and get to keep more of what they earn, and that has happened because of the policies of this government.

Yesterday we delivered a tax cut to every single taxpayer. On average, women taxpayers will receive a tax cut of around $1,650, which is $707 more than they would have received under those opposite's stage 3 tax plans. When we were looking at the stage 3 tax plans, we wanted to make sure that the people who earned under $45,000—some of the lowest income earners in the country—who were getting a big fat zero in tax cuts under those opposite's plans—

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

Thank you, I was getting to that. We made changes to the stage 3 tax cuts that were going to see workers under $45,000 getting absolutely nothing. We have changed that to ensure that they do now get a tax cut. They are predominantly women who work in child care, disability and aged care. They are nurses and teachers in highly feminised professions, and we are making sure that they actually earn more and then get to keep more of what they own.

Yesterday, of course, we delivered our commitment to increase the paid parental leave scheme to 22 weeks, a really important reform to paid parental leave. But we're also making sure that we're paying superannuation on paid parental leave, and that will have a huge impact on women's retirement incomes in the years ahead, something I'm very proud of, on this side of the House. We've also ensured that we have the award wages increase, with 2.6 million Australians benefiting from wages increases. Again, these are some of the lowest paid workers in this country, predominantly women. And, of course, we are increasing superannuation overall, which will also assist women to make sure that they've got retirement incomes. We are delivering energy bill relief, freezing the cost of PBS medicines, making sure bulk billing is going up so people can afford to see a doctor and getting a fairer deal for consumers at the supermarket checkout. Women's equality is a central driver of everything that we do on this side of the House, something of which I'm very proud.