Jenny McAllister (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Minister, you have indicated that you believe my questioning to be tedious and repetitious, but the reason I am asking again—and I have asked many of these questions of your officials in estimates before, but I am asking you now—is that I am actually very concerned that in this and many other economic measures that are developed by the Treasury and the other economic agencies of government we do not have information about their gender impacts.

You yourself have acknowledged in your remarks that women get the rough end of the deal on a lot of economic questions in this country. They have lower wages and lower superannuation balances; they have less secure retirements; they are more likely to live in poverty. There are a range of ways that our economic arrangements, which are absolutely supported by government, are unfair and produce very wide disparities in the experience of women and men in the economy and their ability to enjoy a comfortable standard of living whilst working and after work. Are you comfortable with the present practice, which is not to provide information to you as a decision maker about the gender impacts of economic proposals?