Marise Payne (NSW, Liberal Party, Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator McAllister for her question. I think anyone with a basic appreciation of the trajectory of the gender pay gap understands—and I'll explain this for those opposite—that the gender pay gap, whilst still too wide, is absolutely heading in the right direction. The latest figures of the gender pay gap show that it has fallen to 14 per cent, which is a record low. Indeed, it's fallen by 3.2 percentage points since November of 2013.

It was only last year that, for the first time, the government produced a Women's Economic Security Statement, of which we were very proud, led by my former colleague the then Minister for Women, the Hon. Kelly O'Dwyer. That statement contained a range of initiatives to further close the gender pay gap by boosting women's earning potential. It provided $8.6 million in additional funding to the Workplace Gender Equality Agency to make workplace gender reporting easier.