Katy Gallagher (ACT, Australian Labor Party, Minister for the Public Service) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Walsh for the question, and I can assure the chamber this is a question I prepared for earlier, but it is an important subject. I'm proud to be a member of a government that's introducing the Workplace Gender Equality Amendment (Closing the Gender Pay Gap) Bill in the parliament later today. This is an important step forward in advancing gender equality in Australian workplaces. Together with the remade instruments under the act, it fulfils a key election commitment of our government to close the gender pay gap at work including by boosting pay gap transparency and taking action to help close the gender pay gaps within organisations.

On average, women working full time can expect to earn 14.1 per cent less than men per week in their pay packets. Current projections suggest that this will take another 26 years for this gap to close. This is too long, and women shouldn't have to wait nor should our daughters or those girls being born today. It's not fair. We need to address it.

With these reforms, we will, for the first time in Australia, publish the gender pay gaps of businesses that employ 100 or more people. The reform only covers employers that already report to WGEA, and it will be drawn on existing reporting, so employers themselves will not need to provide any additional information. If they choose to, employers can provide information about their gender pay gap and any action they are taking to close it, and employers will have around a year to get ready with the first reporting planned for early 2024. Gender pay gap data will be published on WGEA's website in a searchable tool available to the public. This will add to the rich data already publicly available on WGEA's website. Reporting will commence in 2024, and it draws on all of that data, as I said before, from information already collected.

The legislation being introduced responds to the recommendations of the review of the Workplace Gender Equality Act 2012. (Time expired)