Larissa Waters (Queensland, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you so very much, Acting Deputy President Cox. It's great to see a woman of colour in the chair on International Women's Day. I move:

That, in the opinion of the Senate, the following is a matter of urgency:

That women in Australia deserve genuine progress on women's safety, health and economic security, including:

the country

all of which could be funded with $254 billion in savings from scrapping the Stage 3 tax cuts, which mostly benefit rich men.

It is International Women's Day today. Women deserve genuine progress on safety, health and economic security, including fully funded frontline women's safety services, superannuation on a decent amount of paid parental leave and investment in affordable housing to tackle the growing risk of homelessness, which is rising amongst older women. Women deserve a raise in the rate of income support and the rate of the minimum wage, which is disproportionately earnt by women. Women deserve a full range of reproductive health care to be made accessible through the public health system so that people can actually afford to access the reproductive health care they deserve. Women deserve the universal, high-quality early childhood education to be made free and accessible no matter where you are in this country.

All of those amazing things that would improve the daily material lives of women could be funded. They could be funded if this government chose to ditch the stage 3 tax cuts initially proposed by Scott Morrison and now backed in by this Labor government. They could save $254 billion of public money and, instead of giving it to the 40 per cent of rich white men, they could spend it on women and deliver these policy outcomes, which will actually help people or pull people out of poverty and will help us achieve safety and equality.

Every day this government could choose to improve the lives of women, but today, being International Women's Day, you'd think the Albanese government would commit to something real, a real, tangible action on improving women's safety, economic security or inequality. Instead we've got a report card telling us what we already know. It's a good distillation of the data, but unfortunately there was no announcement today from the government saying what they would do to fix any of those hideous metrics about women being killed, about women being in poverty, about women being paid less than blokes. The list goes on, and it's very sobering reading. If this government still doesn't know what needs to be done to actually achieve gender equality, then it's time to start listening to the women of the country who have been very vocal about this, and there's even an obvious way to pay for it.

It beggars belief that Labor refuses to walk away from the stage 3 tax cuts. As I mentioned before, 40 per cent of those would go to men already in the top 10 per cent of earners, a group that certainly doesn't need any more help from the government; they're doing very nicely. The Status of women report card says that women approaching retirement have 23.1 per cent less super than men of the same age. We know that paying superannuation on paid parental leave would go a long way towards closing that gap. But we haven't heard a commitment from this government on that yet.

We also know that the fastest growing cohort of people at risk of homelessness is women. It's not just women over the age of 55, as it was before COVID; it's now women over the age of 45. Yet this government's proposal to fix the housing crisis falls so far short of what's needed that it actually makes things worse, by not keeping pace with people who need a roof over their head. Women make up more than 60 per cent of those relying on income support payments: JobSeeker, student and parenting payments. They are struggling to make ends meet as the cost of living rises, but the government still will not raise the rate.

The Status of women report card notes that it takes an average of five years to receive a diagnosis of endometriosis, despite the fact that one in nine women suffer from it. This inequality in access to women's reproductive health care will persist without federal intervention. What's missing from the Status of women report card is a real-time toll of women killed by violence, to keep that issue at the front of decision-makers' minds. What's also missing is data about unmet need: how many women are turned away from frontline services because those services simply don't have the resources that keep up with demand?

The women's safety sector have said time and time again that they need $1 billion to help everyone who seeks their help. They are turning women and children away because they do not have the resources to help them. The last budget fell short on that pledge. I asked the minister earlier today in question time whether or not any movement could be seen on that, and I was given a promising response. We will hold you to account on that. The women of Australia are grateful for this completion of data showing how unequal we are, but what we actually want is policy action to redress that inequality. Those stage 3 tax cuts are the best way to fund women's safety, equality and economic security.