Tony Sheldon (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to support the Workplace Gender Equality Amendment (Closing the Gender Pay Gap) Bill 2023. This bill is yet another example of the way the Albanese government is delivering on its commitment to grow wages, improve gender equality and close the gender pay gap. It delivers on recommendations of the 2021 Review of the Workplace Gender Equality Act 2012. Most importantly, the bill allows the Workplace Gender Equality Agency to establish gender pay gaps at the employer level, rather than just the industry level, and to publish those.

Why is this bill so important? Last year the gender pay gap in this country was 14.1 per cent, and for private companies with over 100 employees that ballooned to 22.8 per cent. That is unacceptable, and at the current rate of progress it would take 26 years to close the gender pay gap. Australian women do not have 26 years to wait for equality. They deserve equality now, they deserved equality yesterday, and they certainly deserve equality through this legislation, which will help achieve it.

That's why this government has treated gender inequality with the urgency it deserves. We supported the $1 increase to the minimum wage, an increase that supported both men and women in low-paid roles, but 55 per cent of workers in low-paid roles are women. Of course, that increase was opposed by those opposite, and no doubt we'll see them oppose a minimum wage increase for low-paid workers again this year.

We made it easier for workers in low-paid, feminised industries to bargain collectively across workplaces, and that is a move that would see this agreement include a wage increase. Of course, that was opposed by those opposite. We made gender equality an object of the Fair Work Act, and again it was opposed by those opposite. We prohibited the use of pay secrecy clauses, which have long been used to stop women from finding out that they are being paid less than their male counterparts. That was opposed by those opposite. We strengthened the right to request flexible work. That was opposed by those opposite. We prohibited sexual harassment in the Fair Work Act, and that was opposed by those opposite.

We are introducing the Housing Australia Future Fund, which will provide 4,000 homes for women and children facing domestic violence, and that is being opposed by those opposite. We've introduced 10 days of paid family and domestic violence leave. We have made reforms which make child care cheaper and early childhood education more available—measures which enable greater parental workforce participation. And we have made significant improvements to paid parental leave. I want to commend, again, the trade union movement for being at the forefront of driving these reforms. I particularly want to highlight the tireless efforts of the Australian Services Union in the continued fight for gender equality at work. I use the word 'fight' deliberately, because it has been a fight, every step of the way, against those opposite, either through their inaction or direct opposition.

It's easy to forget how we have come to this point. Less than 10 years ago, the Abbott government had just one woman in cabinet—just one! At this time last year we had a prime minister who had told women protesting outside these walls that they should be grateful they weren't being shot at. We had a government that cut penalty rates, a move which attacked women disproportionately because they make up the majority of retail hospitality workers. We had a government that delivered delays in the increase of the superannuation guarantee, a move that cost every worker in this country tens of thousands of dollars and at a time when the average woman already had 23.4 per cent less in their super when they retired.

We should be finding ways to close the gender super gap. Instead, there are members of the opposition who want to destroy superannuation entirely—obviously, I have to mention Senator Bragg as one of them: the representative of the Financial Services Council in this place. He is one of many on the opposite side: there are members of the opposition who prefer to see Australian retirees, including women, retire without super into squalor and poverty. At a time when the fastest-growing demographic suffering homelessness is women over 55, this opposition doesn't want them to have super. This opposition opposes 4,000 new properties for women and children suffering domestic violence; this opposition doesn't want them to have housing. This opposition doesn't want them to have a fair pay rise. This opposition is opposed to everything that stands, and it stands for nothing.