Jana Stewart (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in support of the Workplace Gender Equality Amendment (Closing the Gender Pay Gap) Bill 2023.

As we have heard, this is a significant step forward in advancing gender equality in Australian workplaces. This legislation will be instrumental in ensuring that the gender pay gap will continue to close through employer action and greater transparency and accountability, and by progressing gender equality in the workplace. Within our government's term, we have already seen the gap decrease. This is certainly attributable to Minister Gallagher's advocacy in bolstering Australian women's economic empowerment. I would like to commend Minister Gallagher on her incredible dedication and work in introducing the Workplace Gender Equality Amendment (Closing the Gender Pay Gap) Bill 2023 to help close the very real gender pay gap in our country.

I also believe that the historic representation of women in our government has made a considerable difference in how this government is approaching public policy. You can't replace lived experience, and Australian women can rest assured that their experiences and needs are being considered now more than ever. This bill will see employers with 100 or more workers have data on their gender pay gaps published publicly on the Workplace Gender Equality Agency website. Red tape for businesses will be reduced so that this will be easier for companies to do. This is a key reform to drive transparency and action towards closing the gender pay gap. Data collection and publication of these statistics are so important in furthering our knowledge of gender pay gap progression. From international experience, we know that publishing employer-level gender pay gap data can drive organisations to take action on closing the gender pay gap. Having more clarity about the problem means that we can build and design better policy and programmatic solutions. And it means we can track our progress and best direct future efforts to closing the gender pay gap once and for all.

On our current trajectory, it will take roughly 26 years to close the gender pay gap. Recently, the United Nations announced that at the current rate of progress it will take almost 300 years—300 years!—to achieve gender equality worldwide. Currently, and senators may have seen the recent statistics, women in Australia earn 87c in every dollar that men earn. Senators may also have seen the figure that working women who work full-time earn $253.50 less than men every single week. I seek leave to continue my remarks later.

Leave granted; debate interrupted.