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

I thank Senator Smith for the question and, again, for all the work she does in relation to gender equality and women's policy in general. I really do appreciate it. It's so fantastic to work with such a great bunch of people and have such a great bunch of women across the Labor caucus.

I thank everybody in this chamber because this is a piece of legislation where the chamber came together as one and agreed that it should be a priority to get this bill passed. It has passed the House of Representatives now. It was work that was built upon by the former government—those opposite—who had started the review and agreed to the recommendations. So it is really good, at the end of a long and sometimes scratchy sitting fortnight, to be in a position where we can demonstrate to the women of Australia that the parliament has agreed that accelerating action on the gender pay gap is such a critical and important national reform.

The bill that passed the House this morning is going to change things. It is going to ensure that, at a business level, where a gender pay gap exists, that will be reported and people will be able to see that. It's important for transparency and accountability reasons but it's also about driving the reform that's needed to close the gender pay gap. There is absolutely no reason why men and women performing the jobs that they do in businesses should be paid differently for the same type of work. We know that this has a huge impact on gender equality and women's economic independence, or women's economic equality, as well.