Jess Walsh (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Today marks one year since Senator Cash declared that the government's secure jobs, better pay legislation would close down Australia. It's been 12 months, and I'm proud to say that Australia is well and truly still open. The sun is still coming up. The sky hasn't fallen in. In fact, unemployment is at historic lows. There have been over half a million jobs created since the Albanese Labor government was elected. This is the most jobs created in the first term of any government on record, and we're only 18 months in. Under Labor, wages are growing at their highest rate in over 10 years, and we inherited an industrial relations system that was broken, outdated and based on an economy that just doesn't exist anymore. It was a system that didn't deliver for employers or employees.

Last year, Senator Cash predicted that this legislation would send Australia back to the 1970s. Well, we haven't time travelled, despite the best efforts of those opposite to actually send us back not to the 1970s but to the 1950s while they were in office! In fact, we are putting Australian women at the heart of our jobs plan and at the heart of our economic plan. When the secure jobs, better pay legislation passed the parliament, it put respect for women workers at the heart of our workplace laws, after a decade of low wages as a deliberate design feature of the economic policy of the previous government. There was a race to the bottom on wages and conditions across some of our most essential sectors, like our care economy, which faces unprecedented workforce shortages, with dedicated, highly skilled early childhood educators having left the sector because they simply couldn't afford to stay. It was educators who stood up for these important laws and told their stories to us here in parliament about how much they love their work and how hard it is to continue, because, as we all know, love just doesn't pay the rent. This is a sector that is dominated by women. The secure jobs, better pay legislation paved the way for multi-employer bargaining, which is now being used by educators to take their case to the Fair Work Commission. They are standing up for the professional wages that they deserve—wages that truly reflect the value of their work in educating future generations.

This legislation is a step towards closing the gender pay gap in this country—a gap that is still at 13 per cent for millions of working women. I will note that this legislation and our policies for economic equality have brought this down from nearly 19 per cent under the previous government. But that should come as no surprise, because of course you would struggle to think of a single policy for women from the previous government. Upgrading highways to help make sure women get to hospital in time to give birth was, apparently, one of their best economic policies for women. They were proposing to deal with family violence by letting women raid their own super to get out of abusive relationships. They were telling women protesting about sexual violence that they were lucky not to be shot. They had a previous leader who could only understand sexual assault as 'a father of daughters'. This is what you'd expect from a party that has only gone backwards on representation for women in this parliament.

On this side of the chamber, we're not only investing in Australian women; we are a government of women. I am incredibly proud to be a part of the first Australian majority-women government. We are 55 out of 104 caucus members. We know that governments make better decisions when they better reflect the communities they serve, and we are delivering for Australian women. That's why we've funded a much-needed 15 per cent pay rise for aged-care workers, who are mainly women. We're supporting workforce participation with a historic expansion of paid parental leave and by making early childhood education free for the vast majority of families. We will continue to stand up for the working women of this nation.