Murray Watt (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Hansard source

You're right, Senator Lambie. In my experience many—a majority, in fact—of the staff who work at community legal services are women, and, just like in every other part of the workforce, unfortunately, too many of them continue to experience the gender pay gap. More broadly, one of the things that this government is most proud of is the fact that we have reduced the gender pay gap—to the lowest it has ever been, on record—across the entire economy, but we recognise that a gap still exists, including in legal services, and that's something that we want to tackle.

It would certainly be our intention that the extra funding that was provided in this year's budget and that will inevitably be provided in the next five-year agreement would go some way to meeting those issues. Of course, it wasn't that long ago that, under a Labor government, we did see a significant pay rise for workers in the community sector, including these legal services, the majority of whom are women. Labor has a pretty good track record in trying to meet those needs in those services, and we'll continue to do what we can. (Time expired)