Jenny McAllister (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Climate Change and Energy) Share this | Hansard source

This is an important issue that regrettably is attached to a stunt by the Greens political party. The government has very important legislation listed this morning that we need to get to, including a bill to place the CFMEU into administration and legislation to get the NDIS back on track. Moving and debating this motion now without notice, despite the fact that this is an important issue that this government is working on, that members of this government and this chamber have worked on for many years, is seeking to distract us and delay us from getting to these and other important and time-critical manners.

This motion has not been put on notice in the ordinary way, and that's the giveaway, isn't it? That is the giveaway, friends, because this motion was not sent to the government by the Greens political party with sufficient notice to consider it before they seek to move it, and that is because it is simply a stunt.

It can only lead those of us on the government benches to conclude that the Greens political party are using this as a another tactic, incredibly, to delay debate on the important CFMEU administration legislation which is currently before this Senate. They don't want to support it. They don't want to debate it and they've made that clear. They certainly don't want to be called out for their role in protecting unacceptable behaviour in this union. It leads us to ask why. It leads us to ask the question, because there are other ways to deal with a matter as important as equal pay.

This government is serious about dealing with the gender pay gap. We've actually seen progress on reducing this gap since we took office two years ago. Today is Equal Pay Day, and we are now 50 days into the new financial year, which is how many extra days women have to work each year to earn the same average salary as men. The national gender pay gap is 11½ per cent, which means that, on average, for every dollar a men earns, a women earns around 89 cents. The government will not sit by, idly watching, and hope that it continues to close. We're taking action on it. Just last week we announced we'd increased the pay of early childhood educators by 15 per cent, and it follows a similar pay rise for aged-care workers last year. These are sectors where there are a lot of women workers, and boosting their pay helps close the overall gender pay gap. We've secured record pay rises for hundreds and thousands of women on award wages. We have fixed the bargaining system to get wages moving in feminised industries. We've banned pay secrecy and changed workplace laws to put gender equity at the heart of the Fair Work Commission's decision-making. And we are publishing employer gender pay gaps to hold companies to account.

We're also addressing the other drivers of the pay gap, like uneven distribution of unpaid care. We're doing things like expanding paid parental leave and changing how it's structured so that men are encouraged to take on their fair share of caring responsibilities and to, frankly, enjoy all of the important benefits that come from a connection between men and their children. We're making childcare cheaper so it is easier for families to benefit and to balance work and care.

We actually know that change does not happen overnight, but we are making progress. There is still a lot of work to be done, but I make this point: it is work that is actually being done by a Labor government. It's work that is actually seeing the gender pay gap come down. It is work that means something to Australian women, unlike a motion brought on as a stunt to delay debate on another question. There are several times during the program that the Greens could use to discuss this matter in the normal way, like matters of public importance or a general business debate, but, instead, they would rather pull a stunt to further delay important legislation to deal with issues in the CFMEU. I move:

That the question be now put.