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

I thank Senator Stewart for that supplementary and, again, for focusing on some of the improvements we've seen for women in the workforce since this government came to office. No doubt, these are all things that those opposite would claim as 'wasteful spending'. These are things like extending paid parental leave—I think that those opposite include that in their 'wasteful spending' bucket—paying super on PPL and making sure that we are investing in those industries where we see high levels of women workers, so in aged care and in early education and care. Again, these are obviously seen as wasteful spending by those opposite, and we shouldn't be surprised, because they didn't focus on women's economic security when they were last in government, so why would they focus on it now? We've got the gender pay gap at record lows. Average weekly earnings for women have increased $173.80. Of the million jobs, 500,000 of them have gone to women.