Janet Rice (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak to the Fair Work Amendment (Gender Pay Gap) Bill 2015, which my colleague the former senator Larissa Waters introduced into this place. I thank Senator Waters for her contribution to progress towards equality, and I'm pleased to debate this bill here today. We've brought this debate on today to ensure that this place retains a focus on real, concrete actions to reduce the gender pay gap in Australia. As long as the gender pay gap persists in Australia, we are failing to achieve our best as a nation. We are missing out on the best of our talent and our potential by failing to properly provide for equal pay for equal work.

This bill will help to reduce the gender pay gap by banning gag clauses, which prevent workers in various sectors and industries from discussing their pay with their colleagues. This bill amends the Fair Work Act 2009 so that any contract of employment, enterprise agreement or award that prohibits workers from discussing their pay will have no effect. It would probably surprise a few people that many workers, especially those in the private sector who are receiving a salary, are not allowed to talk about their pay with their colleagues. Many employment contracts include a gag clause, which means that workers can be disciplined or even sacked for talking about their pay. Workers should have the option to voluntarily discuss their terms and conditions of employment with their colleagues. This bill seeks to enable that. It would not force anyone to discuss their pay, but it would make sure that employers could not pressure their employees to stay silent. This bill also prevents employers from taking action against employees for discussing their pay with their colleagues.

I'm not one who would usually spruik the banks, but there is an excellent bank advertisement that goes to the heart of the gender pay gap. You might have seen this ad. There are several children—siblings—who are asked to do chores. They do their chores and then the boys are paid more than the girls. All the children are shocked, none more so than the girls, and their reactions are not only heart warming but accurate. 'It should be flat-out illegal,' one of them says. I'm not joking. I'm not being unreasonable. If you do the same work, you should get paid the same money. I have no words. It's so wrong. How does the gender pay gap happen?

Let me share some stories with you. I've known so many friends and colleagues whose career pathways seem to have a default ending of lower pay than our male colleagues. I think of the women I went to school with and went to uni with, and the trajectory is very familiar. We finished our degrees and went into full-time work—bright, energetic, enthusiastic, the world being our oyster—in our early and mid-20s. But even then, immediately after graduation, our brash, confident male colleagues were more than likely to be offered and to be paid more than us, overselling their competencies as we were often more realistic about ours. My friend and former senator in this place Larissa Waters talked about her own experience of pay secrecy during her time working on these issues. She talked about her experience as a junior graduate lawyer, a couple of months into her exciting new role, and learning that the guy sitting next to her, also straight out of uni, was earning $5,000 more each year. They were doing exactly the same job, and were so early in their careers. That extra $5,000 was a hefty portion of her overall pay. The two had equal experience as junior lawyers and she'd even got better marks than him. He inadvertently let this pay discrepancy slip in a casual conversation, but otherwise it wouldn't have been transparent or known, because of the level of pay secrecy in that firm.

There are many life circumstances that lead many women to end up with lower pay outcomes. For many of us, the time of our early careers coincides with relationships becoming serious, with moving in with our partner and with beginning a family, and our working lives then take a back seat to child rearing. Don't get me wrong. I loved having kids. But life at that time was a juggle of part-time work, paid child care, parents looking after the kids, school drop-offs and pick-ups, after-school care, feeling guilty about the kids going to after-school care too much and feeling guilty about before-school care and trying to avoid that as much as possible. I personally found three days a week to be the right balance between being there for my kids and contributing to paying the mortgage and keeping my professional life ticking over. But many other mothers I know chucked in their careers altogether, deciding to scrape by on significantly less household income in order to live a happier, less stressful family life.

I think of one friend, who trained as an immunologist. She was out of the paid workforce for almost 10 years, home with the kids until her youngest went to school, and then retrained as a secondary school science teacher. Many of these women have found it difficult getting back into their preferred careers, having to then compete against younger, more recently graduated folk. And the life skills that they have gained in bringing up kids—juggling, multitasking, being very flexible and problem solving—aren't recognised. The people who would recognise their skills generally aren't doing the recruiting. Going back to study and starting again is a common course of action, and with it come more years out of the paid workforce.

Another woman I know, who is now in her mid-40s, has a PhD in climate science. Her three kids are now aged 10, eight and five. She's back at work part-time at their primary school, working as a teacher's aide, which is really, really important work but a role that fits a pattern of being undertaken largely by women and consequently being undervalued and underpaid. She's fortunate, with her higher degree, that she's got other options, and she's now looking for work that is more relevant to her qualifications and that will be better remunerated. But she's struggling to find something more suitable, mainly because she is not wanting to work full-time just yet. If she can't find anything she'll stick to being a teacher's aide, regardless of how poorly paid it is. It's rewarding work, it's close to home and it fits in around the kids.

Other friends, even now that their kids are at high school, don't apply for promotions at work because of the expectations of lots of overtime, being inconsistent with a healthy work-life balance, and that's particularly so as our parents are ageing. Some of my contemporaries are now taking a month or more at a time of unpaid leave to help ageing parents move into retirement villages or nursing homes, and/or they're dropping back to four days a week so that they can be available to drive their parents off to doctors appointments and physio appointments, and it goes on and on.

This bill that we are discussing today won't solve these structural problems. We are going to have to keep working on these. But at least it would mean that, when women were getting back into the paid workforce after having kids, or dropping back to part-time work, they would more likely be able to negotiate and be paid what they were worth—at least on par with that brash young male graduate who fits, to a T, the stereotypical expectations of those doing the recruiting, or that senior partner who, yes, works long hours and is always available. But does he really deliver that much more? Does he deserve to be paid that much more?

According to the Workplace Gender Equality Agency, the full-time gender pay gap in Australia is 15.3 per cent—15.3 per cent—and this has largely remained unchanged for 20 years. While the percentage is an important thing to note, it's crucial that we understand exactly what that means in tangible terms. The 15.3 per cent gender pay gap means that women working full time earn, per week, on average, $1,409, compared to $1,662.70 for men. That's $253.70 less. That's a difference of $13,192.40 less every year for the average female full-time worker; $131,924 over 10 years; and $527,696 over 40 years—over half a million dollars. These figures are staggering. And they are unacceptable. The private sector has a staggering 19.2 per cent gender pay gap, compared to 10.8 per cent in the public sector, and it is not unrelated that pay gap clauses largely don't exist in the public sector and are much, much more commonplace in the private sector.

This bill addresses just one factor that contributes to the gender pay gap, but it is an important one. In their submission to the inquiry into this bill, the Workplace Gender Equality Agency reminded us of some of the other significant factors: that particular industries have different methods of setting pay and that this affects the pay gap; that industries and sectors which generally have individual agreements between employer and employee, rather than awards or collective agreements, tend to have a worse gender pay gap; and that Australian employment remains gender-segregated in many respects, with women and men traditionally working in different industries and different jobs, and there aren't many industries in Australia where gender parity has been achieved in workplace make-up. Added to this is that our society and economy largely undervalue work in female-dominated industries and jobs, whether in child care or aged care or hairdressing, and that these jobs tend to attract lower wages than jobs in male-dominated industries, resulting in significant differences in pay between men and women. The pay gap between genders is also reinforced by differences in access to education between women and men. Another contributing factor is that there is a lack of women in senior positions across the board, but especially in certain industries such as financial and insurance services, where women are paid 26.1 per cent less than male colleagues.

There are correlations, as I've already talked about, between the lack of pay equality and women overwhelmingly performing more unpaid caring responsibilities, and ending up with reduced remuneration upon return to the workforce as they potentially manage caring alongside work, or they experience role re-definition and pay changes after taking time out. And of course there are the additional effects of taking leave to fulfil caring responsibilities, such as reduced earnings and reduced superannuation contributions. Women experiencing more direct and indirect discrimination in the workplace can also be a major contributing factor to lack of promotion to senior positions. That's what happens when we see the old boys' clubs prevailing in certain workplaces and industries, and it can mean that promotions and development opportunities are disproportionately allocated to men. These are interrelated work, family, social and cultural factors, and we must keep them in front of mind as we consider the gender pay gap and the ways we can keep driving that gap down.

The Greens had this bill drafted in order to take a step towards pay equality, while acknowledging these many other factors that influence inequality in the workplace and in pay scales. Getting rid of gag clauses will contribute to much greater pay transparency in workplaces and mean that employers will have to justify how they pay their workers, rather than allowing discrimination and unconscious bias to creep into their decision-making.

We know that when pay deals are not kept in the dark, and when workers know what their colleagues are earning, the gender pay gap is smaller, and this is demonstrated by the stark difference in the pay gap between the private and the public sectors. Shining the light on secret pay deals means that all workers, including women, are treated fairly and receive the same pay for the same job. When salaries are set through individual negotiations, and workers are prevented from discussing the outcome with each other, overall, women end up with less pay. While there's no evidence to suggest that women's abilities to negotiate are any different from men's, research shows that women's negotiations tend to be less successful than men's.

The Greens have been in this space, working to reduce the gender pay gap, for a long time. This bill was first tabled in 2015, and I would strongly urge all parties and Independents in this chamber to support this bill. As we flagged in our dissenting report on the inquiry held into this bill, we would consider amendments to improve this bill even further, based on evidence that we heard from the submissions to the inquiry. But the fact remains: women should be paid the same as men for the same job. Everyone should be paid the same for the same job. It's as simple as that. This isn't controversial. I doubt you'd find anybody in this place who would disagree that people, regardless of gender, are entitled to equal pay for equal work. This isn't women wanting special treatment. It isn't about women wanting more than men. It's simply about being paid the same as a man for the same job. At the heart of it, it's about fairness. This is what this bill seeks to achieve.

This bill isn't the only thing that we need to do to reduce the gender pay gap to zero. There are other factors at play and other structural issues that must be addressed. But what the Greens are putting forward today is one concrete step towards addressing the issues.

Reducing the gender pay gap is about fairness. Everyone should be paid the same for the same job, regardless of their gender. In the bank advertisement that I discussed earlier, one of the girls says to one of the boys, who has just been paid more than her, 'What we're trying to tell you is that it's not fair that boys get paid more than girls.' It's so simple that even children understand it. The question is: is it simple enough for this parliament to start taking some steps towards addressing the persistent gender pay gap in Australia?

Jonathon Duniam (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Rice and the Greens for bringing to the floor of this chamber the debate on the Fair Work Amendment (Gender Pay Gap) Bill 2015. I was pleased to hear a lot of what Senator Rice said in her contribution there, acknowledging that I don't think there is anyone in this place that would believe trying to perpetuate the situation where we do have a gender pay gap is acceptable. Everyone wants to make sure that we have fairness in this sense. I think it is right that we acknowledge that that is the aim that everyone that comes to this debate would have. How we get there, Senator Rice, I suppose is probably going to be how we differ with regard to this.

It is an important issue, and it's been one that has been talked about extensively for some time now—a very, very long period of time. We talk about it more as a society that more openly embraces equality between the sexes, something that up until a few years ago I don't think we did properly, and I still think we have a long way to go in that space, but it is the catalyst for this debate. And the statistics we've seen, many of which Senator Rice referred to in her contribution, do bear out the problem that we face, as a Western society, with regard to trying to level the playing field when it comes to take-home pay of women and where that sits with regard to the take-home pay of men. No-one in this place could suggest that it is right to continue to perpetuate this problem that we see with regard to the take-home pay of women, as opposed to men. We all want to fix it. It's how we get there that we need to consider.

And so, in looking at the bill that former Senator Waters did prepare, we have to consider: is this the best way? And I do acknowledge, as Senator Rice pointed out on a couple of occasions, that this is but one element of how the Greens would see the parliament, and indeed the government, address this issue. But my question is: well, should we be doing these standalone things, ticking these items one by one off a list of things that need to be done to address a complex situation? Personally, having had a look at the work of the Senate Education and Employment Legislation Committee, I'm not sure that way—removing, as has been referred to by Senator Rice, the gag clauses as a standalone item—is the way to do it.

As Senator Rice said, the bill seeks to amend the Fair Work Act 2009 by removing restrictions on employees' rights to disclose the amount they earn or other information about their pay or earnings as well as prohibiting employers from taking adverse action against employees for disclosing this information. I haven't been able to go and research what action, if any, has been taken—I assume Senator Rice is aware of action that may have been taken in relation to employees who have breached these provisions of the Fair Work Act—but it is about what a change of this nature, what changing the Fair Work Act in accordance with these amendments, would actually do in practice to address this issue that needs changing. We are all in furious agreement that it needs changing, but how far would it take us to do that? What consequences would flow from this? What unforeseen consequences would flow from this? We need to consider all of those questions, which is the right thing for this chamber to do, as we do consider this legislation.

It's also important to consider the context here in Australia—I wouldn't quite call it historical, but I mean where things are at now and where they have been over the past few years with regard to the gender pay gap. Indeed, it is important to note, and Senator Rice did point this out, that the latest figure from the Australian Bureau of Statistics on the gender pay gap highlights that it is at 15.3 per cent. Now that is still not good enough—no-one is saying it is—but it is down from a high of 18.5 per cent, which is where it was in November 2014. That's a drop of more than three per cent. We do need to acknowledge that, but, at the same time, we need to accept that this means there is a huge amount of work yet to be done. We've got another 15.3 per cent to work through in order to ensure that this issue has been dealt with. This statistic means that it's the lowest it's been for 12 years. It's also pleasing to see that women's employment in this country is at a record high of over 5.8 million. The women's workforce participation rate has risen since 2016. It reached 60.5 per cent as at December last year according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics' figures that they released in January this year. It does highlight that there are some efforts being made by government, by employee representative organisations and also, hopefully, the private sector, noting the difference in the statistics relating to the private and public sectors. So there is work happening, things are changing and things are improving, but we've got a long way to go. It is important, though, to acknowledge those things that have happened to date as a result of work that the government has been doing.

As Senator Rice points out, though, it is a complex issue and not one influenced by a single factor. There is no way the government could intervene in any meaningful way without causing all sorts of problems across the employment markets, because it is incredibly complex. The issue is related to the numbers of hours worked in certain professions. Full-time men work on average more hours per week, 42.1, than full-time women, 38.2. I think it goes to that point Senator Rice raised around the individual circumstances of the woman versus the man. Another factor is the greater unpaid caring responsibilities of women. These sorts of things flow into the capacity of an individual to work, and then onto the statistics we are seeing with regard to the gender pay gap—all things we need to deal with.

The industrial and occupational segregation has been talked about as well. Six in 10 Australians work in an industry dominated by one gender. An example is child care, where we have seen over many years a desire from those who work within that sector to achieve a better pay rate. My wife is involved in the childcare industry. The employees at that centre are all women. There was one male there for a short period of time. It highlights the issue of occupational and industrial segregation Senator Rice referred to, which also flows into this.

The differences in education, work experience and seniority and the differing levels of qualifications and expertise people bring may be dominated to a degree by gender. I've spoken previously about my mother and my grandmother, two women who, as a result of their life experiences, were impeded from climbing the ladder in their workforces. My mother, who didn't satisfactorily complete year 10, went off to be a checkout clerk in one of the local department stores, and effectively that was it for her education and employment for a very long period of time. Fast-forward 40 years, and she has now completed her PhD at the University of Tasmania, but she has often said to me that her lack of educational experience—where her brothers were given the opportunity to attain a university education, in addition to having completed years 11 and 12 at the local college in Tasmania at the time, but she was not—had an impact on how she lived her life. Thankfully we don't see much of those sorts of things anymore. Where they occur, we need to ensure they are stamped out and that opportunities are provided, particularly in regional communities.

I think it is worth talking about a number of the actions being taken by the government with regard to this issue. Despite the figures I cited earlier—that there are now over 5.8 million Australian women in employment, that the participation rate is the highest on record at 60.5 per cent, and that the pay gap has dropped to 15.3 per cent—there is still work to be done. It was pleasing to note that my colleague Senator Cash has released Towards 2025: an Australian government strategy to boost women's workforce participation, the document which guides the government's efforts in dealing with this issue, along with any of the other flow-on issues related to gender discrimination. Elements of the plan, which is to be rolled out over the next 10 years, include ensuring that there are flexible arrangements for affordable and accessible childcare, so that families can make a choice and we can overcome the somewhat natural barriers to women entering the workforce that have been described in the debate so far.

On improving workplace diversity and flexibility, we're seeing the government make a point about ensuring that flexible work is a normal part of the workplace for both men and women; supporting both men and women to innovate and to succeed with entrepreneurial efforts, and to thrive in whatever field they choose to go into; working to strengthen women's economic security to ensure that women are secure, independent and empowered through our society and through attaining work; and ensuring that there is a set of enhanced financial incentives to work. So it's clear that there are a number of measures in place.

This strategy, though, also identifies six groups of women who have specific needs and whose experiences need to be specifically catered for. Those groups include Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women, culturally and linguistically diverse women, mature-aged women, rural and regional women—one group I've already spoken about here—women with a disability, and, of course, young women. Sometimes people will fall into a number of those categories as well.

There are implementation plans being rolled out each year with regard to this strategy, to ensure that we are going to see the results needed to get things right with regard to issues like the gender pay gap. The 2017-18 implementation plan outlined a number of actions, including the expansion of ParentsNext to assist 68,000 parents with young children to plan and prepare for employment, at a value of $263 million; the implementation of the new Launch into Work program to assist jobseekers to become job ready; the promotion of the benefits of flexible work for small and medium businesses, which is another issue, because smaller enterprises which don't have the resources or the capacity to absorb the notion of a flexible workplace are something that the government does need to support, and it is pleasing to see the government do that; and a gender analysis of employment services to both improve current service delivery and inform employment services by 2020.

I would like to briefly talk on some of the measures that the Tasmanian government's been taking with regard to dealing with issues of gender discrimination. The most pleasing thing I've read for a little while is that in the Tasmanian parliament—the lower house, at least—a majority of members are women. Thirteen out of the 25—yes, it's a small parliament!—are women. It is the first time in Tasmania's history, I believe, that that has happened—and Senator McKim breathes a sigh of relief over there!—with regard to the outcome in Tasmania. That is a good thing, and I think it does show what that state is doing to try and address this issue.

The Hodgman Liberal government in Tasmania is committed to dealing with this issue. It does have its own five-year Tasmanian Women's Plan, which has been running since 2013 and concludes this year—and I'm sure there will be more to come on that front—and which has set out a framework for creating gender equality by reducing systemic barriers to women's participation and leadership opportunities. There are a great number of achievements in there as a result of the last four and a bit years of work—indeed, the previous government was as committed to dealing with this issue in Tasmania as the current one.

The statistics which do bear out that there are some great initiatives the government can employ include those from the Women on Boards strategy, which helps females in Tasmania secure positions on many of the government boards that exist relating to government business enterprises, state-owned companies and other committees within the structure of government. The overall percentage of female representation on these boards has increased from just over 30 per cent to just over 40 per cent as at October last year, which is a great sign that we are embracing the need for diversity and we are ensuring that it begins to exist in leadership roles and leadership entities in our state. As at 24 October 2017, 53 per cent of government business enterprises had board members that were women, and 44 per cent of the state-owned company board members were women. So we're well on the way there with one of them, and exceeding in another area. There are a number of boards that the government is responsible for—131 in total—and it is great to see most of those well on the way to ensuring that those targets are being reached.

Of the government's plan, it is nice to refer to the comments of Susan Fahey, the CEO of the Tasmanian Women's Legal Service, who said, 'This plan is a truly whole-of-government approach. It's a significant plan that shows the government can walk and chew gum, and it provides a solid foundation for significantly reducing family violence in our community.' That was in relation to the family violence component of the government's plans. Teeny Brumby, an alderman from Burnie City Council, gave feedback on the Australian Institute of Company Directors scholarships course funded by the Tasmanian government. In her comments, she said, 'This learning experience, as a woman in leadership in Tasmania, cannot be underestimated. It is absolutely brilliant to see our government investing in the future of female leaders in our state, and I cannot thank the AICD and the Tasmanian government enough for their generous support in this remarkable journey.'

There are a lot of good things happening in Tasmania and across the country with regard to dealing with this issue, but, that said, there is more to be done. I go back to the question I asked at the very beginning of my contribution: what does this particular piece of legislation do to address the issue fundamentally? I note that in the United Kingdom the government has imposed a mandatory reporting regime with regard to gender pay matters. The implementation of that has been met with mixed reviews. I understand that private entities that employ over 250 people—of which there are 9,000 that are required to report—are supposed to lodge information about how much they pay the women and the men in their organisation so that we have transparency around it. The statistics in the UK show that gender pay remains an issue and that this standalone measure won't go to fix that.

Alarmingly, the response from the entities who have been required to provide this information suggests that the process is flawed. There are reports of at least 20 companies in the UK providing bunkum details to throw the system, so that no-one would find out what the true gender pay gap was within their organisation. There's clearly no mechanism to ensure that what they have provided is accurate, and so when 20 companies, some of them extremely large in the employment number they have, do this one has to question whether this system could actually generate any good outcomes. If we're reliant on the honour and goodwill of an entity participating in this process and on them providing accurate information, that leaves some significant holes. Indeed, research conducted on companies participating in this process indicated that they believe the system wouldn't work. Some openly admitted they would game the system, that they would provide information that wouldn't accurately reflect the nature of things within their organisation. That is concerning. It suggests that it will not go to solving the problem of the gender pay gap we have. When the system doesn't have the strength of enforcement around it, how do you ensure that that information is accurate? It really is about working across the issues—the complex issues, the range of issues; as the government is doing and other governments before it have, too—and trying to get to the root cause of all of these problems to ensure that we properly address them, that we look not just at one area and deal with that, which could yield unintended consequences, but at the whole gamut and make sure we do it comprehensively and properly.

Jenny McAllister (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The gender pay gap is a multifaceted problem. It arises from a complex mix of cultural and economic factors, which range from gender segregation in the workplace through the availability of flexible working conditions to outright discrimination. Closing the gender pay gap will require a coordinated effort across our social, taxation and workplace relations policies. Eliminating it may take a generation.

Given this, it is entirely predictable that the Greens would draft a bill that contains only two substantive sections and gives us the grandiosely ambitious name Fair Work Amendment (Gender Pay Gap) Bill—the bill does not deserve this title. Labor is inclined to support it—we believe that pay secrecy is an obstacle to pay equity—but we have substantive concerns about the bill.

The bill only addresses one small aspect of the gender pay gap and its significant drafting flaws mean that it doesn't even address that aspect effectively. Labor has been considering this idea for some time and we believe a strengthened version, with the drafting problems removed, may have some merit as part of a suite of other measures. But this is the point: the Greens don't have a coherent, well-developed set of measures to properly address the gender pay gap, and yet that is what this bill purports to do. This bill is what happens when you draft policies on the basis of what they'll look like on a Facebook post rather than how they'll impact on the people who depend on you. We on the Labor side know that as a sole measure it simply does not go far enough in dealing with the disparities in wages between working men and working women in Australia today.

The bill has flaws which ought to have been addressed: there's been plenty of time, and the fact that they haven't been reveals the Greens' lack of real commitment to this issue. One wonders what they have been doing since the Senate committee reported. This bill has remained unchanged since it was first introduced in September 2015, during the 44th Parliament. Following its introduction in 2015 this bill was referred to the Senate Education and Employment Legislation Committee, which handed down its report in 2016, during the last parliament. The committee heard from a number of submitters—impressive evidence, actually—including many legal experts who identified obvious and also some unintentional flaws with the way the bill was drafted. The Labor senators' dissenting report pointed out that these concerns should be addressed. The Greens' report indicated that these concerns should be addressed but, disappointingly, they remain in the bill as we re-examine it today.

I say it's disappointing, but it is also predictable that the Greens have not addressed any of the concerns raised by submitters or by the opposition through amendments before asking the Senate to consider it once again. I acknowledge that Senator Rice said she was willing to consider amendments, but that is not good enough. Actual reform by a party that aspires to form government requires actually doing the work, not just relying on a more serious operation to deliver that for you.

I'll go through some of the problems. We note that the bill does not prevent pay secrecy practices; it merely prevents the operation of pay secrecy clauses in contracts or awards. Accordingly, it offers no protection for workers who are directed to keep their pay confidential by their employer or any workers whose company policies or procedures require them to keep their pay confidential. This means that should this legislation pass unamended, workers might end up incorrectly assuming they are free to disclose their pay without consequence when in fact they could face significant consequences for doing so. The Law Council, in its submission to the inquiry into the bill, also considered that the bill did not create a workplace right and that therefore it does not offer protection under the Fair Work Act 2009 if the employer were to take adverse action against an employee for revealing their pay. Again, as drafted, this bill won't fully protect workers who disclose their pay. Professor Andrew Stewart, a specialist lawyer in workplace relations and academic at the University of Adelaide, also observed a clear limitation of the bill in relation to coverage. He said:

… it seems to me that the bill has a number of potential flaws in some respects—seeking to go too far and in other respects not going far enough.

He went on to say that the flaws in the drafting of the bill meant:

It does not, as the explanatory memorandum claims, in my view, 'make sure that workers are allowed to tell their colleagues what they are paid if they wish to without fear of retaliation'.

In her submission to the committee, Professor Marian Baird, a gender employment relations specialist, and her colleague, Ms Alexandra Heron, suggested that the bill be amended to ban pay secrecy clauses to make the intention clear. Further, they recommended that the bill should be amended to ensure that the Fair Work Information Statement informs employees about pay transparency at the beginning of their engagement in a job. The ACTU also made this suggestion during their appearance before the committee, stressing the importance of making workers aware of their rights to disclose information about pay. Despite all this, the Greens have made no attempt to amend this bill as a result of the Senate inquiry which reported in November 2016, nor have they made any attempt to discuss this bill with the opposition to discuss how we might set about remedying these deficiencies. This is not how you behave if you are serious about addressing an issue, but the scope of the bill alone shows us that the Greens are more concerned about being seen to be acting than they are about actually making a difference. Addressing pay secrecy is important, but without any other policies it will barely make a dent in the pay gap. In this, as in so many other policy areas, the Greens have shown themselves to be disinterested in doing the detailed and unheralded work that accompanies all meaningful reform. It's not, of course, the only example, and it's not the only example as it relates to women.

I want to talk for a moment about the annual wage review that is currently being undertaken by the Fair Work Commission. For the second year in a row, the government's submission to the review has claimed that lifting the minimum wage would not have any impact on the gender pay gap, because they claim that most of the gender pay gap exists between high-income earners. This is wrong—this is not the advice provided by the Workplace Gender Equality Agency—and I want to talk through why it's wrong. The pay gap is not just about a man and a woman sitting side by side doing the same job for different pay, although that happens. Research shows that much of the pay gap actually arises from structural discrimination that operates across whole industries and occupations. That's more subtle than straight-out discrimination against individual women.

Australian workplaces are highly gender segregated. Men and women tend to be clustered in different jobs in different sectors. The problem is that the more women there are in a type of occupation or sector, the more likely it is that that sector is poorly paid when compared to male-dominated occupations or sectors. What it means in practice is that workers with very similar experience and workers with very similar levels of education are paid different amounts depending on whether they work in a male- or a female-dominated field. We're talking about a certificate III being worth more if you work as a mechanic than it is if you work in child care. We're talking about the maintenance department staff being paid more than the cafeteria staff.

Those on the other side would probably say that these different kinds of labour are just valued differently in the market. It might be that some colleagues on the crossbench and some colleagues in the Greens seats would say the same thing. They'd say that this is just a case of the market at work, but this is actually a case of the market not working. As a society, we have consistently undervalued women's work. Pay is particularly bad in roles that mirror the work that women have traditionally done at home, such as care work. We are pretty terrible at recognising the value of that work when it is done by family members. We have not been much better at recognising it when it's being done by female professionals. It's not an answer to just say, 'Oh well, men and women choose different career paths.' There's a complex set of factors that push both men and women into gender-typical careers. Individual choice is not a remedy to this, and many women have no choice. Some female-dominated fields are female dominant because they are the only place that offers truly flexible roles where women can combine their caring obligations with professional work.

In the long run it may not even matter what field women choose. Research shows that pay drops once women begin to take over a male-dominated field. A landmark US study examined over half a century of data, and they found that wages fell for everyone, from ticket sellers to designers, as their field became more feminised. If women changing careers isn't the answer, what is?

This is where the Fair Work Commission's annual wage review comes in. In Labor's submission to the 2018 Fair Work Commission annual wage review, we reinforced that a significant contributing factor to the size of the gender pay gap is the fact that women are more likely to be employed in low-paid industries and jobs and that they're more likely than their male counterparts to be reliant on award wages. We called on the commission to give weight to equal remuneration and closing the gender pay gap in the annual wage review. What did the Greens' submission say? Nothing. They didn't bother to make one. Now, I don't know whether that's because the Greens don't have the capacity for detailed, low-profile policy work or whether it is because they simply don't think it's important. But it is important. It's very important, and the commissioner's decision will make a difference to millions of Australian workers and many, many women. Policy change requires more than a self-congratulatory social media post.

In contrast, Labor is committed to a suite of reforms to address the gender pay gap, and we have a track record of making meaningful change from the government benches. Employers now measure and report their progress on gender equality over time under Labor's Workplace Gender Equality Act 2012 and the Workplace Gender Equality Agency. We delivered national paid parental leave so that families don't have to make the difficult choice between time with a new baby and covering all the bills. Labor delivered affordable, flexible and high-quality child care so that working parents have a real choice and better care for their children. And we locked in more protection for women and men against discrimination and sexual harassment through amendments to the Sex Discrimination Act.

When we come back to government we'll return with a bold agenda. We know that we need a strong and comprehensive plan for gender equality to address the persistent and shameful gender pay gap in Australia today. On 7 March this year we launched a national strategy for gender equality and highlighted our commitment to make gender equality a central priority for a future Labor government. Only our comprehensive strategy, not a piecemeal strategy, will achieve gender equality in our workplaces. So far we have committed to tangible reforms and targets to achieve this in both the public and the private sector.

I'll take you through some of it. It's a very long list. We will take measurable action to close the gender pay gap and we will report annually to parliament on our progress. We will reduce the gap in women's workforce participation by 25 per cent by 2025. We will raise representation of women on government boards to 50 per cent within the first term of government. We will boost the representation of women in chair and deputy chair positions on government boards to 40 per cent by 2025. We will set a stretch target of 50 per cent representation of women in senior Public Service roles by 2025. To ensure that women's voices are heard by government, we will boost funding to the six national women's alliances, which represent over 180 women's organisations. They'll take the lead in bringing forward the views, voices and issues of Australian women, in particular women from marginalised and disadvantaged groups. We'll provide $15.2 million to the Australian Bureau of Statistics to conduct the time use survey in 2020 and again in 2027. And then we'll have the evidence base to help us better understand how government policies impact women.

We will take action to protect university students from sexual harassment and sexual assault. We'll set up frameworks for gender-responsive policy and decision-making, including introducing gender impact statements on cabinet submissions and new policy proposals. We'll bring back the women's budget statement and we will convene a ministerial council of gender equality. We'll restore the penalty rates, cuts to which have disproportionately impacted women on low incomes. We will put 10 days of paid domestic violence leave into the National Employment Standards. We will make sure that procurement rules are implemented effectively to ensure that all companies that are awarded government contracts meet the Workplace Gender Equality Agency's requirements. We will work with the Australian Public Service Commission and the CPSU to promote more flexible working arrangements for both men and women in the Australian Public Service. And we are committed to an industrial relations system that can address the gendered undervaluation of work and to improve the wages of low-paid women. This is what a commitment to economic justice for women actually looks like.

The government have been asleep at the wheel on this issue. They have been hopeless. But we expect that from them. They have very little interest in gender equality. Take a look at the composition of the coalition party room. Take a look at the composition of the coalition front bench. This government cannot point to a single thing that they have done to improve pay for low-income women. They cannot point to a single thing they have done to reduce the gender pay gap or to make society more equal or more fair, because they do not believe in it. We expect this from a conservative government.

But it is disappointing that the Greens aren't prepared to do more either. It is not enough to be progressive on Twitter. You do not solve the gender pay gap by just putting the phrase in the title of the bill. Change takes commitment, and it takes hard, and often low-profile, work. And I would like to invite the Greens to join us in displaying either.

Linda Reynolds (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I, too, rise to speak on the Greens' Fair Work Amendment (Gender Pay Gap) Bill 2015. I'll start off by saying that there is absolutely no doubt that entrenched gender pay gaps exists globally, and that includes right here in Australia. But, like all complex problems, we need to adopt a comprehensive and evidence based approach to resolve it, instead of letting what I'd call simplistic populism guide us here in this chamber..

The gender pay gap is something that I'm very passionate about, and I know it's a passion shared by many across all sides of this chamber. But it does require a comprehensive suite of long-term and genuine policy changes to really address it. This amendment, as proposed by the Greens, would enact changes that will not work. The amendment was not even recommended by the Senate Education and Employment Legislation Committee, which tabled its report into this amendment in November 2016. The very reason the committee did not recommend this amendment is that there is simply no credible evidence that the mandatory removal of pay secrecy clauses will, by itself, reduce the gender pay gap. Instead, the committee itself recommended that government, employer and industry stakeholders and employee advocates collaborate to actively promote and implement best-practice strategies to tackle the gender pay gap in Australia's workplaces.

I know that the government does understand that the gender pay gap is a complex issue. It is influenced by a number of highly interrelated factors. There are many causes for the gender pay gap. So there can never, ever, be one effective solution—or a silver bullet, as those in the Greens purport there to be in this case. That's why this government has adopted a multifaceted approach to addressing equal pay. And I think it's starting to work. It's showing progress, because the gap is narrowing. Since 2014, the gender pay gap for average weekly earnings of full-time adult employees has reduced from 18.5 per cent to 15.3 per cent in November of last year. It fell one per cent in the last 12 months alone. That is still a sizeable gap, but progress nonetheless.

There would be no-one happier than me to see that gap narrow further, which is why I'm delighted that, on 6 July last year, the government released Towards 2025: an Australian government strategy to boost women's workforce participation. Unlike this amendment before the Senate today, that strategy acknowledges that the gender pay gap is about so much more than employees knowing each other's salaries.

The predominant issue is not about a man and a woman doing the same job and getting different pay. That does still exist, but I know there's been a lot of work done by the private sector, by companies, to look for the reasons for it and to close that gap. Also, the Fair Work Act in fact already includes equal remuneration provisions, which enable people to make an application to the Fair Work Commission for an order to ensure equal remuneration for work that is equal or at least comparable. And, as I said, there are many companies now, across many professions, who are actively seeking and taking measures to close this gap within their own firms.

I think this issue is more about women not being able to enter or re-enter the workforce at the same rate and at the same levels as men, often meaning that they have to take lower-paid jobs with less opportunity to access higher-salaried, full-time positions, they receive far fewer promotions than their male counterparts, and they also earn less of a bonus or a salary increase when they do move up the workplace ladder.

The gender pay gap is an issue that must be grounded in discussions about education and employment opportunities, adequate parental leave, affordable and easily accessible child care and far more flexible work arrangements not just for women but also for men. It's also about what subjects girls and women choose to study, what jobs they take and how they are treated in the workplace itself. But it's also about men's and women's domestic lives. Can women take time off to raise their families without jeopardising their careers? I do not see this as just a women's issue; it is equally a men's issue. Most children today have two working parents. But in most workplaces the burden still falls on women to take the majority of time off and also to take leave and oversee all child-rearing activities.

The reasons for that are quite complex, but I think it starts here in Australia, where we've been so incredibly successful in providing our young girls with equal opportunity in life. They have the same health outcomes as young boys and the same infant survival rates. We educate them well. We bring them up to be so full of confidence in themselves and their place in this world. In fact, we've done so well that girls mostly outperform boys in high school and also in university. In fact, more women graduate university than men. So our society has been incredibly successful in bridging that gap between young boys and young girls and young men and young women.

But that success seems to come to a screeching halt in many workplaces today. That is because we haven't made the changes. That is not only in terms of policy and regulation at the state and federal government level; it's also culturally and structurally within the organisations themselves. They haven't adapted fast enough to ensuring that both men and women, who both have children, have the same opportunities and the same responsibilities to look after their children. As I said, children mostly have two working parents. So it comes back to the point that this is not just a women's issue; it is equally a men's issue—or a two parents issue.

The government understands the complexities of this issue and takes them seriously. The strategy I outlined earlier details the measures we're taking—what is already working—and looks at additional measures that drive pay inequality. So what are some of the factors driving what the government is doing, and what more could we all do to address this issue? The first problem that we need to address is the fact that women are less likely than men to enter into, and progress in, higher paying careers and seniority. This is a problem that the government is very clearly tackling. A great example of the positive action the government is taking—and it is something I'm very passionate about—is women in STEM. And I would now like us to be to talking about 'STEAM', because enhancing the artistic, creative and innovative side of boys' and girls' characters and abilities is as important as STEM. But the fact is that women are less likely to enter high-paying careers—and many today have their foundations in STEM. In fact, 75 per cent of Australia's fastest growing careers and jobs today demand digital literacy and STEM subjects.

However, alarmingly, the number of girls studying STEM subjects is declining. Women are significantly underrepresented in fields like information technology and engineering—some of the highest paying jobs of the future. Today, less than 15 per cent of senior STEM research positions in universities are held by women, and women make up only about one-quarter of STEM workforces across all sectors. If we're truly going to bridge the gender pay gap once and for all, we have to redouble our efforts in getting women into STEM positions—or STEAM positions—across all sectors. The Greens proposal to allow workers to share information about what each other gets paid in these circumstances will do absolutely nothing to change the statistics. It won't ensure that more women study STEM and enter the high-paying jobs in this profession. It will not make a difference at all.

This government, unlike those in the Greens with this very simplistic, populist proposal, believes in a bottom-up approach led by the choices individuals make for themselves and their children in what they study, and by businesses taking more action to create change within their organisations for the better. This is why the government, through the National Innovation and Science Agenda, NISA, is supporting measures to encourage more women to embark on and remain in STEM related careers—importantly, including entrepreneurship. We're implementing strong measures to ensure women have the skills and support they need to work in growth industries, through the investment of $13 million over five years in jobs for these growth sectors.

The government is providing $2 million to set up the Male Champions of Change in STEM program. Male Champions of Change challenge men in leadership positions to step up beside women to drive cultural change on gender equality issues in major Australian organisations and industry sectors. While we've seen a great take-up of this program—particularly in larger private enterprise companies, who are making a real difference now in how they deal with both men and women and the opportunities for parental leave and for flexibility—which is incredibly encouraging, unfortunately we're not yet seeing much movement in a lot of the traditional STEM related industries and the IT sector. The adoption of the Male Champions of Change program is critically important in these sectors.

The government is also investing $8 million over four years towards projects that boost the participation of girls and women in STEM education careers, as I said, including as entrepreneurs. This first measure that I've gone through is all about long-term change to equality of opportunity, not the short-term populist fix proposed by those opposite. That's the first major barrier to the gender pay gap—engagement in the workforce and particularly in STEM—but the second issue that equally impacts upon the gender pay gap is a weak economy, which means fewer jobs. Demonstrably, in a weak economy women are disproportionately in lower paid jobs with less job security, superannuation and retirement certainty. To address this particular problem, the government is increasing women's access and readiness for employment not just in STEM but more broadly across all careers.

What does this mean for women? Our policies since coming to government have strengthened Australia's economy—so much so that nearly 970,000 Australian jobs have been created after four years. Nearly a million new jobs have been created, something those on the opposite benches rarely—in fact, never—give this government credit for. Let's have a look at those figures a bit further. Nearly 60 per cent of the new jobs created over the last four years have gone to women. Boosting women's workforce participation is an economic priority for this government. We have to create more new jobs in this economy, which we're doing, but we also have to make sure they're in industries and areas in which women can and will take up jobs. It's not just the right thing to do for our society; it's also the economically smart thing to do, because it has the potential to add over $25 billion to the Australian economy while at the same time strengthening women's economic security. That was the second issue and one of the barriers to closing the pay gap for women.

The third issue I raise in this chamber today is the fact that women are still predominantly the primary caregivers for their children, which impacts upon their careers, salaries, superannuation and retirement security. As I said, we have done a wonderful job raising our girls and our boys—smart, confident and highly educated—but we have not yet satisfactorily addressed the situation that many women find in the workplace today. We certainly haven't addressed the cultural barriers to men who have young children in the same way we have with their wives. We have to change the processes in companies, in organisations and in the public sector to make it equally acceptable, and in fact encouraged, that both a child's parents will equally take parental leave, and not just put the requirement on women, because we know—as it has been very well reported—of the impact that has on women and that it is a significant contributing factor to the gender pay gap.

To address this particular aspect, the government is addressing factors that take women out of work and keep them out longer than their male counterparts. This decreases their path to promotion and over the longer term it ultimately lowers their pay and superannuation contributions, which means that more women retire with less in their superannuation fund—on average, $100,000—and are much more likely to be subject to poverty in retirement.

The gender pay gap also often occurs because of a discrepancy, partially caused through this, in the promotion pipeline. If fewer women work in an industry, there will be fewer women to promote. But women are then caught in a double bind, because under many traditional promotion based systems in many organisations they are starting from behind if they have also taken time out of their careers to rear their children. Each absence from the workplace lowers their opportunity for promotion and therefore their ability to increase their salaries and their savings, particularly superannuation.

Much of this particular problem is an issue for organisations, public and private, to resolve in their own workplaces. It is an issue for leaders in companies to set the standards and to change policies and practices in their organisations. It is critically important, and I argue that it is great business sense, for a company to create a family-positive environment for both their men and their women so that both parents can take parental leave—that both parents feel it's okay if they need to take time off for sick children or for school holidays—and the assumption and the responsibility doesn't just default to the woman.

We also know that affordable and accessible child care is critical to supporting parents who are balancing work and family commitments. That's why we're making child care more affordable. This government has already made the most significant reforms to the system in over 40 years. The new childcare package is unashamedly targeted at supporting parents who access child care so that they can work more, or train, or study, or volunteer in their communities. These reforms in themselves are expected to encourage more than 230,000 families to increase their workforce participation, the majority being women. From July 2018, the government is removing the $7,600 annual rebate cap for families on incomes up to $185,000—that's 85 per cent of the families using child care. That is a good measure and it is something practical and tangible that can make a difference. Families earning more than $185,000 will benefit from an increased cap of $10,000.

The next barrier, the fourth barrier, that must be tackled is something I have already touched on. It is the unconscious bias that still exists in most organisations. Whether they be public organisations or private organisations, unconscious bias still exists and it contributes to gender pay gaps in those organisations. But it's great to see that the government is leading by example by implementing the Australian Public Service Gender Equality Strategy. This requires that every government agency set targets for gender equality in leadership positions and boost gender equality more broadly.

Honourable Senator:

An honourable senator interjecting—

Linda Reynolds (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Cheap shot! We're also setting a target for men and women to each hold 50 per cent of government board positions overall, and we are strengthening the BoardLinks program. But there's still much more to the gender pay gap than all of that, and so much more that we have to do together.

Not all of this change can be led and implemented solely by a single level of government. So much of what causes the gap is cultural and requires a cultural shift, and that's something that only people in individual organisations can do. Federal government can set the path, it can set the example, but it cannot change the culture within organisations, whether they be private or public, large or small. We can lead the way, but we cannot change it on our own. I believe we should close the gender pay gap—in fact, it is a moral imperative for us all—but we need to do things to tackle the four main problems, the four main barriers that I've discussed here today. Sadly, the proposal by the Greens will impact on none of those problems. We can work on it together, and we should work on it together to make more change.

Helen Polley (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister to the Leader (Tasmania)) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Labor agrees with what the Fair Work Amendment (Gender Pay Gap) Bill 2015 seeks to achieve. We agree that pay secrecy is an obstacle to pay equity, and that putting an end to gag clauses that prevent employees telling each other what they earn is a step in the right direction. The gender pay gap is worst where pay is kept secret. All too often women find out they're being paid less than their male colleagues after years of doing the same work as those colleagues. But we have some serious concerns about the drafting of this bill and whether or not this bill, as it stands, will actually lead to a reduction in the gender pay gap. We're inclined to support the bill, but these are flaws and holes that need to be addressed and acknowledged. These are flaws that the Greens have known about for a long time, but have failed to address. Frankly, the Greens don't have a genuine set of measures to address the gender pay gap.

While this bill may benefit a part of the female workforce, in itself it is only a very small measure. As a sole measure, it simply doesn't go far enough to systematically shave down the known disparities in wages between working men and working women currently occurring in Australia today. This bill will also do little to address the pay of women who are not on enterprise agreements. The gender pay gap is a multifaceted problem that requires multifaceted strategies, not more grandstanding by the Greens.

This bill has flaws that should be addressed. The fact that these flaws haven't been fixed highlights the Greens' lack of real commitment to the issue. This bill has remained unchanged since it was first introduced in September 2015. It was referred to the Senate Education and Employment Legislation Committee, which handed down its report to the current parliament in 2016—two years ago, so there has been plenty of time, ample time, for the Greens to see the flaws in this bill and to address the deficiencies.

The committee heard from a number of submitters, including legal experts, who identified obvious and unintentional flaws with the way in which this bill was drafted. Professor Andrew Stewart, a specialist in law and workplace relations from the University of Adelaide, also observed a clear limitation of the bill in relation to coverage. He said:

… it seems to me that the bill has a number of potential flaws in some respects—seeking to go too far and in other respects not going far enough.

Labor's dissenting report pointed out these concerns. We sought to have them addressed. Disappointingly, the Greens didn't listen and these issues remain in the bill as it stands today. The Greens on their high horse, as they normally are, have neglected to take on board any of the concerns raised by submitters or Labor senators. They made no effort to fix their flawed bill or put forward amendments before asking the Senate to consider it here today.

There has also been no attempt to discuss the bill with us, the Labor opposition, in order to make improvements. This confirms yet again that the Greens really have no sincerity about this issue. This is just more point scoring and grandstanding on another issue, which we are all accustomed to from the Greens. If the Greens were very serious, if they were serious at all about closing this gap, they would have put in a submission to the Fair Work Commission's annual wage review. So they do the grandstanding to get the media, but all they're about is trying to score cheap political points without actually taking the issue to the conclusion that is needed—that is, by making a submission to Fair Work Australia.

Last year, on International Women's Day, the Prime Minister encouraged everyone to be bold for change. He said that gender equality is the responsibility of all Australians. The Prime Minister should be judged by his actions, or should I say his inactions.

Debate interrupted.