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

My question is to the Minister for Women and Minister for Finance, Senator Gallagher. Minister, today is Equal Pay Day, marking the 50 days into the new financial year that Australian women must work to earn the same, on average, as men did last year. Last week, it was promising to see that the gender pay gap has continued to narrow, but the gap is still 11.5 per cent. There is more work to do. Can the minister please outline what the Albanese Labor government is doing to reduce the pay gap and why closing the gender pay gap is so important?

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

I thank Senator Walsh for the question and also acknowledge how great it is to work with everyone on this side of the chamber who is so focused on closing the gender pay gap and really sees it as a core priority for the Albanese government. And I also acknowledge Senator Walsh's long career in advocating for pay equality and improvements for pay and working conditions for women.

Equal Pay Day is a practical way to show what the pay gap means for women—50 days since 30 June to catch up with what men earned in the last financial year. So, in a 48-week working year, this is more than one day per week. The good news is that the gender pay gap is reducing and is now at a record low of 11½ per cent, down from 12 per cent in November last year and down from 14.1 per cent in 22 May when we came to government.

Since that time, women's average weekly wages have increased by $173.80. That's a 10.8 per cent increase in average weekly wages. We've also hit a record high in women's workforce participation, at 63.2 per cent. And, because we have had women's economic equality front and centre of this government's agenda, we're doing the hard work, with a 15 per cent pay increase for early childhood educators and a 15 per cent pay rise for many aged-care workers. Both of those are, of course, highly feminised industries. We've secured record pay rises for hundreds and thousands of women who work on award wages. We've fixed the bargaining system to get wages moving and encourage more enterprise agreements. We banned pay secrecy, a big way that was being used to keep women's wages down. We've put gender equality at the heart of the Fair Work Commission's decision-making. And we've got increased transparency in reporting gender pay gap, taking away the secrecy that exists in industries specific to see what women get paid.

Sue Lines (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Walsh, first supplementary?

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

The Workplace Gender Equality Agency, WGEA, is leading the Equal Pay Day campaign. WGEA have been busy this year releasing two new gender pay gap datasets to help keep the focus on the issue of equal pay. Why is keeping the spotlight on the gender pay gap important?

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

I thank Senator Walsh for the question. I'd also like to thank WGEA, the Workplace Gender Equality Agency. It's a small but powerful group. Their home base is Sydney. They do an incredible job in keeping this parliament and the Australian community informed about what's happening when it comes to wages for women.

The Workplace Gender Equality Agency published employer level gender pay gaps for employers with a hundred employees or more. It's the first time this data has been published, and we heard from many women who went straight to the website to look up what their employer or their favourite brand had in terms of a gender pay gap. This new data energised an important national conversation.

Also this year, WGEA released the first results for Commonwealth public sector reporting. It's appropriate that the Commonwealth public sector reports on their gender pay gap, just like the private sector. That showed that, whilst we had lower remuneration average gender pay gap than the private sector, there is still more work to be done. (Time expired)

Sue Lines (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Walsh, second supplementary?

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

After years of active wage suppression by the previous government, Australians finally have a government that wants Australians to earn more and keep more of what they earn. Why has this government been so focused on increasing the wages of Australians?

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

I thank Senator Walsh for the question. The focus on wages has been to make sure that, after a decade of wage stagnation, we get wages moving again. Also, importantly, we know that, if you earn more and keep more of what you earn, you can deal with some of the cost-of-living pressures that we've been seeing, so it's been an important part of our cost-of-living agenda. We know that those opposite like to keep particularly those on minimum wages down low. We know they had that section in their submission to the Fair Work Commission. But now, after going to the Fair Work Commission, we are arguing for better wage outcomes for minimum wage workers, including women, and tackling those undervalued and underpaid industries, like early childhood education and aged care. The can could have been kicked down the road, but it was more important that we make that responsible investment in the budget so that we can show that women in those highly feminised industries should get better pay and be better valued for the work that they do.