Jana Stewart (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It remains an incredible privilege to serve in this role each day as a member of the Albanese Labor government, Australia's first majority female government. This wasn't by accident. Our government is a powerful example of the positive impact of quotas.

This month marks 30 years since the 1994 Australian Labor Party National Conference, where the ALP adopted affirmative action quotas for women to be preselected into winnable seats. We now have the most gender balanced federal parliament in Australian history. Despite the success of gender quotas, full representation is still lacking. Only seven per cent of current parliamentarians have a non-European cultural background, despite approximately half, or 48.2 per cent, of Australians having at least one parent at home born overseas and 18.6 per cent of Australians identifying with a non-European cultural heritage.

The make-up of the 47th Parliament shows that we are absolutely on the right track. We know that our intentional and intersectional approach to diverse representation has played a key role in our ability to make informed policy decisions that benefit the lives of all Australians, but particularly women and families. Today, the Albanese government will introduce legislation to lock in funding for a 15 per cent pay rise for early childhood education and care workers, a primarily female workforce. Today's announcement recognises the important role our early educators play. It's better for parents and it's good for the economy.

Under the Albanese Labor government, we've seen Labor deliver the lowest gender pay gap on record, down from 14.1 per cent when the opposition were in government. We've delivered record women's workforce participation of 63.2 per cent, a genuine prioritisation of women's health with $4.7 billion towards— (Time expired)