Sally Sitou (Reid, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Before I was elected to this parliament, I had envisioned a career for myself researching and advocating for greater gender and cultural diversity in Australia's leadership, working on issues around the gender and ethnic pay gap. It was an interest sparked during my time working at the University of Sydney, where I met Professors Marian Baird and Rae Cooper and Dr Meraiah Foley. They spent years—decades—researching how we can improve the lives of working women. Professor Marian Baird was a leading figure pushing for the first paid parental leave scheme to be introduced in Australia. It was a scheme that I was able to access when I had my son in 2016. It meant I was able to stay home with him during those critical years of his development.

Professors Cooper and Baird established the Women, Work and Policy Research Group at the University of Sydney in 2006. Since then they, along with a group of extraordinary researchers and academics, have been at the forefront of research on women, work and policy in Australia and the Asia-Pacific region. Much of their work has centred on the gender pay gap.

The gender pay gap is currently 13.8 per cent, and it has hovered around that mark for the past four years. While the gap is trending down, it still results in women earning an average of $255 a week less than men. When you factor in part-time work, the gender pay gap for all employees widens to 30.6 per cent—or, in real terms, $483 a week less than men. The gap still impacts women across every industry in every occupation at every life stage. What is most concerning for me is that part of the reason the gap persists is our society's undervaluation and therefore underappreciation of those working in the care economy: teachers, early educators, aged-care workers and nurses. They are often women, and they are doing some of our most important work—looking after our kids, the elderly, and our sick. Yet, because these jobs have sometimes been viewed as 'women's work', we don't pay them nearly enough for the contribution they make to our society. What's more, on top of being undervalued and underpaid, these jobs are increasingly insecure.

This government, I'm proud to say, is determined to continue to close this gender pay gap, and there are several mechanisms to do so, which the member for Jagajaga has submitted in this motion. The first is the establishment of an independent women's economic security task force. By making smart, targeted investments, such a task force will help promote women's economic security. The second is making gender pay equity a legislative object of the Fair Work Act. This amendment will require the Fair Work Commission to decide cases with gender pay equity in mind. Third, you can't fix what you can't see. So, transparency is essential for fixing the gender pay gap problem. The Labor government will require large companies to publish their gender pay gap data, allowing people to access pay-gap information online so that women everywhere can make an informed choice about the company they'd like to join.

Fourth is backing a real pay rise for aged-care workers and similarly feminised workforces. Just as we backed a minimum wage increase, this government wants to back traditionally female industries in its efforts to secure higher wages and narrow that pay gap. For me, critical to narrowing the gender pay gap is the availability of good, quality and affordable child care. The expert panel of the New South Wales Women's Economic Opportunities Review, chaired by Sam Mostyn AO, underscored the importance of high-quality, accessible child care in increasing women's participation and success in the workforce. The evidence is clear. The availability of affordable child care has a positive impact on women's employment through an increase in women's workforce participation and average weekly hours worked. By making early childhood education high quality, affordable and accessible, we set kids up with the best possible platform in life.

I wanted to use this speech to pay tribute to the extraordinary women who have worked so hard to ensure my life as a working woman was made that little bit easier.

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