Zali Steggall (Warringah, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

This is an important motion. Gender pay equity is something that we really shouldn't still be talking about in 2022, but, sadly, we are. So I thank the member for Jagajaga for bringing forward this important motion. It is very disappointing that the most recent research from the Workplace Gender Equality Agency shows that the gender pay gap in Australia impacts women across every industry in every occupation at every age and life stage. The current overall national gender pay gap is 13.8 per cent. Women, on average, earn $255 less per week than men. Adding the part-time workforce, the gender pay gap for all employees widens to 30.6 per cent. The largest gaps are in professional, scientific and technical services, health care, and financial and insurance services—some of the biggest employment sectors in Warringah.

In 2019, the International Labour Organization observed that, globally, despite substantial progress in women's employment, there had not been any meaningful narrowing of the gender pay gap at work for the past 20 years. That is just outrageous. Globally, the gender pay gap is approximately 20 per cent. So, for every dollar earnt by a man, a woman would earn 80c. Gender pay gap contributes to long-term inequity and leads to the situation we have of women over 55 being the fastest growing group experiencing homelessness. Low wages drive low superannuation contribution. Time out of the workforce also stalls superannuation and career progression. So all these problems are interlinked, and it all starts with the gender pay gap. And, from there, the inequity continues and grows.

We know the gender pay gap also contributes to women being more vulnerable to the impacts of climate change and other aspects. Seventy per cent of people living in conditions of poverty globally are women. Around the world, women have limited access to, and control of, environmental goods and services. They have negligible participation in decision-making, and they are not involved in the distribution of environmental management benefits. Consequently, women are less able to confront climate change—the very thing that impacts them so.

A constituent who came to me with concern about gender pay disparity said she has suffered at one of the largest companies in the country. Her story is one of complex adversity, including surviving domestic violence and enduring mental health impacts. Her pay negotiations took place at a time where her circumstances were rapidly changing—escaping domestic violence while she was supporting her child as a single mother. None of this context or circumstance was taken into account by her employer. My constituent is in a management role. But, due to her employer's recent cost cutting, any career progression opportunities have been removed. She raised her concerns with management and was told she should have negotiated better. Her employer does release obligatory reports into company gender equality but actually then redacts the real figures and actually doesn't act upon what those reports show, which is that the pay gender inequity is there. Legislation to ensure companies are acting adequately on gender pay and equity disparity is urgently required, because giving it lip service is simply not good enough anymore. So I welcome the commitment of the new government to improved gender pay equity, with budget investments, legislative change and change to care economy wages. But more work is needed, including improving paid parental leave policy to incentivise greater uptake by men and greater participation in unpaid care work by men. Australia has one of the least-generous paid parental leave schemes in the world. It is highly gendered and discriminatory, in considering only women's income in the calculation of eligibility. Perinatal discrimination is the top discrimination complaint in Australian workplaces. One in two mothers and one in four fathers report that they have experienced discrimination in the workplace in the lead-up to the birth of a child, according to the Australian Human Rights Commission. Improving childcare affordability and accessibility is long overdue. We talk of skills shortages and how small businesses are struggling to find the workforce they need, but we are not maximising the potential of the Australian population. We simply must address these gender equity issues.

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