Alison Byrnes (Cunningham, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in support of the motion of the member for Canberra and I thank her for moving it. Women in Australia currently face a gender pay gap of 14.1 per cent, and working women are still retiring with less superannuation than men. I have always fought for working people and I care deeply about helping working women, particularly working women in their care sector, who are undervalued and underpaid. These are workers who care for and educate our children, and who provide care support and social interaction for our elderly and people with a disability. They are passionate, hardworking and professional, and they deserve better. This motion commends the government for taking action to address these injustices we should all be concerned about. It is certainly something I have fought for during my time in the building and I'm really proud to be part of the solution.

To help close the gender pay gap, the government is amending the Fair Work Act to make gender equity a main objective. This will ensure that gender equity is at the heart of decisions made by the Fair Work Commission when determining pay increases. We are establishing two new Fair Work Commission panels: a pay equity expert panel and a care and community sector expert panel. These panels will give the commission the expertise needed to better understand both gender pay equity issues and the issues affecting the care and community sector.

The creation of a statutory equal remuneration principle will also make it easier for the Fair Work Commission to order pay increases for workers in female-dominated industries. This principle will remove the need for a male comparator when progressing equal pay claims. This requirement currently presents a significant obstacle for these claims. It will also ensure that, when assessing work value, gender based assumptions are not considered. These changes will help improve pay and conditions in the care sector and other female-dominated industries. These improvements are already happening under our government, with the Fair Work Commission on Friday confirming an increase to minimum wage of at least 15 per cent for aged-care workers in direct care roles on a number of different awards. Our actions will help encourage more workers into these sectors that are facing a workforce crisis. We need more aged-care workers, we need more early childhood educators and we need more disability support workers.

Thirty-seven per cent of early childhood educators told the United Workers Union that they did not intend to stay in the sector long-term; around 16 per cent of nursing and aged-care workers told the Australian Nursing & Midwifery Federation that they were planning to leave their profession; and 50 per cent of regional workers in disability care said that they would not be in the sector in five years. In order to attract and retain professional and caring support workers we need to pay them fairly. This is why we are empowering and enhancing the Fair Work Act and the commission to better deliver for these workers.

Many working women are not employed in female dominated industries. These women face different barriers to pay equity. Pay secrecy clauses prevent colleagues from discussing their salaries with each other. This reduces transparency and disadvantages workers who are seeking to negotiate individual pay rises. Our government's change to ban pay secrecy clauses is a win for workers, particularly working women. Now colleagues will be able to discuss their salaries with each other, improving their ability to ask for a pay rise. Women will be able to question why their male colleague who does the same work as them is earning more. It's a great change for workers and will help to drive up wages.

Finally, after a decade we have a government that is looking out for working people and addressing the injustices faced by working women. This motion rightfully recognises the plight faced by working women. It also rightfully recognises the benefits of the government's actions to benefit working women. For too long the previous government held back wages. For too long the previous government neglected working Australians, particularly those that got us through the pandemic—the cleaners, the nurses, the aged-care workers and all of our other frontline heroes, so many of whom are women.

I speak in favour of this motion because I know how important these changes are to women in my community. Just last week my colleague and friend Stephen Jones, the member for Whitlam, and I visited Big Fat Smile in Dapto. I met Kaitlin and her daughter Amelia. Kaitlin works in disability care and is looking forward to cheaper child care under the Albanese Labor government. Kaitlin has many more things to look forward to under our government, and the changes that this motion commends are some of them. Finally workers like Kaitlin will have a voice that can speak to their experiences in the Fair Work Commission and they will have a Fair Work Act that has gender equity as an objective.

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