Zoe Daniel (Goldstein, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Canberra for moving this motion. Australia has a problem with gender equity when it comes to employment. The federal election made it very clear that women are sick and tired of putting up with being treated like second-class citizens in the workplace. Women's work, both at home and in the workplace, has been undervalued for far too long. Women do the bulk of unpaid work at home and in the community. According to statistics cited by the Workplace Gender Equality Agency, the value of unpaid care work—and that includes cooking and cleaning, as well as caring for children, the disabled or the elderly—amounts to no less than $650 billion, the equivalent of more than 50 per cent of GDP. A decade ago the Grattan Institute found that a six per cent increase in women's participation in the workforce would add another $25 billion to GDP. Today the figure would have to be much greater.

As the mover of this motion noted, it is now 2022 and the gender pay gap still sits at 14.1 per cent.

An honourable member interjectin g—

We are sick of it. It has only narrowed by a miserable 5.1 per cent since 1983. I was 11 then. We are facing worker shortages of historic proportions. Women are not able to take up employment opportunities because they're the primary caregivers in their homes and the cost of child care guarantees that much of the income they take home will go towards paying for early childhood education and care while they work. It is a futile and demoralising exercise.

A survey by the University of New South Wales for the SDA found that 36 per cent of the 6,500 lower-paid retail workers they surveyed, who were overwhelmingly women, would be able and would like to work more hours if their rosters were more predictable. As I put at the Jobs and Skills Summit, these women—and thousands like them in other feminised industries—deserve roster justice. If their employers in retail, for example, can plan ahead when it comes to their inventory, it shouldn't be too much of a stretch to do the same when it comes to their people and their rosters.

According to the University of New South Wales work and care survey, some staff who service in the supermarket can barely afford food themselves. 'When I get weeks with only a couple of shifts, it's hard to afford groceries,' says one. 'They would change the roster at 8 pm at night to have me scheduled on the next morning at 8 am and never contact me about the change and then act like I was a no-show,' says another. 'It's all over the place. Shifts get changed last minute, never get the same shifts every fortnight, extra contract hours, and they give you bare minimum but expect you to give up your weekends without notice,' says another.

Meanwhile, this cohort of up to 1.3 million people, all but powerless in the workplace, is also largely ignored in the national childcare debate, which is geared to middle-class professionals working nine to five Monday to Friday. Those seeking care early in the morning, in the evening, on weekends or on public holidays so they can staff a register or restock shelves come up empty. I could go on. There are tens of thousands of women out there facing similar predicaments.

As I'm pleased that women and work got on the agenda of the Jobs and Skills Summit, I'm also pleased that in the Jobs and Skills Australia legislation the government saw fit to incorporate a gender lens. As to the secure jobs, better pay legislation, I believe it would improve the bill, improve its prospects of actually getting more women into the workforce, if it made it clear that what we're seeking is gender equality in the workplace, not merely gender equity, as is currently stated. Equity merely sets the stage for equality, putting women and others who are behind the eight ball at the starting line, rather than requiring an outcome. The convention for the elimination of discrimination against women, the ILO in respect of its gender equality conventions and the Workplace Gender Equality Act all say gender equality means substantive equality between men and women, and that's the outcome we're looking for.

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