James Stevens (Sturt, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I indeed rise to support the motion and commend the member for Canberra for bringing it to this place. I share in all the other comments that were made at the opening by other contributors to this debate—that of course it's completely unacceptable that we have a gender pay gap in our economy, and I'm sure it's a unanimous view of the parliament that we should be doing all we can to address that and getting that 14.1 per cent to at least zero. I've certainly worked with a lot of women who should've been paid a lot more than the men that they worked alongside in their workplace. So getting it to at least zero is something that we should all be working towards as a parliament together.

I was, equally, very happy to see the 15 per cent interim decision of the Fair Work Commission on Friday, and I note that that is, at this stage, a decision related to the direct care workforce in aged care. I join with the comments from others around the need for that to extend to all those who work in aged care, including those who do a whole range of other very important tasks that are not direct care in both residential and community settings. I hope that that decision is one of the best examples of a significant increase, in a workforce that is very predominantly female. When we're dealing with a figure of 14.1 per cent, a figure of 15 per cent higher than that in a sector is heading in the right direction.

It is in an environment, concerningly, of very high inflation. On the face of it, 15 per cent sounds like a lot of money, until you acknowledge that inflation at the moment is at 7.3 per cent, and the Reserve Bank, and the government in their own budget, are anticipating inflation being even higher. So, of course, 15 per cent in real terms is more like seven per cent. That is still a significant increase in real terms, but, obviously, if the purpose of the decision was to increase real wages by 15 per cent then they won't be achieving that if inflation keeps running as high as it is.

Obviously, we need to be always looking for opportunities to listen to women who are in a situation in their career where, for a variety of reasons, they're not earning the same amount of money as men; we need to understand from women what some of the challenges and barriers are that have been put in their way; and we need to figure out more ways in which we can do better.

I don't think that's always going to be at the government level. In many ways, significant cultural change is needed by employers in workplaces around the country. Certainly in my own experience as an employer before being in this place one of the things that I always sought to address, and always heard from the women that I worked with, was the need for a lot more flexibility, particularly if they were to have children and leave the workforce. They didn't want to be in a position where there was too much stringency around their ability to return to their career. Instead of leaving a full-time role and having to come back full time, they wanted ways in which there could be more flexibility.

The COVID period has made people a lot more open-minded about alternative work practices which would provide opportunities for women who do need to leave the workforce for a period of time to have a lot more flexibility about the way in which they can return, and not to have so many black-and-white situations around some of those challenges.

It's good that we're talking about this and it's good that we're making progress. It's not acceptable that the gap is what it is, and I hope we take every opportunity in this place to find new ways of improving the situation further and getting to a point where we have, at minimum, parity of wages between men and women in this nation. It's absolutely fundamental.

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