Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Reid for her question, for her strong commitment to getting wages moving and, in particular, on closing the gender pay gap. We had a comment, only today, from Senator Cash, who said, 'This legislation will do nothing to get wages moving.' That's the claim—'nothing to get wages moving'.

I'll go through some of the evidence that's there and some of the changes in this bill. Ending pay-secrecy clauses gets wages moving. Pay-secrecy clauses have been used deliberately to prevent workers from finding out what other workers are earning. It has been used deliberately within workplaces where the men are earning more than the women. When you end pay-secrecy clauses, you have an impact on getting wages moving.

Strengthening the rights to flexible work: in terms of getting wages moving, particularly when it comes to closing the gender pay gap—it should not be this way, but it is a reality in Australia still—women have a disproportionate share of caring responsibilities in this country. That is what happens far more commonly. The situation at the moment is that, when someone asks for flexible work—for example, they can't do a roster change which, if they went ahead with it, would mean that no-one would be there pick up a three-year-old from child care or early childhood education at a particular time—and they're told, 'I can't deal with it,' if the employer says no, they have no further right of recourse. This leads women in that situation to insecure work and lower paid work. That's what happens. When you make sure people have stronger rights to flexible work, you help get wages moving.

But multi-employer bargaining also helps get wages moving. Notwithstanding the comments from the member for Longman about this being the sort of bill that would be promoted by socialist and communist governments, I might remind him of that great socialist and communist who now heads the OECD. The OECD has said that multi-employer arrangements are:

… necessary to negotiate targeted raises in female-dominated and low-paid sectors.

The OECD has also said:

Collective bargaining can be mobilised to negotiate wage increases and better working conditions and can represent a powerful tool in addressing the gender wage gap.

I don't know if he's now going to go home and check for a Mathias under the bed, or something like that—the great communist who used to be the finance minister for this country! But the reality is that those opposite are opposing measures that close the gender pay gap. They are opposing measures that get wages moving. And the businesses that those opposite keep wanting to deny, like early childhood education centres, small businesses—

There's more than one! She keeps saying, 'Can you name an early childhood centre?' The way they behaved on the cheaper childcare bill— (Time expired)

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