Ms Catherine King (Ballarat, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Griffith for her question. She is one of 50 fabulous women we have on this side of the chamber. I'm so pleased to say that this past Sunday, to mark International Women's Day, the Albanese government's annual Status of women report card showed that we are making progress towards gender equality. The report shows that Australia is ranked 13th globally for gender equality, our highest score ever, when we were ranked in 2022, under those opposite, at 43rd. It also shows that the gender pay gap is now 11.5 per cent, our lowest ever. When those opposite left office, we were at 14.1 per cent. Now, I know, because of the work of our fabulous minister for health, over 303,000 women have accessed new, cheaper contraceptives on the PBS in the last year alone.

We are so proud of these achievements. Supporting women is good for our communities, good for our families and good for the economy, and we are backing that up with real action. We've legislated for 10 days paid domestic violence and family leave. We've expanded paid parental leave to six months, and we're paying super on it. And we've supported pay increases in female dominated industries, such as child care and aged care. For us, these issues are front and centre of our economic agenda. On this side of the House, we are moving forward with women's equality, but you only need to walk some 20 steps in that direction to go back almost 20 years. Last month, we saw the Liberals roll their first female leader, and just yesterday we saw the Nationals elect Senator Canavan as their leader.

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