Melissa Parke (Fremantle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Employment Participation and Childcare and Minister for the Status of Women. What is the government doing to ensure that some of Australia's most vulnerable workers, many of whom are women, can expect better pay, conditions and economic outcomes?

Kate Ellis (Adelaide, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Employment Participation and Childcare) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Fremantle for an incredibly important question. We know that when we abolished Work Choices and introduced the Fair Work Act we made very clear our government's commitment to fair pay and fair conditions for all Australian workers. But it is also important to know that now, in 2011, there remains a substantial wage gap between men and women in this country; that right now 60 per cent of women who are retiring at the moment have absolutely no superannuation; and that women remain vastly over-represented among those who are reliant upon welfare in their retirement years, with over 70 per cent of those claiming the single age pension being Australian women.

Our government continues to tackle these issues with real reforms to ensure that Australian women do not get left behind. We know that the pay gap is in part due to the occupations that women have traditionally worked in being undervalued and poorly paid occupations. In fact, Fair Work Australia ruled earlier this year that community sector work is undervalued in part because it is viewed as 'women's work'. I do not think that anyone in this House would question just how hard and important are the jobs of the people who work with people with disabilities, of those who counsel families in crisis or of those support workers in domestic violence sectors. This is why, on this side, we stood proud as the Prime Minister announced that the Australian government would join with the Australian Services Union to ensure that these workers received a fair pay increase and pledged $2 billion to fund our fair share of this increase. We know that this has real impacts. The sort of impact we are talking about with this funding is that a disability support worker could receive an extra $7,000 in their annual salary; that a youth outreach worker could receive an additional $12,000; and that a drug and alcohol counsellor could receive an additional $18,000. When 120,000 of the 150,000 community workers in this country are women, we know that this is a hugely important commitment not just for Australian workers but for Australian women.

On this side we stand united behind the Prime Minister's pledge, and you would hope that those opposite would be united behind their support for equal pay as well. However, we have seen another split from the opposition. We have seen the shadow minister for finance saying, 'We think that it is a very deserving cause, that it's a position that in government we would back.' Yet that is not supported by the shadow Treasurer, who has come out and said, 'There's a simple lesson here: don't spend money that we haven't got.' We believe that this is a worthy cause. Equal pay for all Australian workers is something where we have said we are prepared to find that money in our responsible budgeting initiatives. But we also know that we should not be surprised by that, because this builds on the strong actions that this government has already announced to boost the opportunities and the participation of Australian women.

In tax reform we have announced plans to treble the tax-free threshold, which will put more money in the pockets of some 3.7 million women with taxable incomes under $80,000. This is particularly significant for the many women who are working part time. But, of course, also when it comes to superannuation reforms, as we have heard repeatedly from the Assistant Treasurer, the abolition of superannuation taxation arrangements for low-income workers will boost the retirement savings of some 2.1 million Australian women by $550 million in 2012-13 alone. In addition, the increase to the superannuation guarantee from nine to 12 per cent will ensure a 30-year-old woman will have an extra— (Time expired)