Sharon Claydon (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations. How's the Albanese Labor government supporting Australians to balance their work and care responsibilities? How does this approach compare to other approaches?

Amanda Rishworth (Kingston, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'd like to thank the member for Newcastle for that question, and for her passion in helping Australians balance their work and family life over many years.

The Albanese Labor government has made significant changes to ensure that Australians can balance their work and life. Our secure jobs, better pay laws strengthen access to flexible work, making it easier for workers to request flexible arrangements like working from home. Analysis by the Committee for Economic Development of Australia suggests working from home saves Australians, on average, $110 per week in transport costs. We know that greater workplace flexibility helps ease cost-of-living pressures and, of course, it improves workforce participation, especially for women.

I am asked if there are any other approaches. Yes, there certainly is another approach. It was taken by those opposite exactly one year ago today. One year ago today, the now Deputy Leader of the Liberal Party made a big announcement in a keynote speech that the coalition, if elected, would ban working from home. This policy would have cost workers more than $5,000 a year, on average, in extra living expenses. And when the coalition was asked what would they do about workplace flexibility, remember what they said? They would force women into part-time job-sharing arrangements. That was their answer.

You'd think the new Deputy Leader of the Liberal Party would have learnt her lesson. The Liberals' own election review slammed this proposal—and I thank the Prime Minister for tabling it, but we all had a copy. On page 34, when talking about their work from home policy, it says the Liberals were unsympathetic to the needs of women to better balance their work and family life. But not even the voter backlash could change Senator Hume's opinion.

Tim Wilson (Goldstein, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Small Business) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Labor gave $15 billion to organised crime, to the CFMEU.

Amanda Rishworth (Kingston, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In November last year, she said that it was the policy backflip, not the policy itself that was the problem. As the Prime Minister has said, you would think that the leader of the opposition would be distancing himself from the policy failures, but instead he has promoted Senator Hume into a role where she is responsible for workplace relations. To be fair to Senator Hume, she wasn't the only one!

Tim Wilson (Goldstein, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Small Business) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Table the CFMEU report!

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Goldstein is now warned.

Amanda Rishworth (Kingston, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

And the shadow Treasurer over there penned another opinion piece—there are a lot of them out there—that said that work from home was 'professional apartheid'. The Liberals have not learnt anything. They may have changed their leaders, but they're still the same old Liberals.