Renee Coffey (Griffith, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister representing the Minister for Women. How is the Albanese Labor government supporting women and gender equality, and are there any risks to this progress?

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

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

The minister will pause. The member for Forrest will leave the chamber for continually interjecting and showing disrespect to the minister.

T he member for Forrest then left the chamber.

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

As a little reminder, when our government introduced reporting on the gender pay gap, Senator Canavan called the report a 'hill of nonsense' and 'completely useless'. It's good to see that the disdain for advancing women's economic participation is at least something the Libs and the Nationals can bond over. How can we forget, as the minister for industrial relations said, the Liberals' attack on women through their working-from-home policy? I know they like to tell you, but I'll tell you. The women of Australia haven't forgotten this. In fact, they tried so hard to bury this policy that they went so far as to try and bury the whole Liberal Party election review, and you can see why. On page 34 it said that the Liberals' messaging was 'unsympathetic to the needs of women to better balance their work and family life', but not even the party office agreed either. They said that the party must continue to allow flexible working arrangements.

But, of course, the Liberals weren't the only party to bury their election review. The Nationals did exactly the same thing, and is it any wonder when one of the recommendations contains that old chestnut from Tony Abbott of 'We need to recruit more women of calibre'? I shouldn't have to tell you this, but all women are women of calibre, and all women are capable of being in this place.