Opposition members interjecting—
In terms of hypotheticals, it's actually not—
Opposition members interjecting—
]]>That so much of the standing and sessional orders be suspended as would prevent:
(1) the following from occurring in relation of business in the House for today:
(a) the interruption of government business for Members' statements occurring at 3 pm, rather than 1.30 pm; and
(b) the interruption of Members' statements for question time occurring at 3.30 pm, rather than 2 pm;
(2) the Federation Chamber suspending today at 3 pm, rather than 1.30 pm, and resuming at 5.30 pm, with private Members' business accorded priority in the Federation Chamber being amended as follows:
(a) the time allotted for debate on the motion to be moved by the Member for Cowper being no longer than 35 minutes;
(b) the Federation Chamber continuing to consider private Members' business in the order determined by the Selection Committee until no later than 3 pm, at which point the Federation Chamber being suspended until 5.30 pm;
(c) at 5.30 pm, statements by Members, for no longer than 90 seconds, being called on until 6.15 pm; and
(d) private Members' business accorded priority in the Federation Chamber continuing until 7.30 pm;
(3) the House not meeting on Thursday, 28 March 2024; and
(4) any variation to this arrangement being made only on a motion moved by a Minister.
I will say a few words, just explaining in more ordinary human terms the procedural motion that I just read out. Members will be aware that the funeral of Lance Corporal Jack Fitzgibbon is happening today. Members, both government and opposition, are attending the funeral, and, for that reason, we have wanted to change the time of question time today. So question time doesn't start until 3.30 pm, and, as a result of that, the 90-second statements will start at 3 pm. All the other changes for today, in the Federation Chamber and other, are consequent on the shift of question time for that reason.
The second change is something that goes to Thursday's sitting for next week. It's one of those issues where the different perspectives of people from all around the country can lead to different conclusions. For me, as someone who gets into my car, drives on the M5 and is home back at Punchbowl within three hours at the end of a parliamentary sitting week, the concept of us sitting on Holy Thursday, the day before Good Friday, made no difference to my being able to attend particular events and services on Good Friday. It's a completely different world for regional members, and I want to acknowledge the regional members. Out of respect, I will say this challenge with what that Thursday sitting would mean was first raised with me by some very senior members of the opposition. Conversations have taken place between the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition. While I may be in the minority in this House, I'd love it if we sat every day. That's how I feel about the chamber. But this does avoid a problem that was going to put some members, particularly regional members, in an impossible position with what the sitting week was like for next week. So I thank those members from the opposition, the crossbench and my own caucus who've raised this with me.
So the two changes, in summary, are that, firstly, question time today is not till 3.30 and 90-second statements will start at three; and secondly, the Thursday sitting which had been scheduled for next week would not occur should this motion be agreed to by the House.
Question agreed to.
]]>That, in accordance with paragraph (5) of the resolution agreed to by the House on 27 February 2024 relating to the consideration of the Help to Buy Bill 2023 and the Help to Buy (Consequential Provisions) Bill 2023, the resolution be varied to insert a new sub-paragraph into paragraph (3), immediately following the existing sub-paragraph (a), which reads as follows:
"(aa) if required, a consideration in detail stage of the bill, with the bill being taken as a whole, and debate to continue until no later than 6.20 pm;"
The effect of this for members will simply be that, if we run out of second reading speeches before 5.30 pm, we vote but that, if the number of speakers takes us all the way to 5.30 pm, we would have a second reading vote and then have a consideration in detail debate. That might finish before 6.20 pm, but, if it hasn't, we would then go through the remaining stages. At 6.30 pm, we should be well and truly through all the divisions.
Question agreed to.
]]>We have a situation where the gender pay gap is the lowest it has ever been. Unequivocally, this side of the House says, 'That is a good thing.' We have a situation where wages are now growing at roughly double the rate they did under those opposite, and, unequivocally, we say, 'That is a good thing.' We said we would get wages moving. We said we'd lower the gender pay gap. What we said would happen with wages is occurring, and that is a good thing.
]]>There was a moment in the life of the previous government where there was a significant closing of the gender pay gap. It was not down to the levels we've got it to now, but there was one drop, where it came down from 14 per cent to 13.4 per cent. At the time, Senator Cash said this:
We are proud to stand on our record of dramatically reducing the gender pay gap in Australia and of raising workplace standards for women in Australia.
What Senator Cash didn't include in the release at that time was that the majority reason for the gender pay gap closing was that men's wages had collapsed during the lockdown period of 2020. What we have with the latest closing of the gender pay gap, down to the lowest level it has ever been, is a situation where men's wages have gone up, women's wages have gone up and the gender pay gap has closed, at the same time that inflation has been moderating. That's exactly what we have in this situation, with the latest data showing the gender pay gap is at its lowest level on record, at 12 per cent. I'm surprised there are angry interjections on that point—
]]>That this bill be now read a third time.
Question agreed to.
Bill read a third time.
]]>That:
(1) the House invite His Excellency Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr., President of the Republic of the Philippines, to attend and address the House on Thursday, 29 February 2024;
(2) unless otherwise ordered, at the sitting of the House on 29 February:
(a) the House shall meet, at the ringing of the bells, at no earlier than 10.20 am and the proceedings shall be welcoming remarks by the Prime Minister and Leader of the Opposition and an address by the President of the Republic of the Philippines;
(b) at the conclusion of the address by the President of the Republic of the Philippines the House shall suspend until the ringing of the bells, when business shall proceed in accordance with standing order 34;
(c) the provisions of standing order 257(c) relating to good order shall apply to the area of Members' seats as well as the galleries for the period set out at (3); and
(d) the Federation Chamber shall not meet;
(3) a message be sent to the Senate inviting Senators to attend the House as guests for the welcoming remarks by the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition and address by the President of the Republic of the Philippines; and
(4) any variation to the arrangement be made only by an action by the Speaker or by a motion moved by a Minister.
It's a privilege to move this motion inviting the President of the Philippines, His Excellency Ferdinand R Marcos Jr, to address the parliament tomorrow. Australia and the Philippines have been working together for almost 80 years. Our partnership is one grounded in a commitment to peace, stability and prosperity in the region. Now, as we look to the future, we want to deepen engagement across defence and security, trade and investment, and people-to-people links.
Australia was proud to elevate our bilateral ties with the Philippines to a strategic partnership during the Prime Minister's visit to Manila last year. This elevation reflects the deep connections we share through business, education, tourism and family, including more than 400,000 people of Filipino heritage that call Australia home. President Marcos's address to parliament tomorrow will be an equally historic occasion, celebrating our strong relationship.
Question agreed to.
]]>I am certainly very open to working out what formal processes we can have to make sure that we get the benefit of a similar process. There's no doubt—and anyone who has held my job from either side of politics over the years will tell you—that the time lines of COIL are really frustrating and the outcomes are always helpful. That's something that will always be said. If there is a way of getting that sort of benefit for crossbench amendments, I'm interested in seeing how that might be able to be done. I don't think a direct replication of how it works for government can be done without taking away the effective rights of crossbench members and their agency over their own amendments. But I'm happy to, at the next meeting of the National Workplace Relations Consultative Council, raise the issue of the sorts of processes, even if they're conceptual, and where we can get the benefit of some of those processes, where an amendment is likely to be moved. It would, of course, have to be done in a way where it was really clear that it was still the right of the crossbench, that they might do something different—in which case the government would have to make a call—and that it couldn't be seen as a breach of trust. If we presented something radically different to the parliament to what we presented to COIL, it would be seen as a breach of trust unless the differences were what had been raised at COIL. So, if we can find a way of doing that, of getting some benefit from that sort of process, then I'm certainly open to it, and I'm happy to give the member for Wentworth an undertaking that I will take that up and explore how it might be possible to deal with the principles or policies that we think are likely to come through from crossbench amendments.
Question agreed to.
Bill agreed to.
Ordered that this bill be reported to the House without amendment.
]]>What then happens is that you'll get people—under the other side of politics, it's more likely to be the unions; under this government, most recently, you'll get it from some of the business groups—who will say, 'Okay, first of all, I don't want you to do this at all. If you were to, these are the legislative problems with how you're dealing with it.' That's what COIL is and how it works. That's possible for government legislation.
When we are dealing with an amendment that is coming from the crossbench in either house, whether it be the Senate or the House of Representatives, the government cannot present, with any certainty, what is going to be considered in the parliament, because it is the right of the crossbench member to choose their own amendment. That's the reason why the Committee on Industrial Legislation doesn't get consulted on crossbench amendments, nor can it be consulted on crossbench amendments. It is simply because it is the right of the crossbench to move the amendments in whatever form they choose.
]]>The right to disconnect had first been proposed through two parliamentary inquiries. For the work and care Senate inquiry, in terms of their consultation, not everybody would have made submissions on the right to disconnect but there were 125 submissions. It then came up again in the inquiry into the Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Closing Loopholes) Bill 2023, where there were 130 submissions; obviously there only would have been a small number that dealt directly with closing loopholes, although I understand it came up directly during some of the evidence taken in the hearings that they held.
Those were the formal parliamentary processes that caused some crossbench members, notably the Greens Party, to make clear last year that their support for the bill would ultimately be contingent on a right to disconnect being legislated. They made that clear publicly. At that point, we as a party adopted it as policy but as a government had not yet declared it at that point. Because it was coming up as a crossbench amendment, I made a point of making some comments about it publicly. Then there was a meeting on 2 February with employer groups, and that meeting has been made public. Not all of the employer groups but some of them had disengaged for some months from direct contact, which I respect—it's their right to do so. They did so very publicly. On 2 February, that was the moment they started to re-engage again. We worked through a lot of issues in the meeting; the right to disconnect was one of them. It would be disingenuous for me to claim that there was a whole meeting about it, but it was certainly an issue that was raised at that meeting with the business groups.
There were conversations back and forth with a number of the groups that were present at that meeting. At that meeting we had ACCI, the BCA, AIG, the Minerals Council of Australia, the Master Builders Association, COSBOA, the Australian Retailers Association and the RCSA there—a series of groups. Subsequent to that, some of them, not all of them, had direct conversations back and forth with my office about different issues of concern they had with a series of aspects of the bill. One of those was the right to disconnect.
Ultimately, the consultation continued between the government, the Greens Party and Senator David Pocock. I'm not sure of the extent to which Senator Jacqui Lambie was involved at that point, but ultimately we ended up at a point where, across Senator David Pocock, the Greens Party and the government, there was a form of words on which all could agree.
There was consultation happening with business in terms of what they viewed as the worst possible ways to legislate if you were going to. I don't want to pretend the business groups were asking for this to be legislated at all, but, in terms of the views that the business groups put about if this were to be done and how they believed it would be more workable than other options, that consultation was certainly very much reflected in the amendment that ultimately went through.
]]>With the data that's just been released, we now know we have the gender pay gap at its lowest ever level, and overnight we've had the release of the company-by-company data. The days of secretly paying women less than men are now over. That's as a result of particular changes that had been made by law by this government. It's part of a suite of measures aimed at closing the gender pay gap. There was one time in the previous term when there was a sharp fall in the gender pay gap. It was in the November 2020 figure. But it wasn't because women's wages were suddenly rising; it was because lockdowns happened and male wages collapsed. That was the only time that you had a sharp closure of the gender pay gap.
The view of this government is that the way to close the gender pay gap is to get wages moving and to look at where there is a disadvantage in feminised industries and change the laws so that those wages move too. The data that's been published shows that 30 per cent of businesses are published in the target range, but, for more than 60 per cent of companies, women are still paid more than five per cent less than men. That's why this government has taken the measures that it has. It's why we've banned the pay secrecy clauses. It's why we've expanded access to flexible work arrangements. It's why we now have a positive duty to protect against sexual harassment. It's why we established 10 days paid family and domestic violence leave. Every one of these changes deals with participation as well. Every one of these changes corrects a system which has structurally disadvantaged women workers.
It should be the case that, when you go to work and you work hard and you get paid, that pay simply reflects the effort you've made and what you have brought to that job. But, as we see with company after company after company, women are still in a situation where that gap, while lower than it has ever been in the history of it being recorded, is still structurally too high. As long as there are those opposite who think that acting on this and publishing this data is somehow useless, we will have a group opposite that has no intention of closing the gender pay gap, which explains why they have opposed each of the laws we brought in to close it.
]]>That so much of the standing and sessional orders be suspended as would prevent the following from occurring in relation to proceedings on the Help to Buy Bill 2023 and the Help to Buy (Consequential Provisions) Bill 2023:
(1) on Tuesday, 27 February when the order of the day relating to the second reading debate on the Help to Buy Bill 2023 is called on following the matter of public importance, a cognate debate taking place with the Help to Buy (Consequential Provisions) Bill 2023, and continuing without interruption until:
(a) no further Members rise to speak, at which point, debate being adjourned; or
(b) the commencement of the adjournment debate at 7.30 pm;
(2) notwithstanding standing order 31, if the second reading debate has not concluded earlier, at 8 pm the adjournment debate being interrupted and the bills being called on for further consideration, with the second reading debate continuing until:
(a) no further Members rise to speak; or
(b) 10 pm; or
(c) a later time, specified by a Minister prior to 10 pm;
at which point, debate being adjourned and the House immediately adjourning until Wednesday, 28 February at 9 am;
(3) on Wednesday, 28 February when the order of the day relating to the second reading debate on the Help to Buy Bill 2023 is called on following the matter of public importance, a cognate debate taking place with the Help to Buy (Consequential Provisions) Bill 2023, and continuing without interruption until debate concludes or no later than 5.30 pm, at which point:
(a) questions being immediately put on any amendments moved to the motion for the second reading and on the second reading of the bill, and any message from the Governor-General under standing order 147 being announced;
(b) any questions necessary to complete the remaining stages of the bill being put without amendment or debate; and
(4) following the conclusion of proceedings on the Help to Buy Bill 2023, the Help to Buy (Consequential Provisions) Bill 2023 being immediately called on, and any questions necessary to complete the remaining stages of the bill being put without amendment or debate; and
(5) any variation to this arrangement being made only on a motion moved by a Minister.
For the information of members, if you look at the pace at which this debate has been going, while allowing people their full speaking time, a whole lot of people have been going short. I expect we'll probably be able to come close to finishing the debate tonight. If we're able to do that, it will leave time tomorrow for a much longer consideration in detail period than we've had for any other bill. I expect that would be more than enough.
This motion simply says that, at 5.30 pm, if there are any remaining procedures to take place, they would take place at that point in consecutive occurrence. The reasons we're doing this on Wednesday rather than leaving it to Thursday are twofold. One is that, by going late tonight, we should have more than enough time for everyone to speak, including people who want to go for their full speaking time. Secondly, on Thursday—and I'll move the motion for this tomorrow—we have the address from President Marcos, which means capacity to finish the legislation at that point won't be available. I commend the motion to the House.
]]>Opposition members interjecting—
]]>