Catryna Bilyk (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

As I was saying before this debate on the Paid Parental Leave Amendment (Flexibility Measures) Bill 2020 was interrupted, the ACTU's submission noted that, between them, two inquiries—the Productivity Commission's 2009 inquiry and a 2014 review of the current scheme—found numerous benefits from paid parental leave. These included improved child and maternal health and wellbeing, but there were also benefits for employers. The Queensland Nurses and Midwives Union noted in its submission that offering flexible return-to-work arrangements is in the employer's interests as it helps to attract and retain skilled workers. As several submitters have noted, the government's changes to paid parental leave simply do not go far enough, and much more needs to be done to improve the participation of women in work.

I doubt, however, that we can rely on those opposite to expand the scheme, given their previous attempts to undermine it. In 2016, the Liberal government attempted to cut the publicly funded Paid Parental Leave Scheme for workers who were accessing employer provided paid parental leave entitlements. The cuts would have impacted around 80,000 families. In the previous year, the government insulted those families by referring to parents who access both government and employer funded schemes as rorters and double dippers. The attitude of those opposite in 2015 and 2016 was a strong statement that they think our publicly funded paid parental leave is too generous, despite it being so low by the standards of other advanced economies.

Although the expansion of paid parental leave is an important measure to achieve equality between men and women, when it comes to engagement in work, it is only one of several public policy measures that are needed. I'd like to be able to say that those opposite are making progress on equality for women in the workforce in other areas. Sadly, the opposite is true. It might be news to the Treasurer that, contrary to his claims that the gender pay gap in Australia has closed, it actually remains stubbornly high at 14 per cent. In absolute terms, this means women earn an average of $240 a week less than men. One area in which more needs to be done to address this gap is improving pay in industries dominated by women workers. In 2012, social and community services workers won a landmark equal pay case in the Fair Work Commission. The commission's ruling ensured that workers in the sector, which has had a high representation of women, would receive pay commensurate with comparable male dominated industries, and I am particularly proud to note that the union I used to work for, the Australian Services Union, led the case. I'm also proud that it was a Labor government that legislated to allow equal pay cases to be brought before the commission.

I'm also proud to say that it was the same Labor government which agreed to fund the pay increases through supplementation to Australian government grants. The equal remuneration order, or ERO, supplementation is due to expire in 2021-22, and it's an absolute disgrace that this Liberal government has taken no action to extend the supplementation payments or to incorporate them into base grants. Supplementation is due to end for about 220 organisations, and I have had a number of community service organisations which rely on Australian government grants contact me and explain what the cut to the ERO supplementation means to their particular services. We're going to see savage cuts to services that are helping feed the homeless, support the elderly and people with disability, and shelter women fleeing domestic and family violence.

These cuts are outrageous not only because of the reduction in vital community services but also because they undermine the important progress that was made on gender pay equity through the 2012 equal pay decision. This is a sector in which 80 per cent of workers are women. If the Morrison government refuses to continue providing the funding necessary to give effect to the Fair Work Commission's equal pay decision, that is sending a very strong message to the sector and to the broader community that they do not believe in equal pay—that women's work is somehow of less value than the work done by men.

Another area that needs action to address pay equity is having more women in management and leadership positions. A report by consultant Conrad Liveris in 2017 found that women in chair and CEO roles in Australia's 200 largest companies were outnumbered by men called John. There are also more Peters running Australia's largest companies than women, and more Davids, too. There is something very wrong happening with women's equality if the leaders of Australia's largest companies are more likely to be called John, David or Peter than they are to be women.

When Labor in government established the Workplace Gender Equality Agency, we introduced a straightforward requirement for organisations with more than 100 employees to report against several gender quality indicators. It's fortunate that the Liberal government, after pressure from women's and business groups, did not accept their Commission of Audit's recommendation to scrap the agency. There was unfortunately an attempt by the government to water down the reporting requirements, but thankfully this failed. In and of themselves, the WGEA's reporting requirements do not have any direct impact on workplace gender equality, but they are an important tool for tracking progress towards gender equality and keeping businesses accountable for their progress.

This is why Labor remains committed to these requirements, and it is a great shame that those opposite haven't always fully shared this commitment. In addition to the current reporting requirements, Labor has called on the government to require companies with over 1,000 employees to also report publicly on how much they pay women compared with men. This would show which companies are contributing to closing the gender pay gap and which ones need to do more. This government's approach to industrial relations does very little to help close the gender pay gap. The Morrison government has boasted that low wage growth is a deliberate design feature of their policy, and this is of little surprise when you consider their record.

Take, for example, voting to cut penalty rates, opposing increases to the minimum wage and the many ways in which they've undermined enterprise bargaining and efforts to stop unfair labour hire practices. Given that women are over-represented in low-paid industries, the efforts of those opposite to suppress wage growth have a disproportionate impact on women workers. Sadly, low-income workers are highly represented amongst those who have lost their jobs during the COVID-19 pandemic. So, as a result of the pandemic, women's equality in the workforce is going to slide even further backwards. Women are also more highly represented in the occupations that are on the front line of the crisis, particularly health care, and the burdens of extra caring responsibilities are more likely to fall on women. The disproportionate impact of the pandemic on women in work is such that there is an even more pressing need during the recovery to commit to boosting women's equality in terms of pay and workforce participation. Australia ranks 44th out of 153 countries on the World Economic Forum's Global Gender Gap Index. In 2013, when those opposite came to power, we were ranked 23rd. So we've slid 21 places under the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison government.

The lack of progress on gender equality by this government should be of no surprise when you consider the lack of progress on equality within their own party room. Less than a quarter of the Liberal Party's federal members and senators are women, compared with almost half for the Labor Party. Until the Liberals make significant progress towards increasing the representation in their parliamentary ranks and within the cabinet, they are going to struggle to make progress towards improving equality for all women. They will continue their poor record on helping women to engage in work, to earn the same as their male counterparts and to succeed in attaining leadership positions. This is because men will continue to dominate decision-making on the government's policy approach to gender equality.

The flexibility provisions in this bill are just one tentative step towards equality in a journey of many, many miles. I commend the bill to the Senate.