Katy Gallagher (ACT, Australian Labor Party, Minister for the Public Service) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator White for the question. Unfortunately, Australia currently ranks 43rd out of 146 countries in the World Economic Forum global gender gap index. This is where we are today. Our gender pay gap stands at 14.1 per cent; it is higher for First Nations women. It's not good enough and we know that we cannot call ourselves a fair country while one half of the population is paid less, does more unpaid care, and experiences higher rates of domestic, family, and sexual violence.

Driving gender equality isn't just good for women; it's also good economic policy. This was a resounding message from our Jobs and Skills Summit. One of the first outcomes of that meeting was that women's economic equality must be treated as a key economic imperative, that it was crucial to the future of our economic prosperity and that we deal with it that way. We have listened to that and that's why I'm proud of this budget which places women at the centre. (Time expired)