With the concurrence of the Senate, the clerks will set the clock in accordance with the formal arrangement agreed by the whips. Are there any motions?

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answers given by ministers to questions without notice asked by Opposition senators today.

Well, that was quite a display in relation to a number of answers to questions, but I'll start particularly with those we just heard from Senator Gallagher. I don't even know where to begin. That in itself was a stunning denial of what Australians already know and, in fact, probably a classic case of gaslighting. To suggest that this government has taken hold and has improved inflation is extraordinary.

Senator Gallagher comments that, when they came into government, inflation was galloping away at six per cent and now has a three in front of it. She decides does not consider the facts that during the period of the last coalition government average inflation was 2.2 per cent and average inflation under this government from June 2022 until June 2026 is four per cent. That's double. That's twice as much. But we all know that. Australians are living that. To try and pretend that that is not occurring is disrespectful, it's egregious and it suggests that Australians don't actually understand what is going on in their own lives.

We have seen the largest collapse in living standards in the developed world under the Albanese Labor government. We are one of only three developed countries where rates haven't come down in the past two years. Every single one of those developed countries has also experienced the same global impacts and the same global shocks, and the reason that they've been able to manage those is that they went into those global shocks in a better position than we did. The problem is that this government has mismanaged our economy, and Australians are paying the price for that.

We have higher core inflation than any advanced economy not because of anything that happened in the past but because of everything that has occurred under the Albanese Labor government. We have higher core inflation than the UK. We have higher core inflation than the US. We have higher core inflation than Germany, Canada, Japan, Italy and France all because the Albanese Labor government has squandered and damaged Australia's economy, and they are pretending like there is nothing to see here. And now we have the highest-taxing government in Australia's history sitting across from us crushing the hopes and dreams of young Australians, crushing small business and dressing it up as intergenerational equity. It is an intergenerational fraud, and they should be ashamed of themselves.

I also want to make a quick comment in relation to Senator Ruston's question on the comments on social media from Mr Muldoon. I endorse my colleague Senator Nampijinpa Price's comment that Mr Muldoon's remarks are repulsive, which they are. Senator Wong said that the comments are not acceptable and the Prime Minister has made that clear. Well, the question I have is are they only unacceptable because they are now quite public, because those comments have been there for quite some time. The comments in relation to Peta Credlin and the references to Margaret Thatcher were made on 12 June 2022, four years ago. The comments in relation to my colleague Dave Sharma, about being a fake Jew, were made on 22 April 2022. And the comments about my colleague Senator Nampijinpa Price were made on 15 October 2023. Perhaps the Prime Minister would like to answer that.

I rise to take note of answers given in question time. I particularly want to talk to the answers given by Senator Wong to the coalition's first questions, and then I'll get to some of the others.

For someone from the party that talk endlessly about getting government out of other people's lives, Senator Cash seems remarkably interested in everyone else's. She has once again stood up in this place and asked us to question who gets to count as a woman. I think it's really important to talk honestly about this issue in this place, because these are conversations that can cause real harm to people.

The Sex Discrimination Act does not outlaw all single-sex spaces, and it permits special measures for the purposes of achieving substantive equality for disadvantaged groups. And I think that's a really, really important point that we should talk to. I think if Senator Cash and the Liberal Party were genuinely concerned about women's safety, then their record might be very different.

When Senator Cash was Attorney-General, her government refused to put a positive duty on employers to prevent sexual harassment in the workplace, and the Liberals voted against Labor's amendment to add a positive duty. So I think the thing that's hardest to stomach for me is Senator Cash pretending that this is about women's safety. In coming to government, we made gender pay equity a central objective of the Fair Work Act, and Senator Cash and the coalition opposed that too. If the Liberal Party and Senator Cash want to talk about women's safety, then I think they should begin by explaining their own record.

While Senator Cash and the Liberal Party are busy dog whistling, this government is busy delivering for women. We are the first government in this country's history where women make up the majority of our caucus and the first with more women than men around the cabinet table. And you can see the difference that this makes in our approach to women and in the policies that we have delivered.

We are committed to women's safety. Minister Plibersek, Assistant Minister White and Assistant Minister Kearney have spent much of the last few months consulting around the country with hundreds of stakeholders on the second action plan, and that's really important work. When we came to government in 2022, we brought back the Women's Budget Statement to put gender equality at the core of our economic plan. The gender pay gap is the lowest it has been. We've backed real pay rises for women workers in some of the lowest paid industries—many workers in those industries are women—and the minimum wage is now more than $12,000 a year higher than when we came to office. We have made child care cheaper for families, helping more women get back to work. And we've delivered a record investment in women's health.

I am so proud of our government's record on women. And I'll say again that if Senator Cash and the Liberal Party want to come in here and dog whistle about women's safety, they should explain their record first.

Listening to the answers to the questions put by coalition senators, particularly in relation to the economy, I'm unsure what worries me the most: that Labor don't know the damage they're causing to the economy through their taxation changes or that they do know the damage that they are causing to the economy through their taxation changes and they just don't care. I suspect it may be a combination of both, because we've got this axis of a bubble that surrounds the Labor Party when it comes to decision-making concerning how the economy runs, combined with an ideology that is so against business.

Just this week I've been meeting with different stakeholders, who have been raising their concerns about how the capital gains tax changes are impacting business and in particular impacting the flow of capital into new businesses, into startups. The changes that have been made by the Labor Party and then the additional changes that came out at the end of last week have actually done very little to settle the concerns of the business community. The answers that were put on the record today by Labor ministers certainly should not allay the concerns of the business community. Indeed, they should send a very strong streak of panic through them that Labor just don't get it.

For example, in the proposed changes to deal with capital gains tax and to deal with the taxation changes, the title of the secretary of the department is referenced 77 times in relation to that very senior bureaucrat being able to make decisions concerning the implementation of taxation changes. That is wrong, and it tells capital, tells business, that, if you have money, don't invest it in Australia, because your investments will be at the whim of decisions made by one bureaucrat in Canberra. And in a world where capital can shift from market to market, businesses will shift money overseas—or indeed not even look at Australia as a possible sovereign country in which to invest.

Why this is of concern, for those who are listening, is that we need to grow business in Australia, because when you have strong business—whether it's small, medium or large—that business employs people; it means that people have a job, it means that people can get into the housing market and it means that they can send their children to schools and can ensure through the taxes they pay that we live in a safe civic society where there is a safety net. But what Labor has failed to realise with the changes they've made in the budget and what they've failed to realise in their answers to the questions that have been put by coalition senators is that the exceptional Australian dream is being put at risk and the economy is in danger because of this axis of the Canberra bubble and the ideology that is pushing the modern Labor Party in its war on business and on capital.

Senator Marielle Smith.

Thank you, Acting Deputy President O'Sullivan—and it's nice to see you in the chair for this part of the program; it's unusual. I also rise to make a contribution on questions put by the opposition in question time today. It's a great opportunity to talk about our government's support for women and support for equality. When it comes to supporting gender equality in this place, and from our government, I am deeply proud of our record. While Senator Cash may think no-one cares about the gender pay gap, I do, our prime minister does and this government does. And we don't just care about it. We're actively doing things to make it better, to improve it and to improve the gender pay gap for working women, because it matters. As a result of these efforts, Australia now ranks 13th in the gender gap index, up from 43rd under the previous coalition government. That's also reflected in the actual figures when it comes to the gender pay gap. We're now at a record low of 11.3 per cent, compared to 14.2 per cent on their record.

These things don't just happen. They're the result of concerted policy efforts to tackle gender inequality, to prioritise women's pay and closing the gender pay gap, to prioritise equality in decision-making and to make decisions, when it comes to public policy, that put equality at its heart.

The facts are on the record, and the facts speak for themselves. Whether we're looking at rates of women's employment, rates of women's participation in employment, women's average weekly earnings, their wages, or whether or not they're employed part time or full time—on every single measure and every single metric, things are better under the Albanese Labor government than they were under the coalition government before it.

That is a result not of luck or chance but of choice—a choice to prioritise equality and a choice to prioritise investments, which means we do things like close the gender pay gap. It means investing in things like wage rises in industries which have been historically underpaid, and they have been underpaid because they have been women's industries—industries like early learning and aged care, feminised industries, which have traditionally been underpaid. We've backed in pay rises for these workers because we back in working women and we back in gender equality.

It's not just working women and wages which we are seeking to drive up; of course, we're investing in other measures, including women's safety—a record investment of over $4.4 billion in women's safety. We have the first dedicated safety plan for First Nations women and $3.9 billion in new funding for legal assistance, and we're providing $1 billion in crisis and transitional accommodation.

We're investing across the board in women's health to make sure that, finally, after decades and decades of neglect, women's health is getting the funding and attention it deserves, including adding new medicines for HRT and contraceptives to the PBS for the first time in decades. For decades, women have been waiting for access to modern medicines that meet their needs, and we are fixing that, as well as investing in menopause and investing in upskilling GPs so that women's health is prioritised, funded and delivered in the way that women deserve.

Of course, we're also investing in things like prac payments in women dominated sectors. We're making historic investments across the board, as I said, in women's health and investing in early learning, which helps in terms of the participation rate of women in the economy. On every practical measure, we're putting our money where our mouth is and investing in equality, investing in improving outcomes for women across Australia, and our record stands head and shoulders above the record of the opposition when they were in government. (Time expired)

Well, this question time was certainly extraordinary—to be lectured by the other side of this chamber about women's rights and equality for women. I put this to them: how do you possibly protect women's rights, how do you guarantee fairness, privacy and respect, when you cannot even define what a woman is? That is the truth of it.

We have women who are subjected to domestic violence and who are having to go into shelters, and they are being housed with men. We have men being housed in female prisons here in Australia. We've got a 31-year-old man playing hockey against girls as young as 14. How is that fair and how is that safe? This government is completely and deliberately blind to what it means for women to not have biological reality in our Sex Discrimination Act.

Now, we're not arguing about whether or not people would like to be transgender, but what this side of the chamber strongly believes in is that, when those two rights collide—when you have a man who identifies as a female, and women—women's rights should not come second to those of that man. Currently, that's exactly what happens under our Sex Discrimination Act here in Australia. I want to shout out to Sall Grover, who has fought this fight for three years. She took her fight all the way to the High Court. It is now abundantly clear that the Sex Discrimination Act is not fit for purpose. It is not fit for purpose for the women of Australia and it is not fit for purpose for young girls in Australia. So it is very, very clear that it is up to this parliament to take action. The coalition has tried to assist the government to restore common sense to the Sex Discrimination Act, and twice now the government has refused to act. What that is saying to every young girl and every woman in Australia is, 'Your rights and your safety come second to men in this country.'

On the other side of the chamber, Labor keep telling us how they are the champions of women in our country. That's what we keep being told. We've got a prime minister who went out and made some pretty revolting comments around melons in relation to the Japanese prime minister. Women on that side of the chamber come in here with a straight face and say, 'The Prime Minister talks with his hands.' I mean, come on! Is that seriously the excuse you've come up with? You can't possibly say you are a champion of women and equal rights and then come in here and defend the actions of the Prime Minister, saying he just talks with his hands, and then make sure that for every young girl and every woman in Australia their rights come second because we will not put biological reality back into the Sex Discrimination Act.

Then let's talk about the types of people that that side of the chamber—who are, let's not forget, the champions of women!—want to employ. We've got Rhys Muldoon's comments. I'm not actually going to repeat them in the chamber, because they are that disgusting. These are comments about women, good, strong women who are going out there and advocating for their communities. They're advocating for the rights of women. This is a bloke who's employed by a Labor senator who is making these remarks publicly. It is just disgraceful. This government says one thing and does another. (Time expired)

Question agreed to.