Jess Walsh (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

For over a century, International Women's Day has been an opportunity for women to take stock, re-energise and organise. This year's theme is 'Achieving an equal future in a COVID-19 world'. On 8 March we will acknowledge the immense contribution Australian women have made during the pandemic. Women have shouldered an enormous burden during COVID-19, as frontline workers, as parents and as carers. Women in caring professions have put their health and safety on the line for others, and too many of these women are in low-paid and insecure jobs—cleaners and aged-care, childcare, health and community services workers, to name just a few. We know that during the pandemic women have disproportionately taken on additional caring responsibilities at home, including homeschooling. But, even though we all spent much more time at home, women were still five times more likely to take on primary caring roles during the pandemic.

We also know that during last year women bore the brunt of the economic downturn. Women lost jobs at a greater rate than men, and women lost more hours of work than men. International Women's Day marks more than just one day each year. It actually represents an international movement that, every day of every year, continues to demand equality for women. In the Labor Party, we know that greater equality is not inevitable. We know that it must be fought for, and Labor will always fight for the women of Australia. We will always fight for good, secure jobs for the women of Australia, for equal pay, for the respect women deserve but still don't have—to be listened to and to be heard.

What do the women of Australia see when they look to the leader of this country? They see a person who is sending a message to every girl and every woman that they just don't matter. Prime Minister Morrison is not standing up for the women in his own party. He is not standing up for the women who work in this parliament. The women of Australia know that they can't count on him to stand up for them. As Senator Wong said in this chamber this week, Mr Morrison is arguably the most powerful person in the land. He sets standards that form cultural expectations. His actions and inactions shape the culture. So what does it say when the standards he sets in legislation currently before the House would hurt Australian women by cutting their wages and making their jobs less secure?

We are 12 months into this pandemic and into the economic crisis that it created, and the Prime Minister has offered absolutely nothing for the working women of Australia in the recovery. The Prime Minister has instead used the pandemic as cover to give businesses more power to cut the pay of Australian workers. He's abandoned women who are essential workers to wallow in insecure and casual work and he's robbed women of a comfortable retirement by making them raid their own superannuation savings to get by. The Prime Minister is making things worse for hardworking Australian women. He has set too many Australian women on the path to poverty and he won't stand up for the women of this country.