Karen Grogan (SA, Australian Labor Party) | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Finance and Minister for Women, Senator Gallagher. From today, Australians will benefit from a new suite of cost-of-living measures, including the latest rounds of income tax cuts and the expansion of Paid Parental Leave to a full six months for the first time. How will these changes help support women and their families?

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

I thank Senator Grogan for the question and for all the work that she does, along with all of my women colleagues in the Labor Party—and not just women but all party members in our caucus room—to progress gender equality.

The Albanese Labor government is delivering real change for women and their families with a suite of cost-of-living measures that start today, including more tax cuts coming in on 1 July 2026 and a full six months of Paid Parental Leave. We're also strengthening Medicare and making all of those investments in women's health that have been so important and so well taken up by Australian women.

In relation to our tax cuts, as I said yesterday, our plan is to deliver a series of five tax cuts. Two have already been delivered. We've got more coming next year: the instant tax deduction and of course the Working Australians Tax Offset. We've expanded Paid Parental Leave to the full six months, helping new parents spend more time at home with their youngest family members. Thanks to our changes here, supported by the Labor government, families accessing the full entitlement will receive almost $30,000 across the Paid Parental Leave scheme. This is around double the entitlement that was available to families before Labor came to government.

We're also backing in the minimum-wage and award-wage increases that also start today, both in our submission to the Fair Work Commission's Annual Wage Review and also through the direct investments that we have made into care workers—in particular aged-care workers and early educators working in the childcare system—who had been left without earning adequate wages and with no government, prior to our government coming to the table, prepared to pay for— (Time expired)

Sue Lines (President) | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Grogan, first supplementary?

Karen Grogan (SA, Australian Labor Party) | Link to this | Hansard source

From today, millions of workers will receive a pay rise through increases to the national minimum wage and modern award wages. Many of them are women, including aged-care workers and early childhood educators. These increases were supported and funded by the Albanese Labor government. Can the minister outline why the government has focused on addressing care workers' pay and how this has increased women's earnings?

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

I thank Senator Grogan for the question and, again, for her dedication to addressing adequate wage outcomes for workers in these important sectors of our economy. In relation to the Annual Wage Review, we did back in a real wage increase and the Annual Wage Review provided a six per cent increase to the national minimum wage, taking the national minimum wage to just over $1,000 per week for a full-time worker, for the first time ever. Modern award wages will increase by 4.75 per cent, delivering a pay boost to around 2.7 million award-reliant workers across the country. As we know, women are the majority of those reliant on minimum and award wages.

In addition to this, our direct investments into aged care and early education and care workers have significantly increased wages in that sector. We now know that women working full-time today are on average $300 more per week— (Time expired)

Sue Lines (President) | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Grogan, second supplementary?

Karen Grogan (SA, Australian Labor Party) | Link to this | Hansard source

It really is excellent to hear about these measures, and I know they're going to make a significant difference. Could the minister outline what other positive outcomes for women the Albanese Labor government has been focused on?

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

I can do that. Just to cover off, at the end of the last question I was making the point that women working full-time today are, on average, earning almost $300 more per week than they were when we came to government. It's because of those investments we've made, but they haven't just been into wages and supporting the wage review. We've also been working around lowering the gender pay gap. We've introduced the Women's Budget Statement. We've seen 650,000 new jobs created for women. We've done our extension of paid parental leave. And this has been reflected in Australia increasing our ranking in the international gender equality rankings from 43rd, when we came to government, to 13th on the latest ranking. This shows that our work of driving gender equality because it's good for everybody and good for the economy is working in measurable ways that we've been focused on.