GENDER PAY GAP HITS LOWEST LEVEL ON RECORD UNDER THE ALBANESE LABOR GOVERNMENT

Australia’s gender pay gap is the lowest it's ever been – at 12 per cent.

Under the previous government it averaged 15.4 per cent.

At the same time the gap has narrowed we’ve seen a whole lot of women enter the workforce – an extra 330,000 women are now in jobs since the election.

And importantly 57 per cent of those jobs are full time.

All of that hasn't happened by accident or by coincidence.

It's happened because closing the gender pay gap, boosting women’s employment and getting wages moving is a deliberate design feature of this Government.

Some of the actions we’ve taken since coming to Government have been obviously targeted at improving pay for women.

Like fixing Australia’s bargaining system to get wages moving – particularly in feminised industries like early childhood education – which is what we passed the Secure Jobs, Better Pay laws.

With that legislation we also changed the law to put gender equality at the heart of the Fair Work Commission's decision-making. That means the workplace umpire has to take that into account when they’re making important decisions about pay and conditions.

The days of secretly paying women less than men are now over, because we banned pay secrecy clauses – which were being used to stop women in a workplace finding out how much their colleagues were earning.

We backed and funded a 15 per cent pay rise for aged-care workers. Aged care is an industry where the overwhelming majority of workers are women.

All of those measures were aimed at improving pay. But we also introduced a second group of changes to improve women’s participation in the workforce.

Things like expanding flexible work arrangements, making childcare cheaper and more accessible for 96 per cent of families and delivering the biggest boost to paid parental leave since it was introduced.

That’s how you close the gender pay gap – by taking action.

All of those measures were opposed by Peter Dutton and his party.

Our changes mean the average Australian woman working full time earns $135 more a week than when we came to office.

And under our tax plan that same woman will get a tax cut of almost $2,000.

The Albanese Labor Government wants Australians to earn more and keep more of what they earn.

Peter Dutton wants Australians to work longer for less.

The Liberals spent a decade in government keeping wages low. We know that because they admitted it – explaining that keeping wages low was a deliberate design feature of their economic architecture.

They might be in Opposition now, but they still can’t kick the habit.

We’re taking a different approach. Getting wages moving again is a deliberate design feature of this Government.

And wages are moving.

The most recent data shows wages growing at 4.2% – the highest rate in 15 years.

Just to put that in perspective that’s about double the average under the previous government.

On top of that we’ve seen three quarters of real wages growth, as inflation moderates and wages continue to grow.

With our workplace relations changes – Australians are earning more.

And with our tax cuts – they’ll keep more of what they earn.

The Liberals and Nationals have said that they’ll take a “targeted package of repeals” to the next election when it comes to workplace relations.

We know what that means.

Targeted against wage increases. Targeted against job security. Targeted against safer workplaces. Targeted against closing the gender pay gap.

Last week’s record low gender pay gap number is an important reminder of what Government can do when you take action and change the law.

ENDS