Equal Pay Day

The Hon. S.W. KEY (Ashford) (15:22): I had the pleasure of representing the Muriel Matters Society at a recent equal pay for women forum. This was sponsored not only by the Muriel Matters Society but also by Business and Professional Women (BPW). The main organisers are Zonta, the Office for Women and the Working Women's Centre.

Equal Pay Day is acknowledged on 8 September each year, noting the time from the end of the previous financial year that women must work to earn the same as men. When you look at the average weekly earnings data from the ABS, calculations of the national gender pay gap is something like 16.2 per cent for full-time employees, a difference of $261.10 per week.

We were told at the forum that the gap meant that women working full-time needed to work 14 months on average to earn the same as men in the same year. In here, I sometimes think that a lot of us—both men and women—probably feel as if we are working 14 months instead of 12 months. However, there were other statistics that worried me, particularly that the average superannuation balance for women at retirement is 52.8 per cent less than for men and that the proportion of CEOs who are women in Australia at the moment is estimated to be 15.4 per cent. Of course, I know that there is a low number of women in senior positions across all industries.

As an advocate for workers wages, and having had an interest in this issue for a long time, I know that men and women are basically still in different jobs, in different industries, and that there is occupational segregation. In fact, we often talk about the sex segmentation of the workforce in Australia, and that really has not changed.

I remember being involved in a work-value case, where we looked at the wages of childcare workers compared with toolmakers. It was found that, despite the huge responsibilities in both areas, the male toolmakers were much more valued than the female childcare workers. Sadly, even today, how many male childcare workers does one see in comparison to female childcare workers? One of my women friends is a toolmaker, but I am yet to meet another woman toolmaker.

Addressing the Australian gender gap encourages businesses and the public sector and people basically in employment to do a whole lot of things. They say that just one step in the right direction would be a good case for people to take up. There is a free e-book available that outlines strategies, case studies and actions that can be taken, they say, straightaway. Some of those are fairly obvious to us all. They include flexible work arrangements that do not trade off wages and conditions for women and men with caring responsibilities.

It is pleasing to see that some things have changed, in that there are a number of men who have stepped up to the plate with regard to caring responsibilities both for children and also family members, aged parents. I think that this is a very good change that has certainly happened in my time in the workforce. Other action includes improving quality and accessible and affordable child care, including out-of-hours care. I think we would all agree in this chamber that this has been an ongoing campaign for a lot of us and it needs to continue to improve.

Equal employment opportunity practices in workplaces is where we really try to look at addressing equal play and employment opportunities in particular. I have mentioned the superannuation gap, which is pretty worrying particularly when you consider what people are going to live on after they retire from the paid workforce. Some recent statistics show the wage gap in different industries. For example, in the finance and insurance sector a man may get $330,500 versus a woman who may get $88,500.