EQUAL OPPORTUNITY AND PAY FOR WOMEN PANEL

1 SEPTEMBER, 2022

Thank you very much Helen.

And I also acknowledge the Traditional Owners of this land and pay my respects to Elders, past and present and thank Paul for his generous Welcome to Country.

Danielle, your address raised the urgent need to address women’s economic equality. This is something that the Government furiously agrees with.

The Albanese Government aims to restore Australia’s leadership in gender equality by building on our ambitious Plan for Women.

And this Summit is an example of that objective.

Right from the beginning the Treasurer and his team ensured that this Summit itself had a gender equality lens and I am pleased to say that more than 50% of participants here today are women.

Women have a leading role in every session, and we are hopeful that gender equality and women’s economic equality is a feature of all of the sessions of the next two days.

Since coming to Government we’ve already started this by supporting wage increases for women in dominated sectors like aged care, we’re strengthening the focus on gender wage gaps and pay transparency, introducing paid domestic violence leave and making childcare cheaper.

We’re getting foundations right by adopting gender responsive budgeting and embedding gender analysis across Government decision making processes.

The Women’s Economic Equality Taskforce will be announced shortly and will assist me with the work ahead including on the development of the National Strategy for Gender Equality.

And I’m so pleased that this Taskforce will be chaired by Sam Mostyn, who’s also going to facilitate this session’s panel.

The Prime Minister has given me a portfolio of Women, Finance and the Public Service – this puts gender equality at the heart of government.

It’s a unique opportunity and one that we will use to drive change.

I firmly believe the Australian Public Service should lead the way on setting the standard and ambition on gender equality and I acknowledge the strong leadership from the private sector which provides a roadmap for this ambition, especially on parental leave.

We’ve heard from many women, as well as business and unions, in the lead up to this Summit.

I am heartened by the universal commitment to women’s economic equality that I have heard, and by the clear focus on solutions.

This Summit represents a huge opportunity to agree that women’s economic equality is a core economic imperative that is crucial to our economic resilience and prosperity.

As a country, we simply can’t afford to leave women’s talent on the shelf – if the women’s workforce participation rate matched men, we would increase GDP by 8.7 per cent or $353 billion by 2050.

Over the next two days, in every discussion and for every solution, we should be looking at how we unlock the talent and potential of Australian women and remove barriers for all of them.

We have a big task ahead of us, but we also have momentum and, I believe, a shared commitment for change.

To Sam, I’m really excited to work with you in your new role as Chair of the Women’s Economic Equality Taskforce.

Thank you for agreeing to take on that role, and this role to facilitate this session.

I thank all of the panellists for their agreement to participate in this session and would everyone please welcome Sam Mostyn to facilitate ‘Equal Opportunity and Pay for Women’.