QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE: TAKE NOTE OF ANSWERS

Senator MARIELLE SMITH (South Australia) (15:13): Thank you, Acting Deputy President O'Sullivan—and it's nice to see you in the chair for this part of the program; it's unusual. I also rise to make a contribution on questions put by the opposition in question time today. It's a great opportunity to talk about our government's support for women and support for equality.

When it comes to supporting gender equality in this place, and from our government, I am deeply proud of our record. While Senator Cash may think no-one cares about the gender pay gap, I do, our prime minister does and this government does. And we don't just care about it.

We're actively doing things to make it better, to improve it and to improve the gender pay gap for working women, because it matters. As a result of these efforts, Australia now ranks 13th in the gender gap index, up from 43rd under the previous coalition government. That's also reflected in the actual figures when it comes to the gender pay gap.

We're now at a record low of 11.3 per cent, compared to 14.2 per cent on their record. These things don't just happen. They're the result of concerted policy efforts to tackle gender inequality, to prioritise women's pay and closing the gender pay gap, to prioritise equality in decision-making and to make decisions, when it comes to public policy, that put equality at its heart.

The facts are on the record, and the facts speak for themselves. Whether we're looking at rates of women's employment, rates of women's participation in employment, women's average weekly earnings, their wages, or whether or not they're employed part time or full time—on every single measure and every single metric, things are better under the Albanese Labor government than they were under the coalition government before it.

That is a result not of luck or chance but of choice—a choice to prioritise equality and a choice to prioritise investments, which means we do things like close the gender pay gap. It means investing in things like wage rises in industries which have been historically underpaid, and they have been underpaid because they have been women's industries—industries like early learning and aged care, feminised industries, which have traditionally been underpaid.

We've backed in pay rises for these workers because we back in working women and we back in gender equality. It's not just working women and wages which we are seeking to drive up; of course, we're investing in other measures, including women's safety—a record investment of over $4.4 billion in women's safety. We have the first dedicated safety plan for First Nations women and $3.9 billion in new funding for legal assistance, and we're providing $1 billion in crisis and transitional accommodation.

We're investing across the board in women's health to make sure that, finally, after decades and decades of neglect, women's health is getting the funding and attention it deserves, including adding new medicines for HRT and contraceptives to the PBS for the first time in decades. For decades, women have been waiting for access to modern medicines that meet their needs, and we are fixing that, as well as investing in menopause and investing in upskilling GPs so that women's health is prioritised, funded and delivered in the way that women deserve.

Of course, we're also investing in things like prac payments in women dominated sectors. We're making historic investments across the board, as I said, in women's health and investing in early learning, which helps in terms of the participation rate of women in the economy. On every practical measure, we're putting our money where our mouth is and investing in equality, investing in improving outcomes for women across Australia, and our record stands head and shoulders above the record of the opposition when they were in government.

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