ADDRESS TO PARLIAMENT - BILLS - WORKPLACE GENDER EQUALITY AMENDMENT (CLOSING THE GENDER PAY GAP) BILL 2023 - SECOND READING

On 8 March, International Women's Day, my recently married daughter, Georgina Bell, had this to say on Facebook: 'Here's to strong women. May we know them. May we be them. May we raise them.' Powerful words. I'm proud of her, as I am of my wife, Catherine, for what they have done in the workplace and what they have done in business. My wife worked for many years in a male-dominated housing and construction industry, and held her own for 15 years as an area manager.

This Workplace Gender Equality Amendment (Closing the Gender Pay Gap) Bill 2023 is important. It has consensus across the parliament. It implements a number of recommendations from the review of the Workplace Equality Act, undertaken while we, the coalition, were in government. There is no further regulatory burden for business under these proposed amendments, and that's important. It's vital that we know that, because we want business to be its best self, particularly at the moment, with cost-of-living pressures which, you could argue, impact women more unfairly than many men. No technical changes are required by employers in terms of reporting processes or the type of data provided to the Workplace Gender Equality Agency.