Page 2796 - Week 10 - Wednesday, 6 October 2021
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While I am on the topic, I would like to point out the superannuation guarantee threshold. This rule in our employment law means that employers only have to pay superannuation if an employee makes more than $450 per month. Women, due to the factors I have just discussed, are far more likely to be long-term part-time employed and fall under this threshold, therefore receiving no superannuation for the work they do.
As I have already referenced, before the pandemic, employed women were still doing more than their fair share of unpaid domestic labour. Worryingly, since the COVID-19 pandemic, we have seen this phenomenon skyrocket, with Australian women, according to the Grattan Institute, “doing an extra hour each day more than men, on top of their existing load”. The Grattan Institute has found:
… the gender gap in unpaid and paid work was already bigger pre-COVID in Australia than the UK, US, Canada, and New Zealand. Despite strong increases in female workforce participation in recent decades, Australian women still do about two hours more unpaid work each day on average than Australian men. Conversely, men typically do about two hours more paid work each day than women.
In Australia the national gender pay gap has reduced, from a high of 18.5 per cent in November 2014 to 13.4 per cent in November 2020, although there has subsequently been an increase back up to 14.2 per cent as of May 2021. In the ACT the gender pay gap is 7.9 per cent, which is clearly a lot better than the average across the nation.
As of March 2021 Australia ranked 50th in the World Economic Forum’s 2021 Global Gender Gap Report. As an aside, I find it of both concern and interest that our GDP of $US1.6 trillion, or $US62,000 per capita, puts us at ninth in the world by this measure, yet Australia is still coming in so low, in 50th place, when it comes to the gender pay gap. Despite the rhetoric that our nation is wealthy, we are exceptionally poor at sharing it.
When we are lucky enough to be paid for it, women are still earning less for labour of equal value than men, in addition to managing an unfair share of unpaid domestic labour. This injustice categorically harms women and children, especially those of us with intersections of wealth, race, language and ability, which also attract economic and social discrimination.
Adding insult to injury, we have seen the federal government functionally leave women out of the pandemic recovery packages. It is therefore with great relief that I note that the ACT government has done effective work to reduce gender inequality within its own workforce. This is reflected in our high female participation rates and low gender pay gap. As a result of the good work of the ACT government and the ACT public service, we have an overall gender pay gap of one per cent or less, with 65 per cent of ACT public service employees being women. Indeed, to build on the work already undertaken, starting in the 2022-23 financial year, directorates will be directed to report on gender action plans and gender impact assessments in their annual reports. This level of participation also has a positive macro influence on the gender gap in superannuation.
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