SENATOR JENNY MCALLISTER
SENATOR FOR NEW SOUTH WALES

TRANSCRIPT

DOORSTOP

PARLIAMENT HOUSE, CANBERRA

WEDNESDAY, 30 MAY, 2018

SUBJECT: TAX CUTS

SENATOR JENNY MCALLISTER: Look, nobody can accuse Australian women of not pulling their weight in the Australian economy.  Many women go to work, they work hard for their employers then they go home and do a second shift looking after kids or looking after other family members.

And as a reward for that they get significantly less pay than men on average. The gender pay gap is still sitting around 16 percent. You would think under those circumstances that the economic interests of Australian women were a pretty high priority for the Government. But not so.

When it comes to tax the Government is totally indifferent to their interests. I asked a series of questions yesterday about what work has been done to understand whether or not Australian women will benefit from the tax cuts that are proposed by Mr Morrison? And the answer from Treasury is absolutely nothing. They haven't done gender analysis of any kind. They don't know if Australian women will benefit from the tax cut or not or how.

And when I asked the Treasury Secretary Mr Fraser why that was the case, he said it is because the tax cuts are gender neutral.  Those are his words. Yet we have analysis in the public domain that suggests that in 2024 when this package is fully implemented, men will receive twice the benefit that women will receive. Two thirds of the benefit will flow to men rather than to women.

Now I think that's a pretty significant economic issue and I think the Treasurer needs to explain to Australian women why it is that under this plan, they just don't count.

Thank you.

ENDS

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Authorised by Noah Carroll ALP Canberra