SUBJECTS: IWD, Gender pay gap, gender pay gap, royals. 

HOST: We started off this show talking about it being International Women’s Day. It should be a day universally I guess where we’re celebrating the achievements of women but that’s being overshadowed somewhat by the fact that there are still these inequalities being suffered by women right across the world, whether it be in the work place or indeed at home. I suppose it can be a good thing if those inequalities by the very nature of them being highlighted can be fixed, and as I mentioned earlier I’m staggered to think that there are employers that are still out there, and we spoke with one who will offer less money to a woman than they would for a male for a whole range of reasons, that being for the same job, it is still going on. But Federal Opposition Leader, Anthony Albanese, will today unveil plans to name and shame companies who are guilty of just that, he joins us now. Good morning. 

ALBANESE: Good morning. 

HOST: Thanks very much for joining us, how are you? 

ALBANESE: I’m pretty good. 

HOST: Well I guess a lot of people would wake up this morning and look at the front page in Melbourne of the Herald Sun knowing that you are probably fed up with this and the fact that if you do take power at the next election, you’ll do something to fix it. So how will you do that? 

ALBANESE: Well we’ll do through four new things we’re announcing today. Firstly legislating so that companies who have more than 250 employees have to report on their gender pay gap publicly. Now they already provide that advice to the Workplace Gender Equality Agency but at the moment it’s a secret. There’s no reason why it should be a secret, and so legislating that way will enable a bit of transparency to the system. Secondly, we’ll prohibit pay secrecy clauses. At the moment, I find it quite extraordinary that some employees, it’s actually against the law for them to tell people how much they’re paid. Now that obviously has a significant constraint on employees who are bargaining for pay rises and indeed the example you just gave if someone’s offering a woman less than they’re offering a man to do exactly the same job, then that should be transparent as well. Thirdly we can show leadership through the Australian Public Service by having a gender pay audit across all Departments within the first year of Government, and lastly but importantly to strengthen the ability of the Fair Work Commission to order pay increases for workers in low paid female dominated industries. That happened with the SACs, the Community Services Award in 2012 when we were in Government. It is the case that industries that are dominated by women tend to have fallen behind industries that are dominated by men, and, in terms of pay, so it all adds up to a 13.4% gap that’s there between men and women’s pay, which is you know is $242.00 per week less. That’s not good enough in 2021. 

HOST: No. I wouldn’t have thought, and as I said it’s quite mind boggling to think it still goes on. We had a caller at little earlier on, Vince, who was saying that yes he would actually probably offer a male more than a female because the female might have had a chunk of time off. Now that might be for having babies or for whatever purposes, so therefore the male is more experienced. Is that a bit of a get out clause for some potential employers? 

ALBANESE: Well it shouldn’t be, if they’re doing the same job they should be paid the same pay. The Aussie sense of the fair go tells you that that’s the case, and I mean it goes back to when wages were set a long ago, at the beginning of the last century, the Harvester judgement assumed that a male wage would be looking after the family. The woman wouldn’t be working, at home and she’d be looking after the kids. Now the world has changed, and it’s also really bad economics. The society benefits from people having to be able to participate fully in it, and that includes the workforce. And this all fits side by side of course with our Cheaper Childcare policy that will get rid of the cap that’s there and remove the disincentive that’s there for women to work a fourth or fifth day that’s currently there that’s in the system, and will really help families. We know that low wages and that they have been stagnant since 2013, that it’s really holding back our economy and we need to actually have strategic plans to deal with that. Today’s announcement builds on our industrial relations policies that we announced just a few weeks ago. This is stage two. We have a group of announcements we’ll be rolling out but we thought that International Women’s Day is an appropriate day to make these announcements. 

HOST: So with the one about naming and shaming the companies, which on face value, you know I think most people would applaud, does it also not run the risk of backfiring in that there would be some of the larger companies who say: ‘Well I’m not prepared to be named and shamed by the Government, so therefore I’ll just worry about employing blokes’? 

ALBANESE: No, it actually works. We’ve seen it operate in the last few years. The United Kingdom, under the Conservative Government there, has introduced basically that plan of transparency in publishing the gender pay gaps, and it’s actually lead to a reduction of around about, around about 3.0% in the gap that’s there. Now that makes a difference, 2.3% to be exact. 

HOST: Yes. 

ALBANESE: And that’s worked in just the first two years, so people can see where it’s at, of course by publishing the data as well I think that a company that had no justification for it and had 500 employees and didn’t employ any women I think that that would have an effect on their standing as well. So it’s all about transparency. A whole range of companies are doing the right thing. Today we’ll also be announcing there should be ten days domestic violence leave. Now we know that a range of Governments and private sector companies have done that, and it has worked effectively. So, it really is about transparency across the board here. 

HOST: Sorry to interrupt, but that in itself seems a bit sad that we need to introduce the ten day leave for domestic violence where employers should be showing enough compassion anyway to grant that without it being, you know, mandated. 

ALBANESE: Well they should, but they don’t at the moment. But a range of companies, to give shout outs, some of the big banks, the big four all do it., Woolworths do it, Carlton & United, QANTAS, Virgin, Vodaphone, Telstra, IKEA, Medicare, a bunch of companies do it and a bunch of State Governments do it as well, including, in Victoria, actually has had twenty days paid leave since 2016. So yeah, the idea that it wouldn’t be available of course, I find quite shocking, but the truth is that we do need as well reward good behaviour by Corporate Australia by making sure that they’re not put at any disadvantage for doing the right thing, and that what’s this policy is aimed at as well. 

HOST: I just want to go back to one of your earlier points, in fact I think it was point one, with the inequality with the wages, and you were saying these companies who do run foul of that, are already known but are protected by secrecy, what, why? 

ALBANESE: Well it’s a difficult thing to answer really, when you look at…. HOST: It’s not antiquated legislation is it? 

ALBANESE: Yes, look absolutely, and when, and in particular when contracts, in terms of secrecy, people who are not being able to disclose at all, that’s part of the contract, has secrecy clauses in there, so that you can’t even, forget about knowing what everyone else is paid, you can’t tell anyone what you’re paid, and what your conditions are, and that, that’s just common sense to get rid of that I think. And the 250 employees, it’ll start at 1000 and be phased in over four years. We’ll give companies time to adjust and it’s no extra work, that’s the thing that I find astonishing, because they already have to report this data to the Commonwealth Agency but not being able to tell makes no sense. So what we’ll do is, we’ll have a portal whereby people can log on and which will publish headline gender pay gap. It won’t go down to specifics, you know you won’t be able to tell how much Jenny is paid or John is paid, but you’ll see the gaps there both in managerial and non-managerial roles as well. 

HOST: Yes Alright. Just a couple of things as well, left of field ones, if you don’t mind. 

ALBANESE: Sure. 

HOST: We were talking about this morning, again, you know as part of International Women’s Day, it’s highlighted in the Age this morning there are 32 statues in Melbourne to celebrate our sporting heroes, only three of those are women. So what statue would you like to see erected in honour of a famous Australian sportswoman? Keeping in mind we have got already Shirley Strickland, Betty Cuthbert and the AFLW player, Taylor Harris. 

ALBANESE: Well I was going to start with Taylor Harris because she’s such a great role model and she, of course, I’ve seen her box as well as play AFL. Look there’s so many, Meg Lanning, I think that outside of, of course she was there, of course any of the great cricketers who won the world cup final at the MCG with that enormous crowd, it was a great day of course held on International Women’s day last year, it seems like a long time ago. So that springs to mind, but outside Rod Laver, the tennis stadium there, I would have thought that Yvonne Goolagong-Cawley would be an appropriate statue. Ash Barty in the future of course is going to be a legend of the game for a long period of time. 

HOST: A number of worthy nominations there. And just one final one, and just be careful how you answer this Anthony, because this might end up being, Chris Uhlmann will be all over this one, ok, so just take a deep breath before you answer it. Will you be watching Harry and Meghan tonight? 

ALBANESE: Mate I might, I do have a meeting tonight so I’m not quite sure what time it’s on but I actually quite like them I’ve got to say. 

HOST: You like Harry and Meghan? 

ALBANESE: Yes, why not? HOST: But they’ve, they’ve, they’ve turned on their own family? 

ALBANESE: I think that’s a very complex family and anyone who’s watched the Crown, I’ll put my hand up and say I did watch, I thought it was quite captivating even if there’s a question mark over some of the factual basis of it. But I think that Australians do have a bit of a fascination… 

HOST: So your Team Harry and Meghan are you? 

ALBANESE: I quite like them I’ve got to say. I quite like her rebellious streak and I thought it was, I certainly thought it was good when Harry married outside of the usual circles. 

HOST: I was only joking when I said this could become the biggest political story of the day. 

ALBANESE: You ask a question without notice. You get very much a straight answer. I think she’s a very strong, role model I’ve got to say. 

HOST: All right, okay, each to their own.

ALBANESE: There you go. Sorry for what, obviously you consider is the wrong answer. 

HOST: No, there’s no right or wrong answer, it’s just a surprising one, but anyway always good to talk to you, and thanks very much and I’m sure it, in the lead up to an election, the earlier issues we were talking about will certainly become a key plank in your quest to cease power. Thanks very much for your time this morning Anthony. 

ALBANESE: Terrific thanks for your time. 

HOST: Anthony Albanese there, Leader of the Federal Labor Party, ah the alternate Prime Minister and a fan of Harry and Meghan, Wow, are you with him? 

ENDS