A super step for women

It’s a fact. We have a global gender inequality issue.

This disparity impacts millions of women and girls globally. As we marked International Women's Day, we don’t need to look beyond our backyard to see the lost opportunities for individual women, society, and the economy caused by entrenched gender inequality.

For the first time, Australia’s largest companies have publicly reported their gender pay gaps. It makes for staggering reading and is a stark reminder of how far Australia still has to go to achieve true gender equality.

Broad societal change will be required to achieve this, and Australia's corporate leaders have an opportunity to lead the way. But advancing gender equality will also need a whole of Government response.

That’s why last Thursday’s Federal Government launch of a new national gender equality strategy, whose centrepiece was a commitment to pay super on the Commonwealth Paid Parental Leave scheme, is a significant step in the right direction.

That it’s taken 13 years of tireless advocacy from HESTA, and many others, to achieve this super reform shows just how hard it can be to end persisting inequities.

We’ve long argued it was unfair that parental leave - overwhelmingly taken by women - was the only form of commonly taken leave on which super wasn’t paid.

Independent modelling by Laneway Analytics shows this has cost Australian mums as much as $3.3 billion in missed retirement savings as of December 31, 2023.

While this hard-won reform is fantastic news for Australian women and many of our members, we know there’s still much unfinished business. The gender pay gap shows how far we must go to address inequity and bias in our communities, companies, and broader society.

While the gender pay gap is a key driver behind why women retire with almost a third less super than men, ongoing inequities in our superannuation system exacerbate this gap. ?

Lower-income earners, including many women, continue to pay more tax on super than their wages. That’s why we support updating the Low-Income Super Tax Offset (LISTO) to reflect current tax and super settings.

International Women's Day was a special opportunity to stop and reflect on women's enormous contribution to society.

It's a time to acknowledge milestones like paying super on paid parental leave and to redouble our efforts to achieve gender equality, which will make Australia a better place for us all.

As published in the Herald Sun, Monday 11 March, 2024.