Ms BURNET – Thanks, minister. I just turned to the Tasmanian Gender Budget Statement, which is a really good initiative. There are 58 per cent of women in the workforce compared to 63.7 of men and 51 per cent of women work part time compared to 22 per cent of men. It’s proportionately the number of women participating in the workplace is worse than the rest of the nation.
I’m interested to know how you’re looking to address that inequity, that’s the first question.
Mr FERGUSON – I’m sorry, I don’t have it immediately to hand, but budget paper no 1 will. I realise the clock is against us.
Budget paper no 1 discusses in some detail where the growth in employment has occurred, including between the genders. We saw the stronger growth during and since the pandemic actually has occurred amongst women and that’s been a pleasing outcome. We want to not set and forget like we recognise where the question is coming from and why it’s the right ambition to encourage more opportunities and well-paid work for men and women, but especially noting any areas of disadvantage.
If we can improve the participation, employment and well-paid work for women, that is exactly why we’ve included those kinds of narratives and data sets in the gender budget statement.
CHAIR – The time for estimates of the Minister for Small Business and Consumer Affairs has expired. We will take a 5-minute break and the committee will commence the examination of Minister for Business, Industry and Resources.
