SARAH FERGUSON: Now today you've announced super will be paid on government funded parental leave from 2025. Why wait so long to bring it in?
KATY GALLAGHER: Well, we've had to pass the budget obviously. We have got the appropriation bills that would come forward. That doesn't happen until after May. This is the only workplace entitlement that doesn't have superannuation paid on ordinary time earnings. So we think that's important. KATY GALLAGHER: Well, we'll be finalising that all in the budget but as I said it does get more expensive. It is about 180,000 people we believe per annum will get that payment and then putting that payment on as the PPL rates increase, but it will be, it will be a big investment in the budget probably one of the biggest we make and it's well over a couple of hundred thousand, sorry, a couple of hundred million dollars per year.
So, as with all things, Sarah, these are about choices you make, room you make in the budget, and you weigh it up with a whole range of other competing pressures. In an ideal world, yes, you would want to do that and more. SARAH FERGUSON: Let's talk about the gender pay gap because you say that on current figures it will take 15 years to close that pay gap which is an extraordinary length of time, isn't it, given the ambition that exists in Australia.KATY GALLAGHER: Well, so one thing we're doing is publishing the gender pay gaps of companies with more than 100 employees and I think this conversation that was started about that is heading us in the right direction.
KATY GALLAGHER: Well, the ERC is doing its job and I have the role of Finance Minister which is a privilege, but it also comes with the need to say no quite a lot. KATY GALLAGHER: Well, I don't really want to go into conversations that we have in Cabinet. I have never done that, and I don't intend to start now.
Source: News Formal (newsformal.com)