It's with great pleasure that I rise in the House today to mark International Women's Day 2026 and to celebrate the women of Newcastle, in particular, but also of the Hunter and of our nation who continue to organise, lead, care, create, advocate and fight for an equal Australia. International Women's Day is always a moment to reflect on how far women have come but also, to be honest, on how far we still have to go. Progress does not happen by accident. There's a lot of careful design in making incremental change towards equality in Australia. Progress happens because women organise for it, it happens because unions fight for it, it happens because communities demand it, and it happens because governments might choose to act.

That's why I am so proud to be part of the Albanese Labor government that has made gender equality a central feature of all our thinking. It's not just a matter of policy, as important as that is; it's a priority and a fundamental principle for every one of us in the Australian Labor Party. I need only point to the very long journey that was establishing affirmative action within the Australian Labor Party, a journey that I've been part of for more than 30 years. Now I get to stand off the back of all that hard work we did for three decades, where women stood up in our party rooms and demanded equality and an equal seat at the table. I sit with my sisters, my Labor sisters here—the member for Melbourne and the member for Cunningham—and, indeed, a sister from the National Party, the member for Lyne, and we're all beneficiaries of the hard work that was done in the Australian Labor Party and the wider Labor movement. Today, we sit in Australia's first ever majority female government and Australia's first ever majority female cabinet. I do want to stress that.

I have a lot of young women that come and talk to me about entering politics, and I actively encourage them to do so. But I really emphasise the point that, with some things, you've got to be in it for the long haul. There are no quick fixes for a lot of the structural inequalities that continue to exist in Australia. I think, if anything is to be learnt from the 30-year journey of the Australian Labor Party—I say this with kindness and sincerity to the Nationals member sitting opposite me—there are really important lessons about how you generate an environment within your party rooms and party structures to ensure that women are equal partners. It's a hard road. I don't underestimate it. I know that it's something that occupies the minds of all women in parliament. Wherever we can lend support to ensure that more women are getting a seat at the table, in whatever party room they stand in, that's a good thing.

Over the last term, Labor delivered on a lot of reforms that are making a huge difference now to women's lives. That's the hard policy work we did to come to government: talking with Australian women in the regions across Australia and making sure we were crafting policy that spoke to the lives of Australian women. We've strengthened workplace rights. We've delivered on the 10 days paid family and domestic violence leave. It's a matter that is a huge issue in all of our electorates. This is not something that is peculiar to Labor women's interests; we know that family and domestic violence is a scourge and it occurs throughout our communities, in every economic band within our communities and in all geographical locations.

That's been the focus of our term of government: having a policy focus that strengthens workplace rights, delivers on the 10 day paid family and domestic violence leave, expands paid parental leave, improves job security and wages, increases transparency around the gender pay gap and puts women's economic equality back where it belongs, at the centre of national policy. Making sure that women have economic security, that there's an equitable arrangement in terms of workplace rights, parental leave rights and the gender pay gap, ensures that our national policy reflects the reality, which is that we want to see women being able to participate fully as productive members of our economy and our society.

In this term, that work will continue. We're building on those strong foundations from the last term with further expansion of paid parental leave, including paying superannuation for the first time ever on government paid parental leave. When I tell young women that they don't get paid superannuation—well, they didn't get superannuation on their paid parental leave until now, thanks to the Labor government—they are horrified. They had no idea of this inequity that exists, but it is a critical part of why there is profound inequality in the retirement incomes of Australian men and women. Every time women took a break from the workforce, they were being penalised not just by the lack of employer contributions but by no super being paid on their parental leave, even if it was paid by the government or their employer at the time. We're demanding greater transparency and accountability on gender pay equity. We're reducing that really stubborn gender pay gap in Australia. It's down to 11.5 per cent now, but that is still too much. That's still too big a gap. It's the lowest it's ever been in Australia, which is shocking. There is a lot of hard work still to be done on that front.

We've made some major new investments into women's health. I'm so proud of the work that's been done there, from better access to contraception and menopause care to more support for women dealing with endometriosis and pelvic pain. For too long, women were just told that it's a woman's lot, and we've seen the sometimes catastrophic results of that really poor understanding of endometriosis and pelvic pain. Finally we've got dedicated clinics where women can walk in with confidence and know they'll be heard, listened to and taken seriously—and that pain is not something they have to live with for the rest of their lives.

These reforms matter. They matter because equality is not abstract. It's about whether a woman can afford to leave a violent relationship, whether she can return to work after having a child without being penalised for it, whether her work is properly valued, whether she can access the health care she needs, whether she can participate fully and safely in public life and whether the next generation of girls grows up with more freedom, more safety and more opportunity than the generation before. That's what real progress looks like—not just words but structural change.

Of course, the story of International Women's Day has always belonged not just to the parliaments but to the movements. Over the weekend I was so proud to see that spirit alive and well in Newcastle. On Friday evening I joined the Hunter Workers Women's Committee's International Women's Day Dinner that they held at Club Charlestown. It was a wonderful night of solidarity, community and celebration. On Sunday morning I was proud to stand with our community again as many marched in the International Women's Day rally and march at Gregson Park in Hamilton.

I want to put on record my sincere thanks for the Hunter Workers Women's Committee for the extraordinary amount of work that went into this entire weekend. On the Saturday they ran a whole festival of events for women, and these events don't happen without a lot of volunteering and collective effort. Year after year, the committee helps create space for women to come together in solidarity, to celebrate achievements and to reflect on the struggles that remain. I want to also give a shout-out to the remarkable Timeless Textiles and the Wednesday Makers Group. I was so honoured to launch the Inspiring Women in Stitch exhibition. Thank you for your creativity, skills and ongoing connection and work in our community. Happy International Women's Day.