Thursday, 4 May 2023

Ministers statements: Victoria’s Big Build

Jacinta ALLAN (Bendigo East – Minister for Transport and Infrastructure, Minister for the Suburban Rail Loop, Minister for Commonwealth Games Delivery) (14:34): I am now pleased to rise to update the house on the enormous contribution women are making to the Andrews Labor government’s Big Build program. We do not shy away on this side of the house from making sure women are supported, that they have got the policies and the programs and the workplace environment to feel very, very well supported and to help them to achieve whatever their career aspiration might be –

Wayne Farnham interjected.

The SPEAKER: The member for Narracan is warned.

Jacinta ALLAN: the professional pathway that they want to pursue. We make sure that we have the policies, the programs and the workplace environment to support women to achieve their very best. As part of that, we know well on this side of the house how important initiatives like targets and quotas are to making sure cultural change is addressed in the workplace. Our Building Equality Policy is bringing that to great effect. I also want to acknowledge the great work from the member for Eltham and my parliamentary secretary, who is still not back, the member for Sunbury, for the work that they have been doing on the women in transport program, because this is making a real difference as well. We are lifting the number of women involved in the transport and construction sector, and the member for Kororoit knows this also very well from her prior life experience – more women in the rail industry, more women as train drivers, more women working in occupations that have otherwise not necessarily been as available to them.

When you have deliberate policies and deliberate programs in place, you can drive real change, and this was something that the member for Footscray and I commented on yesterday when we were at the West Gate Tunnel site. We made the comment as we were leaving that site. There would have been hundreds of workers on that site, and we made a comment as we were leaving about how great it was to see so many young women on this site. That is what it takes. It takes the hard work, the commitment and making sure that women get the right to speak in their workplace.