Government should do more to reduce gender pay gap, poll finds

The survey conducted on 1,065 voters showed that women are more interested in progressing gender issues than men, with 80 per cent of women expressing that the government needs to do more to reduce the gender pay gap compared to just 61 per cent of men.

Looking at how the supporters of the individual parties voted, WomenVote revealed that 78 per cent of Labor voters support a government backed initiative to close the pay gap, compared to 66 per cent of Liberal sympathisers.

Similar results were seen when voters were asked whether the government should be doing more to reduce the gender superannuation gap, with 85 per cent of women and 64 per cent of men saying “yes”.

“We have concluded that unless the female electorate holds politicians to account, the issues about which women are most concerned will not be addressed in this election,” said legal professional and one of the founders of the WomenVote movement, Vanessa Whittaker.

The WomenVote poll also revealed that only 56 per cent of Australian voters believe that at least 50 per cent of the federal politicians should be women. The survey showed that more than half of voters, or 55 per cent, consider many federal politicians to be sexist.

Asked which issues they would like party leaders, Scott Morrison and Bill Shorten, to address most, 86 per cent of voters answered with “violence against women”, followed by “ways to reduce the cost of childcare”.

“The only way to get politicians’ attention is to tell them that over 50 per cent of the population are voting based on how they measure up against these issues,” said Maria O’Brien, a founder of WomenVote.

The poll was conducted by YouGov Galaxy in April 2019.