TUBES: The Albanese Labour government has announced superannuation on the government paid parental leave scheme will be paid from July 1 2025. This will boost the retirement savings for millions of mums across our country to talk us through that is the chair of federal Labor's Status of Women committee, Sharon Claydon. Good morning to you, Sharon.

SHARON CLAYDON, CHAIR OF LABOR'S STATUS OF WOMEN COMMITTEE: And good morning to all your listeners in Hobart. Happy International Women's Day,

TUBES: Happy International Women's Day to you, Sharon tell us why the paid parental leave payment from July 1 2025 is so important

CLAYDON: Look, this is a massive thing, especially for young women. But it's also hopefully a great bonus for young men too and soon to be dead. Because for the first time in history, we are going to treat superannuation on paid parental leave just like we do any other work based entitlement. So if you take annual leave, or you take sick leave at the moment, you get paid superannuation on that. But that has never been the case for taking paid parental leave. And, you know, it's 2024. The Albanese Labor Government is saying, you know, let's draw a line under this anomaly now and normalise parental leave as a workplace entitlement just like annual leave or sick leave.

KAZ: Yeah, it's really important. It's also there's such a big gap for women between the ages of 45 and 59. So the account balances are vastly different there, why is that Sharon?

CLAYDON: It's terrible, like women are retiring the 25% less than men in superannuation. That is untenable. Women, like men deserve to have a retirement income that will enable them to live with some dignity. And the reason that women's superannuation balances are so much lower than men's is because they have lots of breaks in their careers. And this is especially so when it comes to having babies, looking after babies, you know, in and out of the workforce at different stages of their family lifecycle. So, this is one way, it's one tool, amongst a number where we're trying to, you know, firstly make sure women start earning more so closing that gender pay gap. That's why it is critical that we supported the aged care workers pay increase - the minimum wage increase - because unfortunately, all the industries where women are most congregated are in the lower paid jobs, we need to elevate those wages. We want women to keep more of what they earned then, so reforming the tax cuts to make sure that everyone got a tax cut, but they were better distributed. So 90% of Australian women will now get a better tax cut than they would have under the old reforms. And the third part of that is making sure that we have that women get sort of you know, have good money in their retirement, and that's addressing superannuation balance.  Yeah, well sharing. I've got a big gap in my working career from raising my son. My husband and my super accounts are vastly different.

TUBES: And the same can be said for my partner Erin and her super account because of the time she had to take off during having children. So this is good news for superannuation for mums and to be mums out there, Sharon. Sharon Claydon the chair of federal Labor's Status of Women committee, thanks so much for joining us on Triple M.

CLAYDON: Thank you and you guys have a great International Women's Day.