Prime Minister Scott Morrison has praised the Government's record in improving gender equality. "The gender pay gap has fallen from 17.2 per cent to 14.5 per cent under the policies of our government," Mr Morrison told Parliament in September 2018. Has the gender pay gap narrowed under the government, and can the Prime Minister claim credit for the change? RMIT ABC Fact Check found Mr Morrison's claim is overreach. His numbers check out, although they differ slightly to those from the government agency officially tasked with publishing the gender pay gap. However, they oversimplify what has happened to the gender pay gap in recent decades. When it comes to the role of government policy, the Government claims that job creation and economic growth were key drivers behind the lower pay gap. But experts told Fact Check a booming economy would likely correspond with a larger gender pay gap, as had occurred during the mining boom when men's wages rose faster relative to women's. Experts said the current government could not claim credit for decreasing the pay gap, and that the only government measure that may be responsible for narrowing the gap was a policy legislated by the former Labor government.
Verdict: Overreach