Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am also pleased to speak on the Employment and Workplace Relations Committee report, Making it fair, and I commend the member for Grey for his contribution to the debate and to the report. This report shows us in no uncertain terms what most of us already know—that is, more needs to be done to address pay inequality in Australia. The report also links the issue of pay inequality with the symptom of the under representation of women in the workforce. As at July 2008, only 58.4 per cent of women of working age were in the workforce. While this participation has increased significantly since the 70s, there is still much to be done to achieve parity. In their submission to the inquiry the Queensland government—my former employer—said:

… it is clear that increases in women’s wages, the cost of living, the availability of suitable jobs, education attainment, labour market experience and duration of residents are all recognised to significantly increase women’s labour force participation and the number of hours they work.

Access to child care and family-friendly workplaces are also big considerations for women returning to the workforce. I know from the experience of my partner when we had our first child and there were almost no childcare places available so that was a consideration. By the time the second one came along—she works in a workplace that is not family friendly although the hours are reasonably family friendly but you cannot take children to work—thankfully I was able to take children to work occasionally. However, addressing the gender pay gap is the first step we need to take towards increasing women’s participation in the workforce.

What a journey it has been. Some topics have been touched on by other speakers but they are worth revisiting. If we go back to the suffrage movement of the 18th century through to the 20th century, we might think of that as the first wave of feminism and Australia played its role in that. Then you look at the second feminist wave that began in the 1960s and dealt with gender inequality in laws and culture. Some of the heroes from then were Simone de Beauvoir and Germaine Greer whose book The Female Eunuch came out in 1970. I am not sure about the other people in this room, but I am one of the few people who has read that book as part of a book club. I would suggest it is certainly an interesting polemic if not a great book to read.

In the 37 years since the Australian Conciliation and Arbitration Commission granted men and women the same minimum wage very little else has changed. This report is in the context of the third wave of feminism in that we are trying to deal with the failures of the second wave, the things that were started but did not actually change. You can look back at 1972, when the Australian Conciliation and Arbitration Commission handed down that decision, and see what has changed. In fact the average industry gender pay gap is still around 17 per cent and in some industries, like finance and insurance, the gap is as high as 32 per cent. It is interesting that the member for Grey referred to lawyers. I want to quote a particular section of the report, being one of the current members of parliament who has been a lawyer:

…in the legal profession the number of female law graduates exceeds the number of male graduates that men are earning $7,000-$8,000 more than the women in the first few years. Women are exiting the industry earlier than men, and there is a clustering of women in the lower paid end of the profession. Further, women barristers remained significantly underrepresented in court appearances, particularly at senior levels and in more complex matters.

The Law Council of Australia added:

In 2007, 56% of Australian law graduates were women who tended to also to feature disproportionately among top graduates.

One would think that a lawyer would have an understanding of their rights and the potential avenues of redress et cetera, but still we have horrible situations in too many law firms. Obviously things need to be done. Only two per cent of our CEOs are women and that is a shameful statistic in 2009. Also, two per cent of the chairs of the big boards of our Top 200 ASX companies are women. The inequalities are not just limited to the high end of town or the private sector. Even in the Australian Public Service, women account for 57 per cent of all employees and yet only 20 per cent of the senior executive service positions. It is shameful that in 2009 we are still trotting out these figures. The Australian Public Service Commission told the inquiry that on average women were paid less than men across nearly all employment levels.

These inequities remain despite countless education campaigns over the last 30 or 40 years. We tried advertising, we tried informing, we tried carrots, we tried cajoling, we tried everything, but unfortunately it has not worked. I think of it as like one of my other jobs which was working in the mining industry. You go to a mine and the miners are incredibly safety conscious. They do everything by the book and they have high standards of safety at the mine—as I am sure other members in the room know—and they then go home, put on their thongs and mow the lawn wearing a singlet. Because the laws are not there to change them they do the wrong thing.

Likewise, this committee came to the conclusion that the government needs to do more than just tell employers that they need to treat men and women equally. That is why this report contains a series of practical recommendations to close the gender pay gap, so that in 40 years time we are not having the same report with the same recommendations. These 63 recommendations are practical, and I am proud to say that I support every single one of them. These amendments include: amending the Fair Work Act 2009 and sex discrimination legislation to make equal remuneration for men and women employees for work of equal or comparable value the explicit object of legislation; the federal government elevating pay equity as a clear objective of modern awards; the Australian Industrial Relations Commission reporting to the committee prior to the finalisation of the awards on how pay equity principles have been achieved; amending the Sex Discrimination Act 1984 to make it mandatory for employers who are repeat offenders discriminating on the basis of pregnancy or carer’s responsibility to be required to attend counselling or an approved training course; government leadership strategies, including annual pay equity audit reporting for all government agencies; establishing a pay equity unit with education, research and enforcement roles—and enforcement roles are very important—to focus approaches to address the gender pay gap; and removal of the exemption from the payment of the nine per cent superannuation charge for employees who earn less than $450 per month. They are just a couple of the 63 recommendations that I have touched on, but they are certainly all commendable.

In my experience, before I became a lawyer I was a teacher and then worked in industrial law in the education sector. I was amazed when looking at the incredible work done by school officers, that probably 95 or 96 per cent were female. If you looked at the spread of their wages and then looked at a gender breakdown, often the top roles went to males, even in that sector. We called it the school officers sector, the non-teaching sector of the education area. Also, as a union organiser I would go to talk to a principal about something as simple as a job-share arrangement for, perhaps, a woman who had children or a woman who was towards the end of her years and wanted to retire. So often, if it were women, the principal, normally male, would say, ‘No, it’s too much of a hassle, too much of a complication,’ when normally you would end up getting two fantastic teachers for the price of one.

In closing, I want to particularly thank the committee chair, the member for Hasluck, for her untiring efforts in driving this inquiry. The flame does still burn brightly. Her passion and her advocacy to see inequalities in the workplace overcome was an inspirational force that has helped to deliver such a comprehensive and practical report. I also commend the deputy chair, Barry Haase, the member for Kalgoorlie. I certainly think it was an eye-opening experience for him and the member for Grey, as he touched on. Whilst they were not able to agree with every one of the recommendations, I commend them for their participation and input. I commend the report to the House.

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