Judi Moylan (Pearce, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am not a member of this committee but I am very pleased that the committee has seen fit to have an inquiry into this matter. I commend all of those who participated in the inquiry and the many organisations, firms, government agencies and individuals who took the time to make a contribution to the work of this committee. But I have to say that it is with a deep sense of disappointment that I stand in this House again to speak on the matter of pay equity for women, because it was in 1975—if my memory serves me right—that the Commonwealth Conciliation and Arbitration Commission made a ruling on the basis that there should be equal pay for work of equal value. And here we are, 37 years later, still debating an issue of pay equity for women. I find this extraordinary. I feel ashamed that in this Australian parliament we are still debating this issue of pay equity for women.

We are talking about a group of people, more than half this population, who have not only made an enormous contribution in the paid workforce to the great economy—a benefit that flows to all men, women and children in this country—and in the distribution of taxes but also played the leading role in the unpaid workforce. A disproportionate number of women work in the unpaid workforce. They care for the elderly, the sick, people with disability and children. Not so long ago I spoke in this parliament about Welfare to Work. I remembered, as I prepared for this speech, that 83 per cent of sole parents in this country are women, and they do a very tough job indeed—often unsupported, unloved and uncared-for.

I know, because I was one of them. I was left with three little babies, not by choice, and it was tough going. I have worked every day of my life to give my children a future. I feel very strongly about this issue and I think all of us in this place should be absolutely ashamed that we are still debating the issue of pay equity for women. When I was left with my three children, I had to go and work in a commission job. It was the only way I could get pay equity. The only way I could get pay equity was to work in a job where I was paid according to my success, a commission job. It was the only way that I could expect to raise my children and to provide the kind of future I aspired to for them. So I feel very deeply about this; I have very personal experience.

I feel ashamed that we are still debating this issue in this place. I feel ashamed because women have had to fight every inch of the way in this country: firstly, to earn the right to go out and earn a living; and, secondly, to earn the right to continue to hold their job after marriage and having children. It is impossible for women in this place today to imagine what it was like to be told that you had no right to go back to work and earn pay after you got married. It is inconceivable. Women have had to work and fight to modify the workplace culture to be family friendly so that they can take care of the children, the disabled, the aged and the sick. Women have had to struggle to promote the notion of pay of equal value for work of equal value. And still we are debating this matter in this place.

I am pleased that the report acknowledges that the work of women continues today to be under-recognised and undervalued, and yet, without this work, the economy would falter. If we were to pay every woman—and there have been studies done on this—something, just a small wage, for the unpaid work they do, what an incredible amount of money that would amount to.

One of the reasons I remain concerned about this is that it has a flow-on effect. When women are not paid for this work and when they are underpaid for work of equal value in the community, they also have unequal savings, they also have unequal superannuation and they are also consigned to rental and social welfare accommodation, mostly for the rest of their lives. So we are denying women any security in old age—the ageing women in this country, who have taken on the lion’s share of the caring role, who have not got a promotion because they have been home looking after their children, their disabled child or their ageing parents. They are forgoing not only wages but also the opportunity for security in their old age. We are consigning a whole lot of women to poverty in old age, and that is truly a disgrace. I just cannot imagine it. I have at different times begged leaders in this place to address this issue, and it has fallen on deaf ears. It is totally unacceptable.

It is not confined to women holding the usual kinds of jobs—in child care, in nursing and in teaching. There has long been an undervaluing of those professions and those jobs in our communities, some of the most important jobs that can be done. How obscene it is when you see businesspeople being paid millions and millions of dollars when they have run companies into the ground at shareowners’ expense, and you see women—the majority of people in some of these professions—being paid a pittance for some of the most important work that is carried out in this country! It is inequitable and it is unacceptable.

But it is not just in those professions, where most women gravitate, that we have come to expect that they are badly treated, underpaid and undervalued. A recent Women in management report showed that there is a 17 per cent gap in full-time earnings between men and women. But in WA, my home state, the report reveals that the gap between male and female co-workers is closer to 30 per cent. The member for Hasluck is nodding, because she is one of my Western Australian colleagues and she knows. This comes on the back of an enormous financial bonanza for this country, and still the inequities are there. Okay, we have had a few hiccups, but we have had this enormous financial growth and bonanza and people have got rich. But the women in Australia, largely, have not been able to share in that wealth, because we have not allowed it; we have done nothing to allow equity in pay for women.

At one stage it was often reported that women just did not have the skills—they had not gone to university or they did not have the training. It might have been the case in the past as a way of explaining away, in part, the gap, but women today make up 55 per cent of all university students. That has been occurring for at least a decade. So the lack of progress on equal pay, I have to say, is very puzzling indeed. Education and training, or the lack of it, can no longer be used as an excuse.

There is a report in this morning’s West Australian which also suggests that things may actually be getting worse. An article on page 6 of today’s West Australian points to the example of Wanneroo education assistant Jo Parnell, who believes that sectors largely populated by women, such as education, are missing out on substantial pay increases. I have been aware of that for some time, but nevertheless it highlights it again. She is quoted by Shane Wright, the economics editor, as saying:

… it seemed the gap between male and female workers across the State was getting bigger, with sectors populated largely by women missing out on any substantial pay increases.

We have to ask why.

The tragedy is that government, which has the ability to take the lead on redressing this inequity, really remains silent. I am talking about the Commonwealth and I am talking about the state governments. People responsible for paying people in the public sector have done very little in terms of government. We cannot expect the private sector to take the lead on this. I have made this argument in relation to jobs in the disability sector: we ask the private sector to do it, but we are not prepared to do it. If you look at the number of people being employed by the Commonwealth who have a disability, the numbers are going south—and yet we are out there saying that industry should pick up the tab, that they should fix this. We are not prepared to take the lead; it is unacceptable. If we want to fix the equity in pay issues for women then government simply must take the lead on this, do something concrete about it and stop putting it off.

Women have always had the ability and they have certainly had the will, but now they have the skill and the training to match. Apart from a few speed bumps in the last 12 months, Australia’s economy has had a golden run for 15 years and we should have made greater progress in overcoming what clearly are prejudices against women in the workplace. The American writer E B White said:

Prejudice is a great time saver. You can form opinions without having to get the facts.

The facts are before us and they have been before us for a very long time. This report once again highlights those facts. The facts are stark and we should no longer ignore them. The facts are out. They have been evident for decades and there can be no further excuse for this cruel inequity. It is cruel for the reasons I have outlined, because it consigns many women to poverty in old age. The government must show leadership and make sure that the signal goes out that we value the contribution of women in this country to both the paid and the unpaid workforce. They must deliver true pay equity. It is time—in fact, it is beyond time—this country stopped exploiting women. When you get right down to it—don’t let us mince words—not having pay equity in our community is exploitation of women. It is as pure and simple as that.

I feel very deeply about this matter. I think it is an inequity that has failed to be addressed for a very long time. It is fantastic that we have this report, but please can we work together—all of us—to act, to make sure that we redress this very long-outstanding inequity in this country, to pay women what they are worth and to pay them fairly for the value of the work they contribute to this community. We must do something to make sure that women are not the people who remain in poverty in old age and we must value the unpaid work that women in this country do to the benefit of all of us.

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