Rowan Ramsey (Grey, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you—63 recommendations. There is a section, which my chair referred to, which I have some issues with, and that is chapter 5 and the recommendations, as she clearly identified, Nos 1 to 18, which refer to amendments to the Fair Work Act. In so much as the Fair Work Act is still to be fully implemented, and will not be until January, and there is still unfinished business in many areas and the test case she referred to has been launched—I also concede that is an area of some political discussion at the moment—the members of the opposition felt that it was too early to be amending an act when we have not really seen the full effects of it through the workplace, given that some of its stated aims are to effect equality. If indeed the Fair Work Act does not deliver on those stated objectives, then it will be time to revisit those recommendations.

One of the things the inquiry did identify was the lack of comprehensive data. We had discussions with the ABS and industry, and it was difficult to tease out enough data to put your finger on exactly why women were not receiving a fair deal in the workforce, so some of the recommendations we have made were around that area of delivering more information. Given that I only joined the inquiry half way through and had to do revision on the rest of the work, I, for one, was concerned at the lack of private industry that chose to give evidence to the committee. I did ask around in some private circles about why this might be, and there was, I think, a general fear that if any company or organisation was to out itself as taking any kind of position that might be perceived as being against equal opportunity for women, they might be branded as sceptics—a word that is being used in another debate in this place! But it was disappointing to me that we did not have more private employers come to us and talk about what they were doing within their workforce to achieve equity and also about what the financial implications might be of any recommendations we might make.

One of the things that I constantly raised and constantly came across through the inquiry was the situation we found of women being predominantly employed in those caring positions I have referred to that are lowly rewarded. Much of that industry is indirectly or directly financed by governments. I feel quite strongly that it is governments’ position to lead on this. Given that they are one of the chief culprits in undervaluing this work in society, and given that they can always pass on any costs through the taxation system, I think governments have a role to lead on this. Whether or not they will be rewarded for it at the ballot box is where we come back to that decision by communities about how highly they will value these jobs. If they punish governments for rewarding women correctly for the work they do, then I do not know how we address some of these issues, quite honestly. But I think it is the role of governments to lead in this area, so I encourage them to do so.

When we look at the aged-care industry, we see that a registered nurse in the aged-care industry is receiving a wage a bit less than 80 per cent of a nurse working in the healthcare sector, and goodness knows that the healthcare sector nurses are not overpaid by any means; in fact, one could put up a very good argument that they are underpaid as well on a professional scale. Given that aged care nurses are paid less than healthcare nurses, therein lies one of the great travesties and one of the great truths of the system we are operating at the moment.

One of the other things we found which surprised me, I must say, was the lack of parity in some of the professional strains of employment. We had the Pharmacists Guild give evidence and they have a very flat pay structure. They could not really locate any form of inequity towards females in their workforce. But it was a different matter when the lawyers came in. We all love to love lawyers, particularly people like me who are farmers by nature. But it did come as quite a shock to find that law firms systematically pay women lawyers less than men. The worst offenders, it seemed, were governments. It was pointed out to us that women are receiving the more lowly briefs on the government contracts. Once again government has the opportunity to lead. It did come as a surprise. My own daughter is not a lawyer. She is in fact a chemical engineer. I spoke to her about pay equity and she said, ‘I don’t think I have got quite as good a deal as the blokes.’ That is starting straight out of university and at a time when children are in the dim, distant future.

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