Sharman Stone (Murray, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2015-2016 and cognate bills. As a member of the government I am so pleased to say that much of the work of this budget will support women's economic empowerment in Australia, such as from the small business initiatives, which are going to help what are often the first steps women take into the workforce—their small businesses and often sole trader enterprises—with the $20,000 immediate deduction for investments in their businesses. That is a very great thing for women. We have also put much additional effort into the business of helping women to address their victimisation in gender based violence scenarios.

But I want to talk to you about the G7 and G20 summits this year. In Berlin I attended a forum where members of parliament from the G7 and G20 nations of the Northern Hemisphere sat down to look at how women were to be best supported and empowered across the globe. There were also several of us from the Southern Hemisphere to represent our region. The G7 and G20 summits this year prioritised the issue of women's participation in the workforce around the globe. This is of critical concern, as women in almost every country on average are paid less than men for the same work. In Australia this amounts to about 17 per cent and it is getting higher as time goes by. We still too often have to deal with the double burden of paid work and unpaid house work and caring, and women still often have to suffer from workplace harassment, discrimination and violence, which, of course, greatly impacts on their very ability to work.

As well, unplanned pregnancies force millions of women and girls around the world to miss the opportunities of education and employment. This is particularly the case in our region of the Indo-Pacific, where there is often a significant number of young and forced marriages and a lack of knowledge of or access to sexual and reproductive health services. There is a growing body of research that demonstrates that these are not just issues that affect women. In fact, the denial of women's rights can be seen as critically impacting on a nation's economy.

The Asia Pacific Parliamentary Group on Population and Development has brought together parliamentarians from our region for the past several decades to champion gender equality and women's rights to access sexual and reproductive health services. I am proud to chair the Australian chapter of this group.

While we have seen progress on many fronts in the last two decades, progress has unfortunately been slow and we still have significant challenges in our region. In particular, global donations for reproductive healthcare products and contraception have slowed, perhaps in line with all other donations, but this is particularly concerning. The G7 and G20 summits this year provided us with further impetus to champion women's rights, restating that helping women to enter the workforce is not just good for women's empowerment and financial independence; it is good for the family, the household and the national economy.

When half of a nation's population cannot realise its full potential to contribute to the community, to society and the economy, a nation suffers. The link between women's economic empowerment and development are well established. When women are economically empowered there is a greater reduction in poverty overall and increased opportunities for future generations. Women who are better educated and have greater control over their income are more likely to invest in the health, care and education of their children. Their children in turn are more able to access better employment opportunities and move into the formal economy. They are less often victims in their lives.

In the Indo-Pacific region a lack of economic opportunities for women has significant economic costs in many countries. It is estimated that the region loses up to $US47 billion per year through the lack of employment opportunities for women and another $US30 billion per year because of gaps in education. In our region, female labour force participation is 23 percentage points lower than male labour force participation, and output per worker could increase by up to 18 per cent if women had the same work opportunities and access to productive assets as men in East Asia and the Pacific. It is ironic that while women do most of the hard work, particularly in food production, in East Asia and the Pacific, they are least likely to own title to that land or to be able to sell or buy it.

While we do need to find ways to help women into the workforce, we also need to pay attention to the quality of the work that is offered to them. Although employment trends for women are increasing in the region, the quality of the work is not. Since the global financial crisis, the informal labour market has been increasingly feminised, meaning more women are working without protection, regular earnings and financial or personal security. They are more likely to be trafficked. The rate of vulnerable employment for women is consistently higher than for men, and only one per cent of women in the region run their own businesses with paid workers. In many cases, poor quality jobs can further disempower or marginalise women. Migrants, for example, including those who migrate from rural to urban areas in developing countries are particularly vulnerable. Migrant women have fewer support networks, may have fewer rights, limited access to services including health services, and may face discrimination because of the nature of their work, such as domestic or carer work. These women are more at risk of abuse, harassment and exploitation, facing multiple forms of discrimination based not only on gender but also on their class and ethnicity.

We are also aware that many of our women in the Philippines, from Bangladesh, from parts of India, have to leave their own families and travel to other countries in order to be able to send funds home to support their own families. In the case of my daughter who lives in Singapore, the most marvellous woman has been employed with them for some five or six years now. She sacrificed her own expectation of marriage and children so that she can send back her earnings to look after her own mother and her eight brothers and sisters in the Philippines. Almost 21 million people are still experiencing forced labour or people trafficking across the globe each year, with over half of these people coming from the Asia-Pacific region. Fifty-five per cent of these victims are women and girls.

Another critical barrier to women's meaningful participation in our region's workforce is their limited access to sexual and reproductive health services, and I have already referred to this. Two hundred and twenty-two million women around the world would like to delay or cease child-bearing but are not using any form of contraception. The demand for contraception is projected to grow by 40 per cent during the next 15 years. In the Asia-Pacific region, it is estimated that some 140 million women have an unmet need for family planning.

The health benefits of family planning are considerable. It is estimated that family planning could reduce maternal deaths by 25 per cent, newborn deaths by 18 per cent and unintended pregnancies by over 73 per cent. Furthermore, enabling women to choose when to have a child and how often to have children gives women and girls the opportunity to complete their schooling or training, to earn a better living and so to escape poverty and abuse. Studies have shown that women who use family planning are generally more equal or empowered in their households and communities and more economically productive. Children in these households tend to be healthier, do better in school and grow up to earn higher incomes, which enhances economic independence. The lifetime opportunity costs of teen pregnancy have been estimated to range from one per cent of GDP in China to as much as 30 per cent in Uganda, measured solely by lost income. The real costs, of course, are much greater, and they are personal. In developing countries, pregnancy-related causes are the largest contributor to the mortality of girls aged from 15 to 19—nearly 70,000 deaths annually. We are also regularly and rightly shocked at the number of young girls who experience fistula in giving birth too young and often in a stunted or malnourished state. The incidence of fistula is not declining.

In our region, there is a strong suspicion that the rates of female genital mutilation are increasing. This is of great concern when you think of the lifetime of health impacts from these forms of mutilation or cutting. It is extraordinarily concerning when we think that women and girls who have migrated or come as refugees from countries where this is a cultural practice may be returning to those countries to have this mutilation occur.

Barriers to family planning are not limited to the availability of contraceptive methods. Millions of women and girls lack access to information on sexual and reproductive health; face social, economic or cultural barriers to accessing contraception; or face discrimination, coercion and violence. I am reminded of the problems of our Indigenous girls and young women who try to use implants as contraception in our remoter communities and who are then often called 'sluts'; the implant is called a 'slut stick'. Those girls are believed to be promiscuous if they are using one of these forms of contraception, and their male partners or boyfriends often insist that they remove that form of contraception. This is a serious problem for those women and girls. It is also obvious that the men in that community have not been properly educated or engaged in the whole matter of contraception for their partners, wives or daughters.

Violence against women causes more death and disability among women aged from 15 to 44 than war, cancer, malaria and traffic accidents combined, affecting one out of every three women globally. The World Bank has estimated the cost of violence against women to be between 1.2 and 3.7 per cent of a nation's GDP. This includes the direct costs, such as medical expenses, crisis services and legal services; indirect costs, such as the impact on productivity and earnings because of death, injury or disability; and the costs incurred, hopefully, when the perpetrator is incarcerated. Not included are the psychological and social costs to the woman, which may last generations, as children who are exposed to such violence will continue to suffer from the trauma or may even become victims or perpetrators themselves.

In Australia, as the previous speaker reminded us, at least two women are murdered by intimate partners each week. This is a national tragedy and a disgrace in a nation like ours. It is up to all of us in this place to ensure that we do all we can to not just legislate appropriate sanctions but fund appropriately information and education to protect the victims of this violence. We have to educate men that it is not a masculine agenda to force their own sense of inadequacy and need to express their power over another through bashing, assaulting, harming or even murdering their female partner.

Official development assistance, globally, sometimes called overseas foreign aid, is now dwarfed by private flows of funds to developing countries. These private flows in and out of a country may be related to mining, forestry, the tourism sector or some other part of the economy. The private sector can embrace their corporate responsibility, particularly in female-dominated sectors like the garment trade and hospitality industries, where conditions are traditionally poor. We all recall the tragic fires that swept through the sweatshops in Bangladesh. The private sector can empower female employees by investing in better employee protection and training and by leveraging their influence to strengthen domestic policies—and they should. We have to ensure that consumers or customers of those products understand where they were made, who made them and under what conditions. It is up to each of us as consumers to ensure we do not buy products that have as their creators women who are victims. Australian companies often lead the way here, and I am proud to say that illicit flows out of developing countries are recognised by Australia as another huge problem. We, in the United Nations, have championed the identification of this problem of illicit flows or corruption, and we are trying to assist many of our neighbours in developing stronger governance, law and order, customs and tax regimes to capture the legitimate flows of funds in their countries for their own country's use. Poverty in our regions is often in some of our richer neighbours with strong and affluent middle classes. We also have to help those nations to better distribute their income to those most in need.

I want to end by saying that in our region we have some two-thirds of the world's poverty, but only one-third of the aid flowing. Australia more than pulls its weight. I am very proud to be part of a government that is recognising what needs to be done in our region and is providing that support conscientiously and in partnership with our neighbour nations. I commend the bills to the House.

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