Sharon Claydon (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am very pleased to rise this evening to speak on the Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2016-17. Elections and governments are indeed all about choices, and you can tell a lot about a government's priorities by the way it sets its budget and the choices it makes. I wish tonight in my contribution to this debate to reflect on some of the challenges that I see before the current parliament. But before doing so, I would like to spend a moment reflecting on something that I think is a quite worrying aspect with regards to the current gender representation in the Australian parliament. I think that of the 150 members elected into the lower house, the House of Representatives, during the last election, we now just have 43 women—that is, less than one-third. Indeed in the other house, there are just 30 women out of the total of 76 senators. Overall that means that this 45th Parliament is comprised of just 32 per cent of women. In a society that is pretty evenly split fifty-fifty, this parliament is clearly not being reflective of the communities that we represent.

From the major party perspective, Labor, while it is not perfect, certainly continues to set the example in this regard—an example that the coalition government really should take heed of and learn some lessons from. Labor's overall representation of women is now 44 per cent. That is well above the parliamentary average and exceeds the current targets on gender inequality that we set for ourselves within the Labor Party. I am very thankful that the Labor Party chose at our national conference last year to extend that quota through to 50 per cent.

Our increase in women representatives has been steady over the last two decades since those targets and quotas were first introduced. They were introduced quite deliberately to address the issue of gender representation gaps.

Whilst Labor sets targets, and indeed meets and continues to exceed those targets, the coalition continues to really struggle to make very significant progress on this front at all. In this parliament the coalition is represented by just 21 women out of 106 members and senators—that is 19 per cent of their representation. Less than one in five members and senators are women. When John Howard was first elected Prime Minister, some 20 years ago, there were more women in the Liberal Party ranks than there are today. The Liberal Party's steadfast objection to the notion of quotas and targets for women is very telling. We often hear their argument that promotion should always be based on merit, but that clearly flies in the face of some other conservative principles that are followed in this place. I would suggest that that is certainly the case with regard to Liberal-National representation on the front bench, which once described by John Howard, and reinforced recently by the Deputy Prime Minister, I understand, being calculated on the basis of the iron laws of arithmetic.

It seems like a fairly simple argument, as I understand it. The higher the percentage of Nationals who are elected into coalition government, the more positions of power they are allocated. That is, regardless of any discussions around capability, experience or, dare I say, merit, there would always be a certain number of Nationals on the front bench based on those numbers. I ask: if this simple arithmetic is accepted when it comes to coalition membership and the breakdown of party positions, why can it not be applied when it comes to women on the front bench or more broadly in the preselection of candidates in winning seats? As journalist, academic and formal Liberal staffer Peter van Onselen observed when evaluating the situation:

The government’s failure to attract, preselect and promote women has become a national embarrassment.

I agree.

Let me take some moments now to reflect on what I think are some of the additional challenges that sit before the 45th Parliament. Over the term of this parliament there will be many challenges, and some of those can be and have been foretold. Others will, I anticipate, emerge over the coming weeks and months. I would like to reflect on some of those now. During the election campaign we were often asked why we wanted to become members of parliament, why we work late nights, why we give up weekends, friends, hobbies, a sense of privacy—all those things—to spend 20-odd weeks a year in Canberra and every spare moment living and breathing politics. The major driver for me is the ongoing struggle around equality and how we address what has been a widening gap in inequality in Australia. I have spent much of my life fighting discrimination in all its forms, and this is how I view most issues. This is the prism through which I view most issues. Man, woman, heterosexual, gay, Indigenous, non-Indigenous, born here into wealth and success, born into poverty or struggle, disabled or abled, it should not matter and it must not matter. In our work in this place, we must focus on establishing legislation that ensures equality for all, legislation that does not discriminate. That struggle for equality will be front and centre of this parliament—gender representation in this place, as I have just outlined, but also more broadly around a lot of other issues to do with representation.

The issue at the forefront of all our minds right now is marriage equality. When last in government, Labor changed 85 separate pieces of legislation to remove discrimination against gay men, lesbians and same-sex couples. Regrettably, there was one major piece of unfinished business, and that was this issue of marriage equality. It certainly is time for marriage equality in Australia. Indeed, it is long overdue. I am especially proud of our party's stance today against supporting a hurtful and divisive plebiscite in our nation. I would like to share with the House today a message I received earlier in the day from a dear friend and colleague and his partner, who thanked the Labor Party and, indeed, me as their representative here in the Australian parliament for not supporting the plebiscite and not proceeding with a bill that they thought would subject them to having their relationship litigated publicly. That is one of very many messages I have received today from people who are grateful to be spared—or hoping that they will be spared—from what might be a very hurtful and divisive debate in the Australian body politic.

It is, however, certainly time for marriage equality in Australia. It is time that we just got this done and brought the Australian parliament into line with the Australian community and into the 21st century. It is time we all stood up for respect of love in all its forms in Australia. Recent analysis of the new parliament identifies that, if a conscience vote was granted on marriage equality today, it would pass both houses of parliament. The Prime Minister should scrap his plans for an expensive, divisive, non-binding plebiscite and have a vote in this parliament today. We are elected to make decisions and we should do so on marriage equality. There was not a plebiscite when John Howard changed the Marriage Act to discriminate against same-sex couples back in 2004 and we do not need a plebiscite now to right this discriminatory law on our statute books.

The other matter that is certainly worrying for many Novocastrians and the people I represent in the good electorate of Newcastle is access to affordable quality health care. Time and time again, the Liberal Party—I suggest dominated by a few in the far Right—has shown its ideological opposition to Medicare. Since the days of Whitlam's Medibank, the Liberals have always railed against the principles of universal health care. Whether in the form of privatisation, a co-payment, cuts to bulk-billing or the Medicare freeze, the Abbott-Turnbull approach to health care has consistently been characterised by attempts to undermine the universality of our health care system. Medicare is at the centre of the Australian social contract. People love it, they are proud of it and they rely on it. Cost already deters one in 12 Australians from seeing a specialist, and this is only set to increase as this government creates new up-front expenses for vital services such as blood tests and X-rays. This government spent its first three years trying to push the price of health care back onto Australian families and then has the gall to call us deceitful when we pull it up for it. I mean, give me a break. The government must heed the calls of the AMA, Labor and others to remove the ongoing Medicare rebate freeze. Price hikes to prescription medicines and pathology costs should be abandoned, and the hospital funding crisis faced following the Abbott-Hockey 2014 funding cuts needs to be addressed.

One of the other issues that continues to get bandied around when I think about trying to take a stand on issues of equality and discrimination is section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act, which Labor introduced—more than two decades ago now—to protect against offence, insult, humiliation and intimidation based on race, colour, nationality or ethnic origin. Section 18C has served Australia well and protected our rich, vibrant and successful multicultural society. There are, however, some members in this place who are intent on seeing 18C watered down, arguing it should be amended or indeed repealed altogether. I call on the Prime Minister to show some strength here to ensure that these calls for repealing 18C are not allowed to rear their ugly head again. Every Australian deserves the right to live free from racial and ethnic vilification. The only outcome from repealing 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act would be more hate speech, and this is an unacceptable premise for any civil society. Any plans to repeal 18C should be permanently shelved.

One of the other issues that certainly is at the forefront of my thinking, and one of the many challenges for people in my communities in the electorate of Newcastle, is housing affordability. The provision of safe, affordable housing is a basic human right and the absence of such becomes a huge cost for all our communities.

A division having been called in the House of Representatives—

Sitting suspended from 17 : 42 to 17 : 57

The issues of housing stress and homelessness are certainly varied and complex. Whilst no government gets to resolve all the issues being experienced by people in our communities, leadership, adequate policy and funding must be delivered by the Commonwealth as a solid platform to address these challenges.

Finally, I would like to touch on another area of concern—that is, the cuts to community legal centres. The flow-on effects of these cuts and the further 30 per cent cuts that the community legal centres will face in 2017 are having massive impacts in my communities. They are also hurting their women's services and shelters, the disability advocacy groups and the homelessness services because they are a very complex ecosystem in our community. I urge the government to match Labor's commitment of $43 million in to these services over the next three years. We need ongoing access to justice for the vulnerable people in our communities.

See this speech in context