Lisa Chesters (Bendigo, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to also speak in favour of the motion and wish that there were services like this all over the country. Learning about the great work that the Queensland Working Women's Service is doing for the women of Queensland makes me wish we had one in Bendigo. It makes me wish that we had a service like this for regional women all over our country.

As the previous speakers have said, women living in regional areas rely heavily upon the service. Just this one statistic alone speaks to the strength and the importance of this service. Over the 2015-16 period, the majority of inquiries received by the Queensland Working Women's Service were concerned with unfair, unlawful and invalid dismissals—42 per cent of the inquiries they received, followed by 28 per cent of inquiries being about discrimination and 25 per cent about workplace harassment.

We have not reached gender equality yet in our country. It is still a daily prospect for women working that they face harassment in their workplaces because of their gender. Yet a service which is helping to address this, a service which is providing much-needed legal advice and advocacy for the women experiencing this discrimination or harassment is about to close its doors because this government and the Fair Work Ombudsman have not continued their funding.

This service has also supported women in recovering money owed to them, over $770,000 by way of settlement. We know the statistics: the number of women who go without super because their employer has not paid and the number of women who have accepted low pay, not realising what they were legally entitled to or fearing losing the job. This service has helped them—over 4,000 cases supporting women in these situations.

If only other services achieved the outcomes of these statistics. There is a need for this service to continue in Queensland. It is a large state. It stretches from Brisbane to Cairns, which is like stretching from Brisbane down to Melbourne. It is a large state, with great distances between support for many of these women, so having a reliable phone service is vital. People in regional electorates understand this. If you are a woman living in Echuca, it is harder to seek advice and support than for a woman in Bendigo or in Melbourne. That is why it is so disappointing that this government is going after this vital service which is supporting women.

We know that we still have a lot of work to do in terms of the gender pay gap in our country. Through its work, the statistics it collects and who it helps, this service helps to highlight the gender pay gap within our community. This is more than just statistics, however. This is also the real case of women being taken advantage of by their employers. It is only through advocacy and support like that of the Queensland Working Women's Service that we will continue to break down the gender barriers that exist within our workplaces.

We have seen more recently in a number of our states, a growing number of young worker centres modelled on this model that we have in Queensland. In Victoria the Young Workers Centre is helping young workers—also there is South Australia and Tasmania. These services help to connect people to the advice and the support that they need to stand up against exploitation, harassment and discrimination.

We still have women who go to work in hospitality and in retail not only having had a blow in terms of a pay cut but also having been told to suck it up when it comes to harassment. They are told harassment is part of the job; they are told to tie a knot in the front of their shirt or to wear short shorts because that will sell more beers. When we still have women being asked to put on certain outfits to attract male clients then we still have gender inequality and we still have a need for services like this service.

I call on the government to at least do one good thing for working women today: restore the funding so that this service can continue and, in fact, expand it so that women in states like my state of Victoria can access the same services.

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