Brendan O'Connor (Gorton, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on this bill, but before I do so I move:

That all words after "That" be omitted with a view to substituting the following words:

"whilst not declining to give the bill a second reading, the House notes the Government's failure to match Labor's commitment to 10 days paid family and domestic violence leave, which is part of this Government’s wider failure to ensure all Australian workers have decent pay and workplace conditions".

Tragically, on average, one woman a week is killed in Australia as a result of domestic violence. It is the leading cause of death, disability and illness amongst women age between 15 and 44 years of age. Domestic and family violence doesn't discriminate. It's a public matter as much as it's a private matter, and it intrudes into many aspects of life. According to media reports, Australian police are dealing with 5,000 domestic and family violence matters per week. This is not an issue that we can simply leave to the police to deal with. The complexity of the issue requires a strategic approach by all levels of government, business, unions and the community. It is a national tragedy which requires a multipronged response, including a workplace response.

Labor has listened to victims, frontline workers, businesses, unions and organisations that deal daily with domestic violence. Their clear message is that people who've experienced domestic violence need more support in the workplace. The ABS estimates that around two out of every three women who experience domestic violence are in the workforce. There can be no doubt that a comprehensive response to domestic violence involves a workplace response. Labor welcomes the government's belated response to domestic violence by providing five days unpaid leave in the National Employment Standards.

The Fair Work Amendment (Family and Domestic Violence Leave) Bill 2018 follows the decision of the Fair Work Commission in March this year to insert a clause into modern awards providing five days unpaid family and domestic violence leave. This decision came into effect from 1 August this year, meaning that more than two million award-reliant employees are now entitled to five days unpaid family and domestic violence leave. The bill amends the National Employment Standards to provide all employees with an entitlement to five days unpaid family and domestic violence leave if they are experiencing family and domestic violence, they need to do something to deal with the impact of that family and domestic violence and it is impractical to do that thing outside their ordinary hours of work. The provisions of the Fair Work Amendment (Family and Domestic Violence Leave) Bill 2018 appear to reflect the model clause and provide that the five days unpaid family and domestic violence leave entitlement: will apply to all employees, including casuals; will be available in full at the commencement of each 12-month period, rather than accruing progressively through the course of a year; will not accumulate from year to year; and will be available for full-time, part-time and casual employees.

It is somewhat disappointing that it's taken this long for the government to move from their absolute opposition to family and domestic violence leave to their belated support for unpaid leave. We note that the relevant minister at the time first committed to unpaid leave at the end of March but did not introduce this bill until September. Following Labor's persistent criticism and calls to bring the bill on for debate, the government have finally relented.

While this bill is a step in the right direction, it does not go far enough. It should provide for paid family and domestic violence leave. Almost a year ago, Labor announced that a Shorten Labor government, if elected, will introduce 10 days paid family and domestic violence leave into the National Employment Standards. Labor are leading the way on this important issue. We are disappointed that the government have refused to join us in this important reform.

We know that the most dangerous time for a woman is when she is leaving a violent relationship. She may need to find new accommodation security, get an apprehended violence order from police, seek treatment for injuries or perhaps attend court appearances. Women should not also have to worry about losing their jobs or losing income while they are in an abusive relationship that has them fearing for their lives and, in some cases, fearing for their children's lives.

The Senate Education and Employment Legislation Committee recently completed an inquiry into the bill. The dissenting report comments:

… it is a missed opportunity to make far reaching and more meaningful changes to family and domestic violence leave through the implementation of 10 days paid leave.

One of the numerous submissions was from the Law Council of Australia, which echoed Labor's position, recommending:

… additional measures, including increasing the number of leave days and providing for paid leave, in accordance with best practice, be considered in the future.

In addition to the Law Council, the Catholic Women's League Australia advocated in their submission for the leave to be paid, as did the Australian Human Rights Commission, Rape and Domestic Violence Services Australia, the ACTU and a number of other unions. These organisations called for paid family and domestic violence leave because they are well aware that the financial and other implications of an absence of such leave for too many women are serious. Too many women cannot risk the financial pain of losing pay by taking time off work to deal with and leave an abusive relationship.

You just have to think about how quickly the costs accumulate when you consider what needs to be done to leave an abusive relationship—lawyers, counsellors, doctors, schools, real estate agents and moving house. This takes time, often in work hours, and costs money. This combined stress should not be compounded by fear of losing your job or the financial disadvantage of going without pay. If a woman needs to take time off work to do these vital things to keep herself and her family safe, she should be able to count on continuing to receive a pay cheque and being able to go back to work.

Without financial independence, how can we expect women to leave abusive relationships? Financial insecurity significantly impacts on women's decisions to leave or stay. Anecdotal reports from domestic violence frontline workers indicate that some women delay leaving violent relationships because they fear the time off work required will lead to them losing their job, undermining their ability to support themselves and their children. For some women, their workplace is a support mechanism. Their work colleagues, and sometimes their employer, may be the most important support that they have in these situations. The financial security of paid employment will help women avoid becoming trapped in violent relationships, while maintaining their home and standard of living.

The Law Council's justice project highlighted that women who experience family violence often:

… have a more disrupted work history, are on lower personal incomes, have had to change jobs frequently and are [more] often employed in casual and part time work, compared to women with no experience of violence.

In their submission to the Senate inquiry into the bill, Rape & Domestic Violence Services Australia commented that:

… for many individuals experiencing FDV—

family and domestic violence—

it is simply not possible to forgo a full week of wages in order to take unpaid FDV leave.

Domestic violence directly impacts on women's financial security in both the short and long term. According to estimates by the ACTU, leaving a violent relationship can cost on average $18,000 and take 141 hours. A 2015 PwC report submitted to the Victorian Royal Commission into Family Violence estimated that the financial cost to a woman experiencing physical violence, sexual violence and emotional abuse by a partner is on average $27,000.

We call on the government to join Labor's lead, accept that this leave should be paid and start to genuinely support women who are subject to this violence. Other jurisdictions have introduced paid domestic violence leave. They've led the way, given there's a void in the federal jurisdiction. Indeed, even other countries are leading the way. For example, in July this year New Zealand legislated paid family domestic violence leave, guaranteeing 10 days paid leave for all workers who are experiencing violence and need to escape. Queensland and Western Australia offer 10 days paid domestic violence leave to public sector employees, while South Australia offers 15 and Victoria and the ACT offers 20. Last week the New South Wales Liberal government announced 10 days paid leave for public servants. If the New South Wales Liberal government can see how important this is, why can't the federal Liberal government?

In the federal system, many employers already provide paid family and domestic violence leave to their workforce through enterprise agreements. More than 1,000 enterprise agreements approved under the Fair Work Act between 1 January 2016 and 30 January 2017 provided for 10 or more days of paid domestic and family violence leave. The companies include flagship companies such as Telstra, Carlton United Breweries, NAB, Virgin Australia, IKEA, Qantas and Aldi Australia. Indeed, many companies, through negotiation with their workforce and their unions, have been providing 10 paid days leave. These are big companies in the private sector who fully understand and appreciate the support they must give those employees who might be subject to this awful, dire situation.

When you can see that companies in the private sector, along with state governments and other countries such as New Zealand, understand the need to provide real support, not token support, for women in these dire circumstances, surely the minister, who likes to stand at the despatch box opposite and talk about how much support this current government is providing to women, can see the need to accede to the request and allow for paid domestic and family violence leave. But it would appear that these pleas have fallen on deaf ears. This government is not listening to a constituency that is hurting or to the stakeholders that work in this area each and every day picking up the broken pieces of families that have been torn apart by violence and women who have been subject to physical, emotional and sexual abuse. This government can't find it in its heart to accept an amendment that is now becoming, to be honest, a mainstream workplace right in many, many workplaces in this country. The government is not leading the way but slowly following, in the most modest of terms, to provide any form of support for many of our people in our community who are suffering.

I do applaud those companies. Either they've done this subject to negotiation or they've done this unilaterally and chosen to create a policy that provides 10 or more days paid leave. I pay tribute to them, as I pay tribute to the unions. The unions have been campaigning for paid family and domestic violence leave over many years and negotiating domestic leave coverage in Australian workplaces. There is now a critical mass of workplaces that provide domestic violence leave. One of the arguments the government has put forward against this is, 'We can't do this in the private sector.' Companies are moving to do this, and have been doing this. It would appear, in so many ways, that this government is so far behind community expectations and community aspirations. It is so far behind. It is stuck in the past and doesn't understand the need to move decisively and properly in this area.

It would be remiss of me not to remind people of the government's history. Along with the deficient and belated policy, the Liberals have an appalling record of opposing family and domestic violence leave. We can't forget that the finance minister, Senator Mathias Cormann, rejected domestic violence leave, saying:

We just believe it's another cost on our economy that will have an impact on our international competitiveness.

Senator Cormann is obviously confused. It's domestic violence, not domestic violence leave, that costs our economy and harms our international competitiveness.

In a terrifying display of how out of touch the Liberals really are, the former Minister for Women even argued that family and domestic violence leave would make women less attractive to employers, saying that it would act as a perverse disincentive. The idea that employers may not consider employing women because they may be attacked by their partner one day, that that's the reason why employers may not employ women, is as absurd as it is insulting. Yet it does underline the mindset of this government, which is so far behind community standards, community expectations and community aspirations for our citizens and, in particular, for women in relation to this public policy.

In 2016 the Abbott-Turnbull government prevented approximately 30 Public Service departments, including the Prime Minister's, from providing for paid family violence leave in their enterprise agreements. The government is completely out of touch. The government was taking this backward stance at the same time as the Male Champions of Change 2015 report, Playing our part, suggested, '10 days paid leave appears to be a developing norm.' Labor knows that, in addition to the terrible personal and social cost of domestic violence, there is a significant cost to business. In May 2016 KPMG estimated the cost of violence against women and their children on production in the business sector at $1.9 billion for the 2015-16 year. The cost is domestic violence, not the need to provide support for women who are subject to domestic violence. The National Retail Association's submission to the Senate committee estimated a significant cost to business for not acting on domestic violence:

The NRA estimates that for the period 2014/15, almost 45,000 women working in the retail industry experienced some form of family or domestic violence, costing the industry approximately $62.5 million per annum in lost productivity, absenteeism, and staff turnover, with a direct cost to employers of $1,404 for each instance.

This is why many small businesses, where employers and employees have a close working relationship, already support their staff to take paid leave to deal with the consequences of domestic violence. And that's another argument: that it will affect small business. But small businesses are closest to their workforce, and most good small business employers will always lend a hand to their workers who are subject to such violence. Again, that is an argument put up by the government to dissuade this place to enact legislation that will provide paid leave.

We know that while 10 days paid leave is crucial for these women who need it, it is not likely that the uptake across the economy will be significant. For example, a 2015 joint study by the University of New South Wales and the ACTU, Implementation of domestic violence clauses—an employer's perspective, found 'The average time off for paid leave in the past 12 months was 43 hours'. Research by the Australia Institute in 2016 estimated that domestic violence leave wage payouts 'are equivalent to less than one-fiftieth of one percent of existing payrolls (0.02 percent)'.That study also found:

The costs to employers associated with those payouts are likely to be largely or completely offset by benefits to employers associated with the provision of paid domestic violence leave: including reduced turnover—

and reduced absenteeism and lower recruitment and training costs—

and improved productivity.

Employers understand the costs associated with losing good employees; that's why they're good employers. Many of the big employers—and others, including small ones—are already providing paid domestic violence. But it should be legislated. It should be codified by the parliament and inserted into the National Employment Standards so that it applies to everyone. Why should employers who do the right thing lose any competitive advantage—if there is one—because it doesn't extend across the labour market? It's such an important issue, which the government says it really does concern itself with. I believe there is a genuineness. Surely, all of us in this place must be horrified by the examples and the stories of what happens too often to women in this country. Yet, where is the policy response from the government to attend to the needs of some of our most endangered citizens? I have to say, it's left wanting. This bill is so deficient, because it really only looks to go as far as the decision of the Fair Work Commission, and that's not far enough.

As I said, employers understand the cost of losing good employees. Often, helping women through these situations means that they hold onto a very good staff member. Paid domestic violence leave benefits those who take it and it benefits their employers too. It does something else too, which we really need to understand. The stigma of domestic violence is such that it's very hard for victims of domestic violence to come forward. Too often, women have had to hide the abuse they have suffered. We know that, historically. They have to find an excuse for why they might have a bruise or why they've been injured in some way. They find an excuse for that. Why do they do that? They do that because we've stigmatised the victims, and they feel ashamed of being a victim of domestic violence. We've got to destigmatise this abuse, and one of the ways to destigmatise this abuse is to make very clear that, as a nation, we stand up for women who are subject to this abuse—so they understand they're not at fault for being a victim; it's the perpetrator who's at fault. We need to do that in many ways.

As I said at the outset of this debate, we need a multi-pronged response to domestic and family violence and this is just one way to do that. By codifying a right for women in workplaces to be provided paid leave, we're not only providing a benefit they can use, that can give them support in their hour of need; it's also saying as a nation we do not accept that a woman should be ashamed that she is a victim of violence. So it's something deeper than just providing a form of support such as paid leave; it's saying to women of Australia who are subject to this abuse that we are on your side—it's not your fault; it's the fault of the perpetuator—and we're going to give you material support as well as other forms of support to help you through these dire circumstances. So it's a very important benefit. It's a very important reform under Commonwealth law.

This bill, we support. We do support the bill but it is deficient; it does not go far enough. It's somewhat tokenistic to provide unpaid leave for a staffer who may have worked in a workplace for 20 years, finds herself subject to abuse, and has to take unpaid leave to find new accommodation. I know most good employers would provide that leave anyway. Don't be silly. You may have to go to court to deal with a matter, of course—I'm not going to dock you for that. But why should it be left to the discretion of an employer who wants to do the right thing?

It's about time we did more to support women in these circumstances in the industrial space. In the industrial relations space, this is one way we can do that. This is a second reading amendment that I'm speaking to but I ask the government to think about what Labor is saying, think about what the companies that have acceded to this request have done and what they're saying by agreeing to paid domestic violence leave. Think about the frontline workers who, each and every day, have to deal with women who are subject to such abuse. Think of the women who have been subject to this abuse and who are still ashamed to say they are. What could be better than this parliament agreeing that we give real support for victims of domestic violence and we do so by providing a law that will allow them in times of dire circumstances to take leave to attend to matters so they can be safer and so they can recover from what is, of course, an awful experience?

Workplace policies aimed at reducing domestic violence and supporting victims and survivors will help alleviate the impost on our economy but, more importantly, will help women who need our help, and we ask the government to seriously consider the amendment moved by the opposition.

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