Tanya Plibersek (Sydney, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

I want to thank the shadow minister for her fine contribution. We are pleased that the government have finally introduced legislation on the issue of domestic violence leave. We will support the Fair Work Amendment (Family and Domestic Violence Leave) Bill 2018, despite the fact it's half the amount of leave we believe victims of violence require and despite the fact it's unpaid leave that the government's proposing, not paid leave, because something is better than nothing. We support some family violence leave rather than none, but the job is only half done with this legislation. Five days of unpaid leave is not enough.

We will continue to work towards our policy of 10 days paid leave for victims of domestic violence, because we have heard too many stories, mostly from women, of those who have risked losing their only source of income because they have been dealing with domestic violence in their home. To take one example, I heard the story of a woman with two children under the age of six when her partner started physically abusing her. The first attack came when her children were very little. After the second attack, she went to the police. She was told that she needed to apply to the courts for an intervention order to protect herself from her ex-partner. Most of the meetings that she needed to go to—the court appearances, the meetings with police and legal meetings—were only available to her during working hours, and that's no surprise. This woman was taking time off work. She was taking it as sick leave. She started to genuinely worry that she would lose her job because she had to take so many days, half days or hours off work. She finally went to her employer to say: 'I haven't been sick. I've been dealing with this terrible trauma at home.' Luckily, this employer actually offered domestic violence leave. This woman was able to be frank with her employer and take the time off as domestic violence leave. But most women don't have the same experience.

About 210,000 Australian women were victims of domestic violence in 2016, and about two-thirds of them were in paid work. But as a victim of domestic violence you can be further victimised by losing your job, or being at risk of losing your job, just through dealing with the violence. Women are taking time off to deal with injury, they're taking time off to attend medical appointments, they're taking time off to get a restraining order or to pack up and move house.

We know that financial insecurity can make women more vulnerable to domestic violence. We know that being a victim of domestic violence means that you are much more likely to experience lifelong economic disadvantage. Having a job allows you the independence, the choice, to leave an abusive relationship, because you've got somewhere to go, you can pay the rent and you can feed the kids. We know that too many women stay in or return to violent relationships because they don't have the financial wherewithal to leave those violent relationships. And being a continuing victim of violence is not a price that any woman should have to pay to keep a roof over her head or food on the table for her children.

I've met with so many frontline workers. The Australian Services Union, I have to say, have been phenomenal in bringing frontline domestic violence workers to Canberra to tell members of parliament about what their members see every day—women and children fleeing violence—and the impact that 10 days paid leave would have for those women and children they see every day. In 2016, Labor first committed to five days paid domestic violence leave in the National Employment Standards. We saw that as a very important first step. But the clear message to us from these frontline workers that the Australian Services Union, and other unions, were bringing to Canberra to talk to us was that five days is not enough—one day at the police, a couple of days at court and a couple of days sorting the kids out at school. So we agreed to increase our commitment to 10 days paid leave in the National Employment Standards.

The thing to remember is this doesn't mean that all Australian women or that some women and some men will need to take this leave. It will be an unusual circumstance where people will be taking this leave, but, for the people who need it, it is sometimes literally a lifesaver. It certainly means they can keep a roof over their heads when they leave a violent relationship. And we see companies like ALDI Australia, Carlton & United Breweries, Telstra, NAB, Qantas, Virgin Australia, IKEA, Dulux, Blundstone—just to name a few major household names—have been prepared to provide paid domestic violence leave to their staff, and I congratulate them for that. Medibank provides unlimited personal leave for employees to deal with issues relating to family and domestic violence. Congratulations to them. Many small and medium businesses don't get the publicity but are supporting their staff to deal with domestic violence through providing leave and other supports.

These companies realise that it's not only the compassionate and humane thing to do but also the just and economically responsible thing to do, because if an employee can be frank about what they're experiencing at home, can take the leave to deal with it, you can keep that employee. You don't have to go searching for another one, train them up and all the rest of it. It also makes economic sense for these companies to allow their employees to be honest about what they're experiencing, support them through the experience and see them come out the other side.

I think being able to be frank with your employer about domestic violence is important in another really important way. Firstly, it's important for safety if someone is actually under threat from a violent partner. We have heard too many stories about violent partners turning up to workplaces and assaulting, or even killing, women who have escaped from them. Your employer should know for safety reasons what you're experiencing. Secondly, being able to be honest about what you're experiencing as a victim of violence relieves you of the burden of secrecy or the stigma that has for too long been attached to victims of domestic violence, when the people who should be ashamed of their actions are the people who are perpetrating the violence.

KPMG has estimated that domestic violence is currently costing the Australian economy about $22 billion a year. So simply from this perspective, by making sure that people who are victims of violence can stay in a job and not join the welfare queue, we reduce the cost to the community of domestic violence. So I congratulate those businesses, but let's also remember that unions have fought long and hard for employers to include these provisions in workplace agreements. It is Australian unions and their members that have campaigned on this issue and brought it to the forefront of public debate. Thousands of activists have worked particularly hard to bring this about, and it means now that unions have negotiated family violence leave in agreements that cover over two million workers. What an achievement that is. I said earlier that the Australian Services Union have been particularly instrumental in bringing frontline workers to Canberra. I want to pay particular tribute to Natalie Lang from the ASU, who has been really instrumental in this campaign, but she has not been alone and the Australian Services Union have not been alone.

Western Australia, Queensland, Tasmania and the ACT now provide 10 days paid domestic violence leave for public sector workers in those states. South Australia and Victoria provide even more. And just earlier this month the Liberal government in New South Wales announced that they will provide 10 days paid family and domestic violence leave to full-time and part-time government employees. If every Liberal state government in the country has accepted that 10 days paid family and domestic violence leave is appropriate, why can't this government accept that it's important for other Australians to have that support? Why do they have to be dragged, kicking and screaming, to this position with such reluctance? Every time there's an important social change—marriage equality, paid parental leave, removing discrimination against GLBTI children in our schools—they have to be dragged there. The Australian community—business, unions, everyone—is way ahead of the government, again, on this one. The former Minister for Women, Senator Cash, said she thought that domestic violence leave would provide a 'perverse incentive for employers to discriminate against women'. That is exactly the same argument that was used to oppose paid parental leave for so long. Even after the government finally conceded back in March—and it's taken since then to bring this legislation in, inexplicably—that they would introduced some form of family violence leave, they continued to delay bringing on the legislation. We had Senator Cormann describing paid domestic violence leave as another cost to the economy. 'Perverse incentive not to employ women', 'a cost to the economy': they are the same arguments that were used against paid parental leave.

It's disappointing that we don't see more government members speaking about this important issue, but I'll leave that for them. For too long women have had to bear the costs of leaving violent relationships. They have dealt with the emotional cost for themselves and their children. They have dealt with the physical abuse itself and the toll that takes on their health and wellbeing. On top of that, they have been condemned to immediate poverty and lifelong economic disadvantage. The very least we can do is reduce the impact of that economic disadvantage by helping women keep the jobs that are so often a lifeline, not just providing financial security during the most traumatic time of their live but also providing contact with other adults and emotional support—sanity in a crazy world. When everything you believed about your family and the person who is supposed to love you is turned on its head, actually being able to go to work can be the thing that keeps people tethered to the life that they knew and that they wished for themselves and their family.

Of course we'll support this bill, because it's a step in the right direction. But I really urge government members to consider—if they have the power and if they're able to do this—working towards longer leave and paid leave. That's what Australian women need to keep themselves and their children safe, to keep a roof over their heads and to keep food on the table. Ten days paid leave can make the difference between losing your job and keeping it and being financially secure enough to leave the violence behind to start a new life. Why would we not want that for these families? Why would we not want to give them the security and the hope of a better future that 10 days paid leave offers?

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