Luke Howarth (Petrie, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I'm really pleased to rise to speak on the Fair Work Amendment (Family and Domestic Violence Leave) Bill 2018. I obviously support this bill. This is a great step forward for those people all around the country and in my electorate of Petrie who suffer domestic violence. I am sure that all of us members of parliament and the general community have heard domestic violence situations in our own communities. Six or seven years ago when I was living at Woody Point in my electorate I heard a scream from the neighbour next door. When you hear a scream you think, 'What am I going to do?' Then you hear the fight afterwards. On that occasion I called the police and they came immediately. It was a very quick response. It is a difficult situation. People often don't know what to do. They're a little bit scared. Do they intervene? Do they call the police? Do they go and knock on the door? Domestic violence is a real issue. I think the Australian community, rightly, are addressing it and are becoming more aware of it.

Not so long ago just up the road from my electorate office in Clontarf I came across a woman who was seven months pregnant. She was sitting out the front of a coffee shop looking a bit lonely. I approached her and introduced myself, 'I'm the federal MP for the area, Luke Howarth.' I got talking to her and she said, 'My partner has just hit me.' It was difficult because she was seven months pregnant with his child and she was sitting there alone, a bit frightened and not wanting to go home that night. It was clear to me that it wasn't easy or she wasn't able to just leave the situation. She obviously loved her partner—they were about to have a family together—yet this person had been hitting her. I was able to put her in contact with support services like Encircle, which is in my electorate at Redcliffe and in the neighbouring electorate of Dickson at Strathpine, to provide her with some support. It's a very difficult situation.

Currently the Australian federal coalition government have a zero tolerance for violence against women and children—zero. We are committing well in excess of $300 million to address safety. In the most recent federal budget we committed an additional $54 million for women's safety initiatives, including $11.5 million for 1800RESPECT, $6.7 million for DV-alert, $14.2 million for the Office of the eSafety Commissioner to improve cybersafety for women and $22 million to combat elder abuse. Of course in my own electorate as well we're supporting services like Encircle Redcliffe, the Deception Bay Neighbourhood Centre and many other community organisations that do great work in this space. So providing five days family and domestic violence leave for all employees covered by the Fair Work Act is a step in the right direction.

How does this bill differ? At the moment, of course, employees have 10 days entitlement. On top of their four weeks annual leave, they have 10 days entitlement for sick leave and family leave. If a woman is actually hit and physically hurt, of course, they can take that sick leave, but this bill says that the Fair Work Commission has considered the model clause represented a fair and relevant minimum safety net entitlement and should be reflected in the National Employment Standards. We agree with that and, under the bill, employees will be able to access the leave to undertake a range of activities during working hours that might not be provided during standard sick leave or family leave. These items would include participating in the court processes, for example, if they have to go to court; attending property inspections if they're looking for a new place to live; or attending appointments at financial institutions to get support. They might not have been physically hurt at the time but need some extra time off that might not normally be covered by personal sick leave and so forth. It is crucial that employees have the opportunity to attend to these activities without concern for their job security, and this bill ensures this, which is why I'm very pleased to support it. Of course, most businesses would often provide that opportunity for their employees, but legislating this as a workplace entitlement will actually help those people who do suffer DV.

I want to say as well that it's been a little bit disappointing listening to some of those Labor members opposite that I think have been unfair and partisan in their criticism of coalition MPs. They rise and say, 'Oh, we'll support the bill,' but then they go on to say, 'The government's not doing enough and DV is really bad,' somehow, I believe, reflecting on coalition members, that we're not doing enough in this space. Every coalition member and every member of this parliament, whether they are on the crossbench or in the opposition in the Labor Party, takes DV seriously. I know I do—very much so. I'll talk in a moment about the White Ribbon march in Redcliffe. But it is a little bit rich for some members opposite to get up here on air and take a partisan approach. Domestic violence in Australia should have a bipartisan approach, and the fact is that this bill that we're debating now provides new protections for people who suffer domestic violence in Australia. These are additional protections that don't exist at the moment.

The fact is that the Fair Work Commission has looked into this quite extensively. We know that the Fair Work Commission undertook an exhaustive process to strike the right balance in setting up a new minimum entitlement for family and domestic violence leave. In particular, the question of what type of leave should be available to victims was considered in extensive detail by the commission. And this wasn't just a short process; this took almost four years. Between October 2014 and July 2018 the commission considered 68 written submissions from 27 different parties, reviewed over 2,000 pages of documentation, heard evidence from over 20 witnesses and held over 11 days of hearings. Submissions were called and hearings were convened for every step in the process. Evidence was given from unions, from employers and from community groups, all actively engaged in the commission process. After carefully weighing up all the evidence, the commission came to a very clear determination in its decision. It explicitly stated:

… we are not satisfied, at this time, that it is necessary to provide ten days paid family and domestic violence leave to all employees covered by modern awards.

That's what the Fair Work Commission, which the previous Labor government set up, found after years of research. That's what it came to. The commission also said that there was little evidence about:

… the extent to which employers informally or formally provide such leave or the extent to which employees access existing entitlements for family and domestic violence leave.

The commission concluded:

… the provision of paid leave will increase costs to employers and that given the lack of data, the impact on employers of that increase in costs is difficult to assess.

I raise that because, when opposition members argue for that, they show a partisan view and try to reflect badly on the government. I think what we need to understand here is the different capacity of different sizes of business. Many businesses currently do provide paid DV leave, and they've been rattled off here today by different speakers. I congratulate those large businesses that do that, and some small and medium-sized businesses also provide that. There are many, many small businesses in my electorate with a turnover of well under $10 million—perhaps even $2 million—that are family businesses and, if they had a staff member in a domestic violence situation, would most certainly give them some paid time off to be able to go to court, access a property or visit a financial institution if they'd run out of other entitlements like personal and sick leave. They certainly wouldn't differentiate, but not every small business has the capacity to do that. So I think Labor's criticism and policy hasn't necessarily been thought through on the impacts to every business and every woman who would find herself in this situation.

We heard the good news from the Minister for Women last week in relation to the Women's economic security statement 2018. We're seeing, under our government, the gender pay gap diminishing quite significantly, by three per cent. We don't hear members opposite talk about that or about the fact that there are 3.1 million women now employed full time in Australia. They're some great results. This bill, the Fair Work Amendment (Family and Domestic Violence Leave) Bill 2018, also contributes to that, which is very important.

MPs in this place and in the other place, as I said before, support women and the fight against DV in a bipartisan way and also support children. Just two weeks ago, I participated in the White Ribbon march in Redcliffe. It started off a few years ago, when there would have been maybe 50 people who marched down the street from the Redcliffe Police Station up to the Mon Komo Hotel. This is organised by Encircle Redcliffe and Encircle Strathpine. This year there were well over 600 people. There were a number of different schools participating: St Patrick's College, which isn't in my electorate; The Lakes College at North Lakes; Clontarf Beach State High School; Clontarf Beach State School; Humpybong State School; Redcliffe State High School; the Australian Trade College North Brisbane; Scarborough State School; and, I think, Mueller College. A number of different schools participated—primary schools and high schools. The signal was that when the men got up to speak—and I spoke on this issue as the federal member for the area—the young boys also got up to pledge that it's never okay to hit women or to have domestic violence against women or children.

So the government is acting here today, but as a community we can all do more as well. That's why that bipartisan march that I spoke about was so important, because it was educating the young boys as well as the young girls on how we should treat each other. I spoke about the fact that when we are dealing with each other we should be saying, 'I'm okay and you're okay,' and treating people well. I want to thank Encircle Redcliffe. But it's not just political leaders and it's not just this government, or the Australian parliament, that makes a stand against this; it's all leaders. It's religious leaders, community leaders, school leaders, community groups, emergency services and the police. Up in my area Redcliffe, North Lakes, Sandgate and Carseldine have all had White Ribbon signs out the front of their police stations. The ambulance service and the fire service participated in the march. It's parents teaching their children.

My father always taught me that you don't hit women. I have three sons of my own, and I teach my three sons the same because I want them to grow up to treat women and children with respect and grow up to be great citizens in the Australian community that our older Australians have left us. We live in the best country in the world because of older Australians and what they left us. I support this bill and I'd like to see further speakers support this bill in a bipartisan manner rather than scoring political points that they think are in the best interests of their party.

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