Peta Murphy (Dunkley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I know. Bring generation X back; I think we're the ignored generation, but that's a speech for another time!

Honourable members: Hear, hear!

I hear some 'hear, hear's! I think my campaign is going to get some legs! My parents were married in 1971, and they met when they were both schoolteachers. They were PE teachers at the same public high school. My mother was a career woman in her mind, in her practice and in her intentions. She was in fact going to go off into the department of education and work on policy, but she fell in love and got married in 1971. She said it was at the relatively old age of 27, but we all think that is quite young now. When she got married and wanted to have children, she had to resign from the public service. That's in my lifetime. Things have changed a lot.

My mother, being the woman that she is, had three children—three girls—and raised them but also went back to work as a casual teacher when she could. In effect, during my childhood, she worked almost full-time as a teacher by being that casual teacher who is at school teaching a different subject every day. It was because work was important to her and was fulfilling for her. Like everybody else in this place when we talk about our parents, we're here by and large because of the love and support that they gave us—if we were lucky enough to be brought up in that sort of family. My mother gave everything she could to her daughters and instilled in us the attitude that women can and should do anything they want at any time.

To some extent, she was denied that opportunity, because she had to resign from the Public Service when she was young and got married. But she demonstrated to us how important it is to do what you love, because she kept teaching whilst bringing us up. Had there been a paid parental leave scheme back in 1973 that would have supported my father staying home to look after me and then my two younger sisters when we were young, I know that he would have taken that up.

Fast forward to 2020, and we are in a much better place. Thanks to the Labor government in 2011, we have a paid parental leave scheme. As the member from Jagajaga, the member for Canberra, the member for Lilley and many others in this place have said, that introduction of the Paid Parental Leave scheme in 2011 changed the world for many women, for many men and for their children. But we still have a long way to go, because for too many men the gender stereotype is that they don't take time off to look after their children in 2020, even if they really want to. For too many men, it's not even just the gender stereotype that prevents them from taking the time off; it's the financial reality.

This piece of legislation is welcomed, but I echo the sentiments of my friend the member for Lilley: it's welcomed, but there is a lot more to do. Like so many people, I also look to Scandinavia in particular for a number of reasons and Iceland. Obviously Finland is an inspiration with its current leadership team of all women—although it makes some of us who were born in 1973 feel insecure about how young they are—and the moves they have made towards equality in parental leave for men and women of seven months. I personally am very attracted to a scheme which says: here's a block of paid parental leave—and I think 18 months is a really good block; you must share it between the two partners, and if you don't, you lose six months of that 18 months. We know that where that has been implemented, it has led to a significant change in the number of men taking leave to stay home with their young children. It is also an example of why parliament, why policy and why legislation are important, because they can help with social change and can give the opportunity for social change that people want to experience.

Changing gender stereotypes and bringing about gender equality are also important because it's not just about who looks after the children. As other people in this place have talked about, it is also about financial security, particularly for women who have had to take time out of the workforce and who find it difficult, notwithstanding what the law says, when they go back to work; they find their career path has been hampered that little bit. They find they don't get that promotion or offered that partnership and no-one says to their faces, 'It's because you've got children,' but we know that's the reason. No-one says to their faces, 'It's because you took time off and the men that were in your cohort didn't,' but we know that's the reason. We know that allowing women to have that career is not only going to fulfil them but is going to enable them to have some financial security, if the thing that no-one ever wants to happen happens and their relationship breaks down and they find themselves on their own. But even if they don't, it allows them to keep working.

Until we have that change in gender stereotypes, that sharing of the early years and taking time off, career progression, in my opinion, is not going to improve. It's particularly an issue in white-collar professional jobs, higher paid, well-educated jobs. I have a number of friends who are incredibly smart, incredibly hardworking lawyers who, for some reason, have found themselves just stalled on the progression in their firm to partnership. It doesn't matter how hard they work; there's just something that means that they're not getting that step up and, if everyone is honest, it's the time they took off each time they had their one, two or three children, which their male counterparts didn't have to take. That's not only why a paid parental leave scheme is important but why, in particular, a scheme that encourages and allows both parents to take time off is important.

The other thing I want to talk about in terms of gender equality and changing gender stereotypes is something that this parliament has addressed this week—that is, gendered domestic violence. What's the link between paid parental leave and domestic violence? It is gender equality. It is breaking gendered stereotypes. It is allowing men to understand that it's okay to be a care-giver, it's okay to be caring, to show the traits that sometimes we've talked about as feminine traits—wanting to be a homemaker, wanting to be empathetic, wanting to just be a good role model—and not be a big tough, strong man. It's showing men that women are their equal and deserve respect in the workplace as well as at home. There are so many things that, as a community, as politicians, as parents and spouses and sisters and brothers that we need to do to reduce the epidemic of domestic violence in our country. But one of the things—and I'm not unique in saying this—that we really have to do is not just talk about respect but put in place systemic change and policies that allow that respect to flourish in homes and in the workplace.

I, like everyone else in this place, want to extend my condolences not only to the women who have been murdered recently by their partners but also to every woman—the one a week who is murdered—and their family, and to all of the other women who are living in situations of violence and oppression. They're scared, they're vulnerable and they're subject to financial violence, not physical violence or emotional violence. I want to let you know that, whilst we don't always say your names and you're not always the people who the campaign is about, we do know what is happening to you, and when we talk about wanting to change society we are thinking about you as well.

The member for Lilley, who spoke before me, talked about workplace equality in terms of the conditions of work for women, the gender pay gap and why legislation like this is important in addressing the gender pay gap, and I could not agree with her more. We know that the gender pay gap is still 14 per cent in this country. I represent an electorate, Dunkley, that's named after a unionist feminist activist from the 1890s who campaigned for equal pay for women in the post and telegraph office and succeeded in 1902—one of the first pieces of Commonwealth legislation was the Commonwealth Public Service Act 1902—in getting a provision into that act of equal pay for women.

If we fast forward to 2020, I sometimes wonder what Louisa Dunkley would think about the progress we've made in more than a century since her time, because she fought for equal pay for women, but she also, to paraphrase her words, fought for equal pay because it was about the value of the work. If you don't pay people that do the work equally, then you're undervaluing the work. So whilst we've made progress, we still have a long way to go.

The other area, of course, that we have a long way to go in is equal pay for feminised industries compared to male industries. Yes, the work is different, but I'd like anyone who suggests that someone who works in child care or, in particular, someone who works in aged care doesn't have a harder job than someone who works as a fitter and turner or in construction to go and spend a couple of days doing the job of an aged-care worker—lifting; cleaning; caring for people who are vulnerable, who often have Alzheimer's and who are difficult; working shift work. I'd like them to go and spend a couple of days looking after 30-odd toddlers for hours on end, and not just looking after them but providing them with the basic education that they need at that young age of three years old and four years old, and then come back to this place and say that those feminised workforces don't deserve a pay rise, because I really don't think that you will if you take that time.

The other thing we need to look at when talking about workplaces is the fact that, even in feminised workplaces, when you look at the roles of leadership—managerial roles, CEOs, directors—men predominantly hold those roles, even in schools. Those of us who go into schools all the time know that the principals are often men. It is terrific that men are teachers more and more now, particularly primary school teachers, and all of us support that continuing, but you often go into schools and the principals are men.

So what is happening in society that it's predominantly men who are still holding the roles of leadership in feminised industries? Well, it comes back to things like women not having the freedom to not have to take the extended time off to care for the child when the men don't have to. It comes back to making sure women have the same opportunities as men. And I want to end where I started: it also comes back to giving men opportunities to be fulfilled and to have whole lives and great relationships with their children and be able to break the gender stereotypes that hold them back as much as it holds women back. So when those of us who are women stand up and talk about gender equality, we are advocating for women 100 per cent of the time, but, be in no doubt, we are also advocating for men and for a better society.

See this speech in context