Adam Bandt (Melbourne, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

Care is fundamental to our society. Care for each other and care for those who we are bringing up is the fundamental thing that binds us all together. None of us would be here without care. Care, though, is often devalued and, in fact, is taken for granted. It's just presumed that there will always be people caring for other people and looking after each other in their family, looking after those who need help. As a result, much of care goes unpaid.

Care going unpaid isn't necessarily the problem, but the problem is that care goes unpaid, is taken for granted and is often undervalued. Nowhere is this more apparent than the work that is disproportionately done by women in-home. It's often not called work—but it is work. And we need to start treating it as work. Anyone who has spent a significant amount of time with young children will know that it is work. We should start treating it as work in the way that we legislate. We should start acknowledging the role that is often taken for granted—a role not always, but almost always, performed by women—in the care of young people in our society.

Care is also undervalued in the paid workforce, and those areas of work that are often the lowest paid are often those that one would call the caring professions, and they are often very highly feminised—that is, there are, more often than not, more women working in those professions. So, outside of the paid workforce, we don't value care enough—even though it's the fundamental thing without which life wouldn't exist—and, inside the paid workforce, we underpay those who are responsible for caring.

When you then add in work, on top of currently unpaid caring responsibilities, you start to compound the problem, especially for women. In this country people—predominantly women—who are balancing work and raising kids report very high levels of stress and dissatisfaction with the job that they are doing. That's unfair and it's in large part because of the pressure that society often puts on those women, but it's also because we, as legislators, don't provide a supportive framework for people to make those choices. The bind can continue—again, especially for women—for many who are not only trying to juggle work and look after young children but may be looking after their parents as well, sandwiched in the middle, having to care for those above them and care down, and work at the same time.

For a small period of time we offer some kind of support in the form of paid parental leave, but it is nowhere near extensive enough. The measures in this bill take some positive steps, but they don't go towards the fundamental problem. We've got to start looking at paid parental leave as an industrial right, where you take paid parental leave so that not only the individual but the whole family does not suffer financially. That's not the position we are in at the moment, but it's one that we need to get to.

What we also need to do is start giving those people—again, predominantly women—who are trying to balance looking after children with returning to work greater legal rights to have control over their own lives. Part of the stress and anxiety that is felt is due to a lack of control because you're balancing so many things. You're balancing looking after the kids, and perhaps looking after your parents as well, who might be needing help themselves; you're balancing work and you're balancing your home life, but you're doing it all in a situation where, at the moment, you don't have enforceable rights to control your own working arrangements. Yes, there are very good employers; there are some employers who understand this difficulty, and some of those employers go out of their way to include particular measures and rights for women to be able to have control over their working arrangements. But what we don't do is give women anywhere near enough enforceable rights to control their own working arrangements to take care of their caring responsibilities. This is something that I've pushed for for a while.

We've introduced legislation to give parents and carers more control over their working lives and their working arrangements so that flexibility becomes a two-way street. At the moment, flexibility is very often just a one-way street in many workplaces. The employer can demand flexibility, but when workers themselves, especially those with caring responsibilities, want to say, 'I need to change my working arrangements in order to care for children, parents and others in my family who need it,' they very often find themselves reliant not on any legal rights but on the goodwill of the employer. That's something we need to change. We need to start giving those with caring responsibilities enforceable legal rights to demand better working arrangements. That would go some way to dealing with some of the problems that this bill is trying to address.

One of the other things that we need to do is have a rethink about child care in this country, if we want to address some of the problems that this bill is trying to address. Child care has become extraordinarily unaffordable for many families, and the recent reforms from the government have not helped. Not only is there an affordability problem; there's an availability problem. You can find a space, but you might have to go on a very long waiting list, especially for zero to two-year-olds. We've gone some way—and it must be acknowledged that it's thanks to the reforms of the previous government—to increasing the standards, quality and skills of our educators in early childhood education and child care, and they are good reforms. But what we've now got is an affordability and availability problem, and it is a crisis in some areas. We have waiting lists that are very long. Sometimes you might even find yourself a spot in one childcare centre, for one particular day that might match your working arrangements; but then there is not the spot in the same childcare centre, so there are parents who are juggling one child between different childcare centres on different days of the week. As if you don't have enough stress already, you then find yourself dealing with increasing out-of-pocket costs under this government and then you potentially have to hop from one childcare centre to another.

Part of the reason for that is that we don't think about child care in the way that we should. It is a universal service and a universal right. If we were forcing children to jump from one school to another because we didn't have a space for them on one particular day, there would be an outcry. But it seems that it's okay in child care. If we said parents were not able to go back to work because sending their child to school meant they were out-of-pocket, there'd be an outcry. But that's the situation we find ourselves in with child care at the moment. Under the way this government treats child care—it is a problem for the whole family, but it is predominantly women who get impacted by—you have to make a decision about whether you go back for an extra day of work knowing that basically it could all be eaten up by childcare fees. That diminishes the ability of women to make real choices about their lives and about how they want to structure their lives. By and large—and there are exceptions—these are not choices that men have to make. The burden falls on women, and it restricts the choices that women can make in their lives.

In an excellent contribution earlier, the member for Indi said we've got to start looking at ways that we might force a greater sharing of parental leave between men and women—in heterosexual couples—which would be a very welcome set of developments. We've also got to have a look at what child care is doing to the choices that families are making—in particular, the choices that women are making. That's why one of the first things I said when I took up the leadership of the Greens is that part of my goal, part of the Greens' new deal, is to push to make child care free and universally available to parents across this country. That is one way of closing the gender gap in this country.

We went to the last election with a plan that was a step towards free and universal child care that would have resulted in 80 per cent of families being able to get free and universal child care as well as expanding early childhood education to the kindergarten years. But we have to have a goal in our sights. If we are to address the problems that this bill presents, we not only need reform around parental leave and reform to give women more and enforceable rights at work—everyone should get them, but people who have caring responsibilities should have additional rights to demand more flexible working arrangements so that they have more control over their lives. But we need to get serious in this country about treating child care as a universal service. I repeat: if we turned away students from schools, or if parents weren't able to go back to work because they couldn't afford to send their child to a private school, there would be a national outcry. But somehow, for some reason, we seem to think it's okay in child care.

I acknowledge the work of the previous government in lifting the standards and qualifications and skills of our educators in child care. That has made a huge difference. They are very important and welcome reforms. But now we need to go to the next step and say: what do we need to do to the system to ensure that it is free and universally available to everyone so that no-one has to make the decision about not going back to work because they know that if they go back to work that extra day it's all going to be eaten up in extra childcare fees. If the government doesn't think that's a problem, then they are not talking to parents—because that is a very real problem for women.

There are a number of other reforms that could be made to paid parental leave. The member for Indi outlined some very good ideas. I'm also told, for example, if you choose to do above masters level then it's not counted in the activity test. I'm following that up because if that's right then it seems very odd indeed that post-graduate PhD level study is not counted in the activity test. Some constituents have told me that, yes, you get it for a masters but not if you go on to do a PhD. I'm following that up and seeking clarification because if that's right, that is wholly discriminatory. That is a disincentive for women to go on and do high-level post-graduate education. I hope there's been a miscommunication to my constituents about that but, if not, I will go and ask why that is the case. That would be a sensible reform. The activity test needs more fundamental reform than that, but that is certainly one thing that could be looked at.

This bill goes some way towards addressing some problems but, if we want to get to the nub of the fundamental issue to ensure that we have gender equality in this country and that we properly value care inside and outside of the paid workforce, we are going to need change our industrial relations laws, we are going to need change to our parental leave laws and we are going to need an expansion and rethink of the childcare system so it becomes free and universal for everyone. That is part of the Green new deal we'll be fighting for because it will make a big difference to parents right across this country.

See this speech in context