Tanya Plibersek (Sydney, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Housing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

International Women’s Day is an opportunity for women to celebrate and reflect on how far we have come, and how far we still have to go.

Around 100 years ago in this same House, Australia’s second Prime Minister, the Hon. Alfred Deakin MP, said:

This House testifies to the facts that after sixteen years’ experience of Woman Suffrage in various parts of Australasia and nine years’ experience in the Commonwealth, the reform has justified the hopes of its supporters.

As foreseen by its advocates, its effects have been:

1. To gradually educate women to a sense of their responsibility in public affairs.

2. To give more prominence to social and domestic legislation.

Australasian experience convinces this House that to adopt Woman Suffrage is simply to apply to the political sphere that principle of Government that secures the best results in the domestic sphere, the mutual co-operation of men and women for the individual and general welfare.

In those 100 years, the ‘mutual cooperation of men and women for the individual and general welfare’ has seen great advances in Australia, and we should be justifiably proud.

Since taking office in December 2007, the Australian government has been working hard to improve and enrich the lives of women and to support them to participate equally in all aspects of Australian life. While many women are doing well and enjoying the benefits of the enormous effort over the generations by many inspirational women in Australia and around the world, it is clear that some challenges remain. With my Office for Women, I have developed an ambitious work plan. Our agenda is modern and responds to the challenges that women of today are grappling with. The government is pursuing three key priority areas for advancing gender equality:

• improving women’s economic outcomes and financial independence;
• ensuring women’s voices are heard at all levels of decision-making; and
• reducing violence against women.

I also believe it is time to engage men on these priorities—because gender equality is the whole community’s responsibility.

The government has a strong commitment to improve economic outcomes for women. Women still earn considerably less than men over their lifetimes. They earn 84c for every dollar men earn. By the time women and men graduate from university, women are already faring less well than men, and this disadvantage widens over the life course. Women in Australia are responsible for 65 per cent of unpaid work while also steadily increasing their participation in paid work. We see too many women with too little superannuation and facing a tough outlook for their old age.

The government recognises its role in meeting this challenge and is responding. The government are working hard to deliver an industrial relations system that is fairer and more flexible for working people, including the right to request extra parental leave and flexible working conditions. We are improving the accessibility, affordability and quality of child care and have established an Office of Work and Family. The government is considering the Productivity Commission’s final report on the merits of paid maternity, paternity and parental leave and better ways to support families in addition to the employer funded schemes to which nearly half of all working women already have access. The government are considering ways to strengthen women’s human rights and are looking at the recommendations of a parliamentary inquiry into the Sex Discrimination Act 1984, as well as conducting a consultation on the broader range of human rights.

The government is committed to supporting and promoting women’s leadership. I am pleased to inform the House that Australia has witnessed impressive milestones over the last year or so. Our highest public office, the position of Governor-General, is filled by a woman. Our Deputy Prime Minister is a woman, as is the Deputy Leader of the Opposition. Three out of our seven High Court justices are women. Almost one-third of parliamentarians in Australia are women, including seven federal government ministers.

While many Australian women have achieved high office individually, or success in their individual fields, we still face challenges. That is why the government works with women and women’s organisations to promote women’s leadership and equal place in society. The network of National Women’s Alliances consults with Australian women and provides informed advice to government on policy issues important to women.

I was pleased to announce on International Women’s Day at the Women’s World Cup cricket tournament that I am not only continuing a partnership between the Office for Women and the Australian Sports Commission to help produce future women leaders in sport but also increasing Office for Women funding to the Sports Leadership Grants for Women Program to $350,000 in 2009-10.

The Indigenous Women’s Leadership Program continues to be a successful program, and the Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs has tasked a steering committee to oversee the establishment of a national Indigenous representative body, which will have strong representation of both Indigenous women and men.

Australia’s accession to the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) came into force last week. Australia’s accession to the optional protocol sends a strong message that we are serious about promoting gender equality and that we are prepared to be judged by international human rights standards.

Last week I was privileged to lead Australia’s delegation to the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women and report to more than 190 countries on Australia’s progress on gender equality. I was honoured to share the stage with the United Nations Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, during the UN’s International Women’s Day event to inform member states of Australia’s work to reduce violence against women.

The government also supported June Oscar and Emily Carter, from Fitzroy Crossing in Western Australia, to show a documentary, Yajilarra, which is their inspiring story of reducing domestic violence, foetal alcohol syndrome and other alcohol related harm through the introduction of alcohol restrictions in their community.

I am grateful to the Sex Discrimination Commissioner, Elizabeth Broderick, and her staff, and to Australia’s Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the United Nations, the Hon. Robert Hill, and his staff for their assistance in promoting a successful event that was very well received by Commission on the Status of Women delegates. The government is committed to practical support for the rights of women, including backing Indigenous women to take control of the problems caused by alcohol in their communities.

Australia’s reputation is boosted by our work at home and in our region to improve gender equality. Australia’s development assistance program recognises the importance of gender equality in achieving sustainable development. I was pleased to announce yesterday with the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Stephen Smith, that Australia will provide more than $17 million to the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM). This funding over four years will support UNIFEM’s work in over 100 countries to reduce women’s poverty and exclusion; end violence against women; reverse the spread of HIV-AIDS among women and girls; and support women’s leadership in governance and post-conflict reconstruction.

The Minister for Foreign Affairs has also announced today that the government will change the family-planning guidelines for Australia’s overseas development assistance program to support the same range of family-planning services for women in developing countries as are supported for women in Australia, subject to the national laws of the relevant nation concerned.

Australia will also provide additional funding of up to $15 million over four years through UN agencies and NGOs for family-planning and reproductive health activities to help reduce maternal deaths. This is part of Australia’s commitment to advance the Millennium Development Goals and to improve child and maternal health. The United Nations estimates that improved family planning could save the lives of as many as 175,000 women each year. This issue was raised with me by many nations and United Nations aid agencies in New York last week and will be warmly welcomed by many of our neighbours.

Australia has made progress in addressing both domestic violence and sexual assault. We have improved support for survivors by:

• significantly increasing funding for emergency accommodation and public housing making it easier for victims of violence to leave home safely;
• supporting new programs which allow victims to remain safely in their home and remove perpetrators;
• encouraging police and judges to be sensitive to the experiences of victims of violence;
• providing counselling, including through emergency phone lines;
• improving legal and social supports for women who have been trafficked; and
• developing a tailored response for Indigenous women who are victims of family violence.

The Australian government believes we should pursue ongoing improvements in our efforts to combat violence against women. Around one in three Australian women experience domestic violence and one in five women experience sexual violence in their lifetimes.

Our key challenge is to change behaviour so fewer women experience domestic violence or sexual assault in the first place, and to offer better supports and legal responses when violence does occur. That is why, in May 2008, I formed a National Council to Reduce Violence Against Women and their Children. I asked them to develop an ambitious 12-year national plan to reduce domestic violence and sexual assault, which I expect to receive soon.

As I explained at the Commission on the Status of Women, Australia has managed to substantially reduce road deaths from drink-driving in recent decades because we have taken a well-researched, methodical, long-term public health approach. We educate drivers about the dangers; we use our laws to prevent drink-driving; and, when we catch someone drinking and driving, we expect to penalise them with the full force of the law. It is this same methodical, multipronged approach we must take in combating violence.

The Prime Minister spoke to a White Ribbon Foundation dinner last year, saying:

From birth, it must be drilled into the conscious and the subconscious of all men that there are no circumstances – no circumstances – in which violence against women is acceptable.

…            …            …

That on violence against women, we have simple, clear policy in two words: zero tolerance.

In the same historic speech, our Prime Minister also acknowledged that violence against women is a gender issue and men need to take responsibility in reducing violence against women and children. Our new approach focuses on working with men and boys, to change attitudes that condone violence and to change violent behaviour.

The Australian government is once again taking the lead and promoting gender equality. In the midst of tough economic times, it is important to continue our work on increasing all people’s life choices and removing the barriers that exist to full participation. Recovery from the global financial crisis relies on every citizen having the opportunity to contribute fully and equally to their society and economy. Greater equality economically and socially between men and women is good for us all. Women benefit from equality with better life opportunities, greater independence and higher incomes. But it is good for men too. Equal caring, for example, allows fathers to share more equally in the joy that parenthood brings. Most importantly greater gender equality strengthens us a nation.

I seek leave to move a motion in relation to the debate.

Leave granted.

I move:

That so much of the standing and sessional orders be suspended as would prevent Mrs Mirabella speaking in reply to the ministerial statement for a period not exceeding 12 minutes.

Question agreed to.

Sophie Mirabella (Indi, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Early Childhood Education, Childcare, Women and Youth) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to respond to the statement by the Minister for the Status of Women on International Women’s Day. I am delighted to have the opportunity to join with the minister in acknowledging International Women’s Day, which of course was last Sunday, 8 March. Australian women do indeed have much of which they can be proud. They have certainly come a long way in the last 100 years. I take this opportunity to applaud the women who are still struggling today in various parts of our nation, within various communities, whether it be in Indigenous communities or in the workforce or in a multitude of other forums in which they are struggling to improve the lot of women generally. Often they are silent volunteers, working hard because of a passion that drives them.

We are all beneficiaries of the efforts of many women who have gone before us. At the same time, however, we should acknowledge that there are many women around the world who do not enjoy the same freedoms that we do. They are denied a proper education, they are not free to make their own decisions, and the laws in their countries do not protect them from violence and abuse. Their position is quite literally worse than that of women in this country more than 100 years ago.

I do not doubt that the minister’s interest and passion in the area of gender equality are genuine, and I thank her for representing the interests of Australian women in such an august forum as the United Nations. But I think it would be a pretty safe bet that last Sunday most Australian women were too busy with their regular weekend activities, preparing for the working week ahead and/or spending time with family and friends to remember that it was International Women’s Day. It is likely an even safer bet that the last thing on their minds as they sat down to Sunday brunch was Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s statements and his crew in Canberra. But it is instructive on this occasion, when women’s issues are highlighted and women’s achievement celebrated, to take stock of exactly how the Rudd government has fared when it comes to delivering on their pre-election commitments to Australian women.

Looking at the big issues that have been nominated by the government, like paid maternity leave, prevention of violence against women and child care, it is safe to say that Labor’s record on these is a microcosm of their approach to government over the last 16 months. It is best summed up as committees, reports, task forces, delays, indecision and, unfortunately, disappointment. I would like to look more closely at some of the issues that the minister addressed at the UN in her speech in March and which she has again reiterated today in the parliament. She stated that Australia is pursuing three key priority areas for advancing gender equality. They are: improving women’s outcomes and financial independence; ensuring women’s voices are heard at all levels of decision making; and reducing violence against women. These three areas are of importance to women in their quest to close the gender gap, but, unfortunately, on closer examination it is quite clear that this Labor government does not leave much to cheer about.

Improving women’s economic outcomes and financial independence is in fact a critical and important objective, but economic outcomes and financial independence often start with the security of a job—whether it is that of the woman herself, her partner or the family on which she relies. The day the current government comes into this chamber and says that they have a real plan for jobs is the day they will have done something to assist women in their advancement to obtaining economic security and relieving them of some of those economic concerns.

The minister highlighted in her speech to the UN that Australia’s maternity payment is equivalent to about nine weeks of the minimum wage and assists with the extra costs incurred at the time of birth or adoption of a child. She spoke of it in glowing terms. I am disappointed, however, that she failed to acknowledge that this enlightened initiative was introduced by the Howard government, albeit under a different name. She also failed to acknowledge that some of her colleagues were not so supportive of such a scheme at the time. In fact, the member for Rankin said in the House on 23 May 2007 in relation to the baby bonus:

I cannot for the life of me understand how any government could come up with such a scheme.

I am pleased, however, that the minister herself can and has publicly acknowledged the Howard government’s initiative in this area.

As to the government’s action on paid maternity leave, I am afraid that the news is not so good. The minister informed the UN of the Productivity Commission’s inquiry into a paid maternity leave scheme but failed to inform UN members that, as reported in the Courier Mail on 23 February 2009:

Senior Ministers have been privately warning interest groups the $40 billion hole in the Government’s budget will make it too difficult to fund the proposed $450 million scheme in this May’s budget.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd was talking tough in September last year when he said that it was time to ‘bite the bullet’ on paid maternity leave. At the same time, the Treasurer also said:

We’ve had 12 years of neglect on this, it’s time Australia bit the bullet on paid maternity leave.

They seem to be biting bullets all the time but achieving nothing. Even Sharan Burrows said on the ACTU website last November:

The ACTU, unions and thousands of Australian families call on the Rudd Government to include the Productivity Commission’s proposed scheme in the 2009 Federal Budget as a matter of urgency.

Now it is a very different story from this self-styled champion of women. Just last week, as she sniffed the wind and saw that her Labor colleagues were furiously back-pedalling, the ACTU President was quoted in the media as saying:

If it needs to be phased in over a couple of years, that’s a discussion that can be had, but don’t make women wait.

So there is a bit of back-pedalling to support the changed federal Labor policy. Four months ago it was a matter of urgency and now it is fine for us to have a bit of a discussion.

But even Sharan Burrows would probably acknowledge—if only privately—that neither Kevin Rudd or Wayne Swan has made a tough decision since coming to office, and they are quick to blame others when it comes to failing to meet their election promises. Given December’s $10 billion cash splash and the $42 billion spending package announced last month, the coalition has every right to be sceptical of the Rudd government’s ability to deliver on its election commitment of paid maternity leave. With such poor economic management and the racking up of $200 billion debt, it does look increasingly likely that the Rudd government will walk away from its commitment to support families and blame everyone else but themselves. In fact, the Rudd government is so sensitive on this issue that it has gone into hiding and refused to publicly release the final report of the Productivity Commission, which was given to it last week. But did Minister Plibersek include these details in her address? No, she did not.

The minister also told the UN that the government was improving the quality, cost and availability of child care. But did she inform them of the current problems in the childcare industry? No, she did not. Did she inform them that while in opposition she and her colleagues screamed for vacancy data to be released so that those involved in the industry could strategically plan where centres are in critical shortage and where there is an oversupply? I very much doubt it, as the last time such information was released was in April 2007 under the previous government. It is now almost 16 months since the Rudd government came to office and it refuses to release such figures. And where do I even begin to start when it comes to the collapse of ABC Learning? Labor’s incompetence in handling this issue is legendary throughout the industry. People will tell you privately that they are too afraid to name themselves in the media and discuss it because they are afraid of the retribution that will inevitably follow. This has only added to the stress of families and working mothers and fathers around the nation.

Then there was Labor’s election promise to ‘end the dreaded double drop-off’ by building 260 new childcare centres in schools and on public land across the country. What has happened so far? It has taken 16 months, but plans are now underway to build six of these centres. The federal government has budgeted $114 million to build a total of 38 centres over the next four years. The fate of the remaining 222 centres that Kevin Rudd firmly promised apparently rests with the states and territories in COAG, and we all know what a parlous position state Labor’s economic mismanagement has left the states in. Now federal Labor is passing the buck to the states.

Labor’s big promise of universal access to preschool for all four-year-olds has similarly been sent to COAG to be discussed by yet another task force and to be eventually implemented over four years. In the meantime, New South Wales parents are still paying exorbitant fees and the community preschool sector faces collapse due to funding pressures. But at least Labor has a task force in place!

A very interesting article in the Courier-Mail reports that the Rudd government is giving $252 million to the Bligh Queensland government, in the middle of an election campaign, to help fund the building of 240 new kindergartens around that state by 2014. Firstly, I make it clear that the coalition welcomes any initiative that genuinely benefits Australian children, particularly in the area of early childhood development and education. But we should be highly sceptical about an announcement in the middle of a state election campaign, to the tune of $252 million, when the Labor Party cannot come up with any funding for a paid parental leave scheme about which it has built such high expectations. Given that the federal government has, to date, been able to get no more than six of its 260 childcare centres which it promised off the ground, my hopes for the Queensland government building 240 kindergartens by 2014 are virtually non-existent.

I welcome the government’s promise of a national action plan to reduce violence against women and children, which was sent to a newly formed council. The council has been working hard, going around the country, consulting and genuinely working on what is hoped will be a practical national plan. It recently asked the government for an extension of the December 2008 deadline and it is due to report this month. That is fair enough.

But let us look at what Labor did in the meantime. They callously cancelled the highly effective ‘Violence against women—Australia says no’ public education campaign and they have put nothing in its place. So we have, effectively, had a 16-month vacuum when it comes to public education on violence against women. That is not good enough. I am sure that it is not something that the Minister for Housing included in her address to the UN and, given the collective $52 billion Labor have spent in recent months— (Time expired)