Michael Keenan (Stirling, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Justice, Customs and Border Protection) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to talk on the Sex and Age Discrimination Legislation Amendment Bill 2010. The Sex Discrimination Act makes discrimination on the grounds of sex, marital status, pregnancy and family responsibilities unlawful in specified areas of public life. It has been in place for over 25 years and has been an important tool in addressing discrimination and in changing attitudes about the participation of women and men in a range of areas of public life.

The Sex Discrimination Act, similar to other antidiscrimination laws, has been an important mechanism in changing community perceptions and setting appropriate standards to recognise that men and women should be able to fully participate in the social, economic and public life of Australian society. Notably, the bill contains two measures: (1) amendments to the Sex Discrimination Act 1984 to strengthen protections in the legislation and, (2) amendments to the Age Discrimination Act 2004 to establish an Age Discrimination Commissioner in the Australian Human Rights Commission. These amendments give effect to recommendations of the 2008 report of the Senate Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs, Inquiry into the effectiveness of the Sex Discrimination Act in eliminating discrimination and promoting gender equality. The amendments in this bill address issues of significant community concern by strengthening protections for Australians in the workplace, including workers with family responsibilities, as well as providing specific protections for women who are breastfeeding.

The coalition has a history of supporting equality in the workplace. Successfully balancing paid work with family responsibilities remains a major challenge for a large number of Australians. With women continuing to carry the majority of Australia’s unpaid caring work, creating workplaces that support women and men to balance paid work and share caring responsibilities is critical to achieving gender equality. The coalition’s paid parental leave scheme alleviates the burden of the hardest choice that women in the workplace are forced to make. The decision to sacrifice financial security to have a child is made easier by our plan to extend the period of leave and have it paid at the same level as the individual’s income. The coalition recognises that the family is the foundation of our society. Through our policies, we aim to give families every opportunity to find a harmonious balance between work and family life.

I will turn now to the provisions in the bill. The bill proposes to make four substantive amendments to the Sex Discrimination Act: to extend the act to ensure equal protection for men as well as women; to broaden the prohibition on discrimination on the grounds of family responsibilities to include indirect discrimination against both men and women in all areas of their work; to establish breastfeeding as a separate ground of discrimination; and to strengthen the protections against sexual harassment in workplaces and schools to also include cyberbullying and electronic harassment.

The amendments to the Age Discrimination Act provide for the establishment of an Age Discrimination Commissioner in the Australian Human Rights Commission. This is intended to reflect the increasing needs of an ageing population and to address the factors that contribute to age discrimination in the workplace and community. To date, the Sex Discrimination Commissioner, Elizabeth Broderick, has had responsibility for age discrimination issues. The coalition would like to acknowledge her good work and strong advocacy in this area. Commissioner Broderick said in a media release on 1 October this year:

It is vital that we recognise age discrimination for what it is—something that stereotypes people, strips them of their individuality, robs them of choice and control and prevents them from being assessed on the basis of merit. Ultimately, age discrimination—like any form of discrimination—will result in less diversity in our workplaces.

Australia’s ageing population has highlighted the need for a dedicated commissioner to promote respect and fairness and to tackle the attitudes and stereotypes that can contribute to age discrimination.

This bill has already been referred to the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee, and the coalition reserves the right to move amendments pending the outcome of the committee’s report. There are certainly some things within the bill that we believe require further illumination, in particular the inclusion of relevant international instruments—a very extensive number of international instruments. We are very keen to find out exactly what that means and exactly how that might work within Australian law. Those are the sorts of issues that we will be particularly keen for the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee to inquire into and we will also be keen for them to highlight what is actually going to happen when all of these extensive international instruments are incorporated within this act. On those grounds we support in principle this bill but we reserve our right to make changes in the Senate based on the outcome of that committee report.

Kate Ellis (Adelaide, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Employment Participation and Childcare) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise in the House today in support of the Sex and Age Discrimination Legislation Amendment Bill 2010. This is an incredibly important bill. It delivers on an election commitment to ensure that both women and men, regardless of their age, can confidently participate in the economic life of our nation without fear of discrimination. In making my remarks this morning, I would like to begin by commending the Attorney-General for bringing forward amendments of such significance, such importance and such impact.

One of my priorities as the Minister for the Status of Women is to achieve greater economic security for the women of Australia. Research shows that there has been a shift in Australia from a more traditional model of a family with a male breadwinner and a female caregiver to one of a family with two incomes. Yet, despite these shifts, we know that Australian women continue to do the greater share of unpaid caring and domestic work. We also know that there are in fact many men out there who would love to play a larger role in unpaid care and in spending time with their young children. Men want to be able to access more flexible arrangements. We know that the number of men undertaking this unpaid work is beginning to increase.

The amendments in this bill mean that more men can now seek these work arrangements to undertake child rearing or other caring or domestic work without fear of discrimination or reprisal in their workplaces. In order for women to hold an equal place in Australian society, we must consistently and systematically remove all barriers to women having a fulfilling working life. The unequal burden of caring responsibilities is one of these barriers and has meant that women have often had fewer options in their working arrangements or careers. This bill provides the conditions for families to make a decision about how their work and caring responsibilities can be shared between both women and men. Effectively, the amendments encourage greater participation for women in the workforce and greater participation for men in caring and unpaid domestic work—an excellent outcome for women and an excellent outcome for men and, importantly, ultimately an excellent outcome for our nation’s children. These amendments are part of the government’s continuing commitment to make flexible work options available to all Australians. We have introduced the new National Employment Standards under the Fair Work Act, which provide parents of both genders with a right to request a flexible work pattern from their employer. We have also announced parental leave entitlements for fathers as well as mothers to help Australian men increase their participation as caregivers.

More generally, the bill before the House also amends Australia’s sex discrimination legislation so that its protections apply equally to men and women. The bill also establishes breastfeeding as a distinct ground of discrimination, making it unlawful for people to be discriminated against on this basis. It also seeks to strengthen protections against sexual harassment and recognises that sexual harassment does take place far too often within Australian workplaces but that there are also changing forms of harassment with the advent of new technologies. I welcome these amendments as establishing a framework for working conditions that will allow women and men to pursue fulfilling work and family lives free from discrimination or reprisal.

I will now change hats briefly. It is also a priority, as the Minister for Employment Participation and Childcare, that we ensure that the labour market is accessible to all Australians, regardless of their age. This government has adopted particular measures to skill up our young workers and to support mature age workers to expand their career options. This amendment will, for the first time, establish a dedicated Age Discrimination Commissioner to advocate for the rights of older Australians in the community and in the workplace. I particularly welcome the establishment of this role as it relates to older workers who are experiencing discrimination in their workforce. We know that this is a huge concern and a significant concern for far too many Australians out there. The majority of age discrimination complaints received by the Australian Human Rights Commission in 2008 and 2009 related to employment. The commission has also told us that unlawful age discrimination has emerged as a serious disincentive to mature age workers continuing in paid work. This is something that should be of grave concern to all of us, particularly given the composition of our workforce over the coming years and the demographics that we know that we are facing. This is a major issue which must be addressed.

Age discrimination can occur in a number of ways in the workplace—in recruitment processes, access to training, promotions, flexible work practices, targeted restructures and age based bullying. Unfortunately, age discrimination can go unnoticed too often. It is my hope that the establishment of this dedicated role will raise the profile of this issue and provide redress for a number of older workers. We know that mature workers bring significant benefits to the workplace, including a strong sense of loyalty, reliability and insight. The new commissioner will encourage employers and the broader community to appreciate these important qualities and the remarkable skills older Australians bring to the workplace and their communities.

This initiative builds on amendments made to strengthen the Age Discrimination Act in 2009. The establishment of a new commissioner will also complement the work of the government’s consultative forum on mature age participation. In the establishment of a new stand-alone commissioner, I would like to acknowledge the huge efforts of Liz Broderick in this role to date. In making these changes it is absolutely no reflection on the hard work that she has put in and the priority that she has given to this issue. It is, however, an acknowledgment that this is a huge and growing concern—that our demographic changes mean that we need to take the issue seriously. We need to bring about change to these cultures and that means we need a commissioner who can be responsible for overseeing this. This bill will create the conditions for a more equal and more productive workforce and will be in the best interests of all Australians. I would like to commend the Attorney-General for these insightful amendments and also commend the bill to the House.

Nola Marino (Forrest, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As members in this House are aware, for over 25 years the Sex Discrimination Act has made it illegal to discriminate on the grounds of sex, marital status, pregnancy and family responsibilities but, whilst we in the opposition are supportive of moves to protect Australians against sex discrimination and harassment, we reserve our position on the amendments to the Sex Discrimination Act pending the report of the inquiry by the Senate Legal And Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee. Stakeholders have raised concerns that the amendments will have unintended consequences and, in some circumstances, do not perhaps go far enough. Given this, we have referred the bill to the Senate committee for inquiry and report and we will move amendments as necessary.

The second part of this bill relates to age discrimination and the establishment of an Age Discrimination Commissioner. We on this side are very supportive of the draft proposal. There are some really major issues for seniors. It is important that in an age commissioner they have someone who will engage with stakeholders, including industry and community representatives, to tackle discrimination in the workplace and the community. The promotion of respect and fairness for the seven million Australians who are over 50 is extremely important. I personally welcome this move given that there are around 19,000 people over 65 in my electorate of Forrest and given the fact that this number will increase quite rapidly with the growth in population in my region over the next decade.

However, I also draw the attention of the House to a submission made to the Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee by the Office of the Anti-Discrimination Commissioner. The commissioner submitted that there is urgent need of reform of anti-age-discrimination protections not only for seniors but for all Australians. The submission notes that the Gillard government has failed in this area, as it has in so many other attempts to reform governance in Australia. The commission stated:

It is disappointing that the Bill does not amend the Age Discrimination Act 2004 (Cth) to improve the scope of … exceptions and exemptions to this Act.

The office of the commissioner, while broadly supporting the bill, specifically noted that in their view age discrimination is an increasing problem—something that would concern, I suspect, all members in this House.

Discrimination can come in many forms and, unfortunately, when I hear the word ‘discrimination’ I am immediately and forcibly reminded of the Labor government’s changes to youth allowance in the youth allowance legislation. Discrimination is a term that refers to the treatment taken towards or against an individual of a certain group, or consideration based solely on a class or category. It involves excluding or restricting members of one group from the opportunities that are available to other groups.

It is worth repeating this—that discrimination involves excluding or restricting members of one group from opportunities that are available to other groups—because that is exactly what has happened in the government’s youth allowance legislation. We saw it in the result of the vote on my motion this morning in this House. The legislation directly and deliberately makes it more difficult for students in inner regional classified areas to access independent youth allowance—and therefore much more difficult to access tertiary education or training—than for students in outer regional and rural or remote categories.

I believe this is actually a human rights issue for students in rural and regional areas. It is certainly an issue for the families in my electorate. It is a piece of legislation that, by the admission of Labor members in this House, picks winners and losers and, in this case, many of the losers are in my electorate. Students in those areas defined as inner regional are effectively being discriminated against, as are their families. Labor certainly is discriminating against inner regional students by restricting the workforce criteria for these students to only one option while students in outer regional areas have several options to qualify for independent youth allowance. This is discriminatory for students who have no choice but to relocate to study or train, or who have a set of criteria different from the student who attends the same school, lives perhaps only metres away and yet has multiple choice options to qualify for the same opportunity.

During the private members’ business debate on independent youth allowance last week, the member for Hunter outlined the inequality Labor deliberately and knowingly devised in his words:

… the people who are currently disadvantaged are typically those living in rural and regional Australia …

He went on to state, in a reference to Labor’s youth allowance legislation:

Yes, there will be losers.

I, unlike the member for Hunter, am not satisfied with allowing the Labor government to discriminate against great young people and families not only in my constituency but in many others across Australia, and this is why I moved my motion. I do not believe that discriminating against some students based on geographic location is ‘just tough’. I will continue to fight this and I will continue to represent people on these issues.

I note that one of the comments made was that funding was being ‘distributed in a way that was more equitable’. Unfortunately, it is more equitable for one group than another—the very definition of discrimination. More equitable means more just, right, fair or reasonable. They are not words I would use to describe the youth allowance changes that this government forced upon regional students and families throughout Australia. I would not call it just to make parents who live in regional areas—and we in regional areas are all aware of the number of disadvantages faced by families, by businesses and by individuals—choose which of their children to send to university or force them to get a second or even third job to support their child’s tertiary education costs, just because the Labor government drew a line on a map and classified them as inner regional.

The fact that universities will not hold the places for those students that have to work for two years is an even more disastrous decision and the implications are all, unfortunately, lose-lose. If the Labor government is serious about introducing legislation to provide equity and remove discrimination, I think they should start with the youth allowance legislation. In conclusion, the coalition supports the amendments to the Age Discrimination Act as drafted and reserves its position on the Sex Discrimination Act pending the inquiry and report of the Senate Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs. I call on the Labor government to act on the results of the division today on youth allowance.

Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I speak in support of the Sex and Age Discrimination Legislation Amendment Bill 2010. This bill has two aspects: the second aspect is the creation of a dedicated Age Discrimination Commissioner in the Australian Human Rights Commission; the first aspect deals with protections against sexual discrimination and sexual harassment by amending the Sex Discrimination Act 1984. Since we came into office, we have made significant improvements with respect to aged care in this country. For a long time aged care languished as almost the Northern Ireland of Australian politics, where coalition members were appointed either to get a promotion or to be sent to political Siberia for their sins. We have not adopted that attitude with respect to aged care in this country. We have committed about $44 billion over four years to aged-care funding and changed the funding methodology for residential aged-care premises and providers to bring in a new system called ACFI, which made a big difference in the lives of people in the area. I also applaud the nurses union for their wonderful commitment to aged care, particularly to justice for nurses and other workers in the aged-care sector. We have made a big difference in aged care and there is a lot more to do.

One of the things we did when we came to office was appoint our first Ambassador for Ageing, Noeline Brown. This was an important improvement because it said something about what we felt about aged care in this country. We face an enormous challenge in Australia with respect to adequate provision for our elderly. The cost to the taxpayer will be enormous, but how we treat our senior citizens in the years ahead will say a lot about us as a country. The third Intergenerational report outlined significant challenges for us. By 2050 there will be 2.7 Australians for every Australian living over the age of 65 years. This is an enormous challenge. In the 1970s it was about seven Australians; now it is about five. This will be an enormous cost not just to the health and hospital system but to the Department of Health and Ageing and FaHCSIA, because a lot of the assistance we give our senior citizens through funding for carers comes through that department.

I am pleased to see the dedicated position of an Age Discrimination Commissioner in the Human Rights Commission. I think that is important. I think it is extremely timely. I think it says that we treat discrimination on the basis of age seriously. An advocate, someone to turn to, someone to be there to stand up and to listen to people in the aged-care sector and someone to be a voice for them, is important not just as an ambassador but also as an honest broker. The ageing population in this country has highlighted the need for a dedicated commissioner to engage with residential aged-care providers, to advocate on behalf of the aged and to address discrimination in the workforce. As we get older, more and more people of an age at which our parents, grandparents and great-grandparents would have thought about retiring will continue to work. As we get older, as medicine improves and as the health and hospital system improves, they will work for more years. This is an important reform and it is very warmly welcomed.

The other area of discrimination that I think is most pernicious in our society is the area of sexual discrimination and sexual harassment. About one in three Australian women will suffer physical violence in their lifetimes. In many cases these people will suffer it in their workplaces. Almost one in five Australian women will suffer sexual violence. The impact on our community and our workplaces is simply immense. I commend the government for their commitment to addressing this problem, which was made clear in the National plan to reduce violence against women: immediate government actions April 2009.

We know that 85 to 90 per cent of victims of domestic violence are women, usually assaulted by their male partners. Domestic violence takes many forms. It can be simply a look, a gesture, a phone call, the destruction of property, the physical punching of walls, the use of an implement, cruelty to domestic pets or the showing of a weapon. It takes many guises and has many disguises. Verbal abuse to children is a form of domestic violence. So too are threats to commit suicide, name-calling, ridicule, social abuse and isolation, emotional abuse, stalking, controlling behaviours—so not just the act of sexual violence, which simply is a matter of sexual oppression, power and control. So making a stand against sexual harassment and sexual discrimination in the workplace and strengthening the protections—as this legislation does—are very important. It sends a message that we will not tolerate this, that this is a national tragedy and a disgrace and that we should stand up against the perpetrators of such horrendous deeds, not just in their homes but in the workplaces of Australians.

Nearly one in five complaints received by the Australian Human Rights Commission under the Sex Discrimination Act relate to sexual harassment, and the vast majority of those take place in the workplace, according to complaints data from the Human Rights Commission. It is very sad that more than one in 10 Australians have witnessed sexual harassment in the workplace in the last five years, according to the commission’s Sexual harassment: serious business report. Only 16 per cent of those who have been sexually harassed in the last five years in the workplace formally reported or made a complaint—another tragedy. We need to support those who feel that they have been sexually harassed and indeed have been sexually harassed.

There are other aspects of this legislation in terms of amendments to the Sex Discrimination Act. They provide equal protection for men and women. They broaden the prohibition of discrimination on the grounds of family responsibilities to provide equal protection against discrimination, including indirect discrimination, for both men and women in all forms of work. Family responsibilities these days are different from what happened many years ago and what was the perception of the norm in our Australian community, so we are committed to supporting families in any way that we can, to making sure that there are adequate protections in place and to allowing a greater degree of structural flexibility and domestic malleability in people’s arrangements in their homes and workplaces.

I am pleased with the third aspect of the amendments in this legislation: to establish breastfeeding as a separate ground of discrimination, rather than as a subset of sex discrimination. This comes from a recommendation from a committee. We know, as previous speakers have talked about, of the fact that there was an inquiry by the Senate Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs into this particular matter and that the committee tabled a report entitled Inquiry into the effectiveness of the Sex Discrimination Act in eliminating discrimination and promoting gender equality. The government’s response to that report of 12 December 2008 was tabled on 4 May 2010 and, as a result of that government response, we have put forward legislation. That report specifically recommended that breastfeeding be noted by way of legislation as a specific ground of discrimination. I am pleased that the government has taken up the mantle and put this amendment in the legislation.

I did mention before the fact that there are strengthening provisions as to sexual harassment in workplaces and schools. We have seen some notorious cases in the media recently, and I will not discuss or go into those, but sexual harassment takes many forms. It can be simply physical, but one of the most serious aspects of sexual discrimination and of sexual harassment in particular concerns areas of cyberbullying. With the proliferation of the internet we have seen more and more of that happening, with Facebook and other forms of internet media becoming an electronic means by which sexual harassment continues.

These amendments are particularly important because they protect the lives of women at home and in the workplace. Also they stand up for the rights of our senior citizens and they make a very clear statement that we in this parliament are against all forms of sexual harassment and sexual discrimination, whether at home or in the workplace and so throughout our community, in any organisation or in any context. These things must be stamped out. We need to say that these things are totally unacceptable in the Australia of the 21st century.

Sharman Stone (Murray, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I too stand to support the Sex and Age Discrimination Legislation Amendment Bill 2010. It covers an area of significance in Australian society. Whether you are male or female, young or old, it is about the business of making sure that, whatever your racial or ethnic background in Australia, you are not subject to discrimination. We must make sure the laws of this country do provide equal protection. The bill proposes to make four substantive amendments to the Sex Discrimination Act, and I commend all of them. I would hope that they will actually bring about real change in the norms of our society and so the culture itself. It is one thing to have the right words in legislation but it is another to have those words become part of our daily living and for people to understand what a fair go in our country is.

The first point made in the bill is that we extend the act to ensure equal protection for men as well as women. This might sound a bit amazing given that typically women have been on the hard end of egalitarianism or equal opportunity, but it is important, as our family caring is changing with more men choosing to support the mothers of their children, that it is not seen as abnormal or something to be discriminated against when the father who is in a caring role—or sharing a caring responsibility with his partner—asks for family leave or for a flexible workplace or for part-time work. So it is an important extension of the act to ensure equal protection.

The second point is to broaden the prohibition of discrimination on the grounds of family responsibilities to include indirect discrimination toward both men and women in all areas of their work. That is very like the first point. We are saying it is discriminatory if a man or woman on returning from parental leave is given lesser opportunity in their workplace and denied access to the sort of mentoring or career advancement which was offered or available to them before they took parental leave. It is subtle but it is true that one of the biggest career limiters in Australian society right now is to have a baby. When a woman takes maternity leave and then return to work after a short or longer time of leave she very often encounters a different response to her as a committed and dedicated career minded person in that business or public sector position. That is not fair, and it is often indirect.

We have to make sure, as women become pregnant in our society, have their children and perhaps choose to exclusively breastfeed for the first six months at least, that they do not meet a new set of ceilings in their future advancement because they are seen as a higher risk in the time they will spend at work. There is an expectation that they will not be the first at work in the morning or the last to leave and that they should, therefore, be limited in their future careers in that place, with men or women without children given better opportunities. We have also got to make sure that breastfeeding is seen as something that is natural in our Australian society. It is the best for the baby. So there is a third element of the bill which establishes breastfeeding as a separate ground of potential discrimination.

The bill aims to strengthen the protections against sexual harassment in workplaces and schools to also include cyberbullying and electronic harassment. This is the fourth and final substantive amendment to the SDA. This is a very sad outcome of our new electronic communications age. Teenagers and younger girls can be subjected to the most horrific bullying and intimidation via their text messaging or the internet. We have to make sure that we keep up with the changes in technology and that parents are able to identify exactly what is going on in the lives of their children and how these new technologies can be used to make the life of bullied children hell. This is a very important addition to the bill to recognise that this is a growing and serious problem in our society as well as internationally in many developed countries.

In this whole business of sex and age discrimination, Australia is not doing well. Perhaps as a result of better reporting or more police awareness, we have growing numbers of women reporting domestic or family violence. Significant injuries and emotional distress are a consequence of family violence and it is often learned behaviour in the family so that it becomes intergenerational. If children see their mother being abused, it becomes the learned response of boys—and girls—in the family that how you act out your aggression, rage, impotency and sense of society rejecting you is to cause great physical and emotional harm to those nearest to you.

It is a fact that, when women go to the police or in some other way report violence being directed against them and their children, that is when they are often most in danger or at risk of that violence escalating. Often in these abusive relationships women are threatened that, if they tell the police or someone else who might intervene, they will be killed or it will get worse for them. The realities are that it does get worse for them. So we have to be much more determined as a society to go back to the beginning of the problem and understand how we are going to make sure respect for women is somehow transmitted and communicated to younger children where they are not learning this respect in the family. We have to make sure that our younger people growing up understand the rights of men and women, boys and girls—their rights to be safe, to be respected, to be treated as human beings who have the right to express their own independence and to develop and maximise their opportunities, that they are not to be owned by a man in a marital relationship and their every waking moment is not to dominated by a partner who may be abusive.

This government has not yet responded sufficiently to the national council’s call for a national response to domestic and family violence. We have not had adequate resourcing for places of refuge or support for women fleeing these very difficult situations. In my own area I heard recently of a program commenced under the coalition government called Bsafe—B stands for Benalla. It was a cost-effective program where women who had a restraining order taken out against partners who were abusive—and who had already proved through our legal systems that they needed protection—were issued with a fairly low-cost monitor. If they saw the abusive partner approaching, coming to their home or trying to break the restraining order in any way, they could press the button on the monitor and immediately, via a call centre, the call was directed to local police.

That was a very effective way to enable those women to tell their partners that help was on the way for them and that there were others who were aware that he was breaking the orders that were in place. The women found that there was then a lessening of attempts by abusive partners to break those orders. It gave the women and even some family members who also knew how to use the monitoring device a much greater sense of security. There were several instances where sons were able to use the monitor to alert the police when their mothers were not able to, so a very serious and dangerous situation was averted.

The tragedy is that this program runs out of funding at the end of this year. It involves only several hundred thousand dollars. It involves a coordinator who manages the use of monitors by some 70 women. At the moment, they have applied for new funding and they have been told that there is no funding to carry on this excellent program. The coordinator told me the agony she is going through having to tell this to these women, who have been given a life back through the use of these monitors and who can live safely in their homes and leave their homes with some sense of security. The coordinator has had to say: ‘Sorry, we’re going to have to cut this service off. We’re going to have to remove this monitor from you. We’ve lost the government funding. We know this program has been very successful and we can demonstrate that, but the Gillard government is not choosing to continue this funding.’

This is a very, very sad situation and I beg the appropriate ministers to revisit Bsafe. It involves very little money when you consider the great benefits that have come out of the program. One of the main benefits of the program is that women and their families can stay in their own homes. They have not had to relocate to a motel, a hotel or a refuge in another place, disrupting their children’s schooling and cutting them off from their peers, their friends and other supportive family networks. It is a cost-effective but very important program. It is something that should be expanded across Australia, not cut off when it is providing the means for a lot of women to regain a decent life and break the cycle of intergenerational abuse.

Australia’s gender pay gap is getting wider, and that is another very serious situation. It is astonishing to know that laws were passed in Australia for equal pay in the 1970s. But look at the situation now. For example, a woman accountant and a male accountant with the same qualifications and similar work experience receive pay rates that are, on average, substantially different. The average difference in pay for a first-year-out male law graduate compared to a first-year-out female law graduate doing similar legal work in a similar sized company is $7,000. And as they progress through their careers that pay gap gets wider.

The difference between the pay packages for men and women at the level of chief executive officer or chief financial officer in Australia can be up to 50 per cent. It is no wonder that a lot of women feel discriminated against and that their true worth in the workplace is undermined. Very often, the confidentiality agreements or secrecy agreements wrapped around these packages are specifically designed to keep women from knowing what their male colleagues are earning. This adds to the problem of full disclosure and transparency in the workplace to help ensure women get a decent go. It quite obviously affects the productivity of women. It affects their superannuation. It is one of the reasons that 73 per cent of single age pensioners are women. Women have a fraction of the savings and superannuation when they reach retirement, and are more likely to have to end up dependent on welfare. They live a poor old age compared to their male counterparts. Given that women are typically the carers of children, grandchildren and their older relatives—their own parents or their in-laws—this is a very, very poor outcome for a country like Australia that claims to be a land of equal opportunity and one that provides a fair go for all.

The percentage of women on boards is a disgrace—only 8.3 per cent of board members are women. Very few women hold directorships. In the top ASX 200 companies only seven women hold directorships. Looking at all that, we would have to say that Australian society does not understand that women have a biological determinism affecting their careers. Women are going to take time off when they are pregnant and when they are raising children. May it always be the case that women in Australia can choose to have families, but they should not be discriminated against in the workplace and blocked from becoming senior board members, managers or directors in companies because they have a work history which includes some time off or some period of part-time work. That is the case in Australia right now.

It is good we have the Paid Parental Leave scheme starting in January next year, but it is sad that it is not going to be a decent paid parental leave scheme like the one the coalition endorsed—and that we will bring into this country when we are next elected. However, it is a start. But it should not be the poor paid parental leave scheme that it is: no superannuation, for example. This just perpetuates the problems for women as they retire. (Time expired)

Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Murray, mostly, for her contribution. I am pleased to speak in support of the Sex and Age Discrimination Legislation Amendment Bill 2010. This bill is another step along the way to breaking down the barriers that discriminate and divide us. The most notable achievement is our Paid Parent Leave scheme, which will kick off from 1 January next year and provide real support for working mums and dads and their young families. But Labor have also worked hard to remove discriminatory language from legislation and provide equal treatment for same-sex couples for superannuation and other financial matters—although there might be an argument that there is more work to be done there.

This bill delivers greater protection against discrimination for Australians in the workplace. It does so by expanding the grounds for discrimination of family responsibilities beyond termination to include other forms of direct and indirect discrimination. This applies to men and women equally and is part of the Gillard government’s commitment to support working families. Australian workplaces will need to provide greater flexibility for workers to allow them to fulfil their caring responsibilities.

This bill provides specific protection for women who are breastfeeding, making it a separate ground of discrimination. It also extends protection against sexual harassment in workplaces and schools. The test for sexual harassment will be amended so that harassment occurs if a reasonable person would anticipate the possibility that the person harassed would be offended, humiliated or intimidated—an important consideration, particularly when it comes to breastfeeding. Sexual harassment is unacceptable, and I welcome any measures to ensure it is not a part of Australian workplaces and schools. I spent 11 years as a schoolteacher and five years as a union organiser working in schools as well, so I know some of the battles that take place in education workplaces in particular.

This bill also implements an election commitment of the Gillard government to creating a new position of Age Discrimination Commissioner in the Australian Human Rights Commission. All of us would agree that Australians of all ages, young and not so young, have the right to be treated fairly and to have access to the same opportunities as everyone else. Already the Age Discrimination Act 2004 protects people from discrimination on the basis of age in employment, education, accommodation and the provision of goods and services.

In 2007, Elizabeth Broderick was appointed Sex Discrimination Commissioner and Commissioner Responsible for Age Discrimination. However, the Gillard government recognises that age discrimination has become such a significant issue in the community that a commission with responsibility solely for age discrimination is required. This bill will establish the new position of a dedicated advocate for people, particularly older Australians, who experience age discrimination. The Age Discrimination Commissioner will also work with the community and industry to tackle discrimination in workplaces, promote respect and fairness and fight the attitudes and stereotypes that contribute to age discrimination.

The election of Wyatt Roy, the new member for Longman, to the House of Representatives as the youngest ever member shows that age really is no barrier—unfortunately I did not get to hear his first speech but I gather it was a commendable effort—just as age was no barrier for Edward Braddon. I was not around when Edward Braddon was elected to parliament—that was in 1901—but he was elected aged 71 years and nine months. Hopefully, the current member for Longman will avoid Edward Braddon’s fate. He died suddenly at his home in February1904 while parliament was in recess.

I thank the Attorney-General for introducing this bill and for his work over three years to eliminate discrimination and inequities in Australian law. I commend the bill to the House.

Jill Hall (Shortland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I congratulate the member for Moreton on his fine contribution to this debate. I know he has a total commitment to eliminating any form of discrimination. The Sex and Age Discrimination Legislation Amendment Bill 2010 amends the Sex Discrimination Act 1984 to strengthen protections against sexual harassment, establish breastfeeding as a separate ground of discrimination and extend protection on the grounds of family responsibilities against discrimination in the workplace. Also included in this legislation is the establishment of the position of Age Discrimination Commissioner.

Firstly, I will touch on the subject of breastfeeding. In the parliament before last, the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Health and Ageing conducted an inquiry into breastfeeding and, in its report, made a number of recommendations relating to changes that needed to take place in the workplace. I am pleased to say that, following the tabling of that report, this parliament has become a breastfeeding-friendly workplace, and is recognised as such by the Australian Breastfeeding Association.

This legislation is vitally important. We need to eliminate age discrimination and we will do that by the appointment of a commissioner, through this legislation. We need to look at discrimination against young people and we will do that through the changes in the legislation that we have before us today. I come from an electorate that has the 11th oldest population of all Australian electorates. People talk to me on an ongoing basis about the discrimination that they face because they are older and looking for work. Discrimination can be very subtle. It can be as subtle as an old person in hospital being ignored by staff because they are deemed to be older and not as strong cognitively at other patients. Quite often that older person is brighter, more alert and more in touch with things that are happening around them than other people, but they are discriminated against on grounds of age.

I did a brainstorming exercise with a group of people. We asked what old age stands for and put the answers up on a board. There were words and phrases like ‘disability’, ‘dependence’, ‘frail’, ‘not as alert’—a whole lot of negative terms—rather than the positives that are associated with age such as ‘wisdom’, ‘life skills’, ‘life experience’ and ‘knowledge’. The establishment of an Age Discrimination Commissioner will give those people who are discriminated against on the grounds of age a focal point for lodging complaints about that discrimination. I know that in New South Wales the most commonly reported form of discrimination in the workplace is on the grounds of age.

The amendments in this legislation in relation to breastfeeding will ensure that all workplaces are set up so that mothers rejoining the workforce can continue to breastfeed, a decision that will deliver the best health outcomes for their babies. Mothers will not be discriminated against when they return to work. All workplaces need to become breastfeeding-friendly workplaces, as is Parliament House.

The changes the minister has made concerning discrimination in educational institutions are very important. They will prevent a person being discriminated against not only within their own educational institution but across wider educational institutions. I would recommend that the House read an article by Susan Fineran and Larry Bennett titled Teenage peer sexual harassment: implications for social work practice in education. That article highlights a number of issues in relation to sexual harassment—sexual comments, jokes, gestures or looks, pictures, photographs, illustrations, messages or notes and sexual rumours—and quotes a number of young people who attend educational institutions.

The Sex and Age Discrimination Legislation Amendment Bill 2010 is very important legislation. It goes to removing discrimination in our society and I commend the minister for bringing this to the House. I put on record my strong support for the legislation.

Greg Hunt (Flinders, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Climate Action, Environment and Heritage) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It gives me great pleasure to support the Sex and Age Discrimination Legislation Amendment Bill 2010. The reason this bill is important is very simple: it is about ensuring that we are a society of genuine and full equal opportunity. Of itself, it will not guarantee those great goals but it is part of the ongoing process of ensuring that we are a society based on merit and opportunity which gives all people the chance to live, to the best of their ability, the life of their choice. That is the broad parameter which underpins this bill and unites both sides of this House.

Let me begin with my electorate of Flinders. Demographically, Flinders is the fifth eldest electorate in the country. We have over 25,000 seniors, we have a great tradition and a base of seniors who are part of the workforce. Many seniors talk to me of their difficulties, most particularly blue-collar labourers who have had difficulty maintaining employment. Often they have found that it is the nudge on or the isolation which represents discrimination within the workplace—hard things to quantify and define, but real nevertheless. They face the problem, if they are retrenched or they have a period of unemployment, that it is very difficult for blue-collar manual labourers over 50 years of age to get new employment. That is a great personal challenge. It is a burden for workers which brings with it a sense of isolation, an economic impact, doubt as to self-worth and the question, ‘What future lies before me?’ That is a profoundly important element.

In 1989, I did a thesis in my second last year of university, in the subject Law and Discrimination, on age discrimination. It was absolutely clear then that we were in need of significant steps forward, including an age discrimination commissioner, adequate age discrimination protection and recognition of the different forms of age discrimination. It has been an abiding interest for over 21 years. I am delighted that we have made progress as a parliament, as a body politic in this space.

The particular amendment contained within this bill to establish an Age Discrimination Commissioner under the Australian Human Rights Commission is a welcome development which I endorse and embrace and for which we provide bipartisan support. It comes from a bipartisan report of the parliament and I believe it is an important step forward. I am only sorry it has not happened previously, but we are moving in a positive direction, building on the work of both sides of this House over the years.

The second element of this bill is the issue of sex discrimination. I make the point briefly that the first of four elements within this legislation to extend the Sex Discrimination Act to ensure equal protection for men as well as women is important, although it has to be used judiciously. There is a place for female sporting clubs and we do not want to erode the appropriate protections that people have; there can be sanctuaries. Women need sanctuaries and places, and it is appropriate in certain circumstances that they have the right staff. The second element is that we broaden the prohibition on discrimination on the ground of family responsibilities to include indirect discrimination to both men and women in all areas of their work. The third element is that we establish breast feeding as a separate ground of discrimination and the fourth is that we strengthen the protection against sexual harassment in workplaces and schools to include cyberbullying and electronic harassment.

These are important steps forward. I am delighted to support them. Obviously we want to look through the Senate process to see if there are any further amendments, and we reserve our rights on those, but we support this bill. We support the steps within it. We support its place in the history of the development of equal opportunity and equal treatment in Australian society and the Australian workplace. I am delighted to give my support under those circumstances.

Robert McClelland (Barton, Australian Labor Party, Attorney-General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

in reply—I thank all honourable members for their very constructive contributions to the debate on the Sex and Age Discrimination Legislation Amendment Bill 2010 and especially the member for Flinders, who is just leaving, I will have to get hold of a copy of his thesis so I can appreciate his reference to the work he has previously undertaken. I note, just by way of another example, the member for Murray made the important observation that the legislation is only the first step. We hope that this does lead to a cultural change to recognise the idea of a fair go for all regardless of sex, age or family responsibilities or any other circumstances. We certainly take on board the points she made and that there is more work to collectively do in this space.

The bill itself will make important amendments to the Sex Discrimination Act to better protect both women and men from discrimination and sexual harassment in the workplace, in schools and in the community at large. These changes will ensure that our antidiscrimination laws meet the needs of contemporary Australians and will make it easier for people to understand their rights and their responsibilities. It is in the interests of individual citizens but also, we believe, more generally to have more productive, flexible workplaces where the churn and turnover of staff is minimised by the development of this culture.

The amendments have been informed, as has been mentioned by members, by the bipartisan report of the Senate Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs into the effectiveness of the Sex Discrimination Act, which now has been in place for some 25 years. I again thank members from all sides of the parliament for the work they did. The government will also consider other recommendations from the committee’s report as part of the government’s commitment to the Australian Human Rights Framework. That commitment is a commitment to consolidate federal antidiscrimination laws into a single comprehensive act. That will also provide the opportunity to revisit not only the structure of our antidiscrimination laws but also any gaps or areas where improvements could be made, having regard to contemporary standards and developments.

I am also pleased that the bill includes amendments to establish the position of a stand-alone Age Discrimination Commissioner, which the member for Flinders has just welcomed. The government is committed to tackling age discrimination in all its forms through the creation—for the first time at a federal level—of a dedicated Age Discrimination Commissioner, and that position will be located within the Australian Human Rights Commission.

I also take the opportunity to mention and commend the outstanding work that Sex Discrimination Commissioner Liz Broderick has done in the area of both sex discrimination and age discrimination. Having a dedicated Age Discrimination Commissioner is no reflection on the outstanding work that she has done but is simply a recognition of the changing demographics in our society and the increasing need to focus on the rights of senior Australians. The Age Discrimination Commissioner will be able to advocate on behalf of all those who face age discrimination, including obviously older Australians.

In conclusion, this bill will implement important reforms in the areas of sex and age discrimination. These reforms are but one part of the government’s strong commitment to fostering an inclusive Australia and ensuring that our antidiscrimination laws are relevant now and into the foreseeable future. I commend the bill to the House.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.