Anne McEwen (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I too want to make a few comments regarding the ministerial statement presented on behalf of the Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for Women, Senator the Hon. Michaelia Cash.

I note that the Commission on the Status of Women is the principal global intergovernmental body that is dedicated to the promotion of gender equality and the empowerment of women. Like Senator Moore, I would like to acknowledge the work of all the people who attended the CSW meeting in New York, to which the ministerial statement refers. However, I would also like to note that Australia is a signatory to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, CEDAW—and proudly so.

One of the articles in that convention is the right to 'maternity leave', as it is called in the convention. The convention states that in order to prevent discrimination against women on the grounds of marriage or maternity and to ensure their effective right to work, states parties to the convention shall take appropriate measures to do a number of things—in particular:

To introduce maternity leave with pay or with comparable social benefits without loss of former employment, seniority or social allowances;

That is partly why the Labor Party introduced the first state funded paid parental leave scheme into Australia—a fact of which I am very proud. So it was very disturbing to hear this week, in a discussion about the federal budget, members of the Abbott government refer to women who access paid parental leave as rorting the system and committing fraud. I think that it is a dreadful thing to say about women who access their rights and entitlements that are enshrined in international law as well as in Australian law. It is dreadful that people in the Abbott government, including ministers, should refer to women who access their legal entitlements as committing fraud and as being rorters.

I also think that it is appalling that the minister who just had this statement tabled on her behalf, the Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for Women, has been vacant in this debate about the attacks on paid parental leave by the Abbott government. It is all very well for her to stand up here and present this report, but where is she defending women who have accessed their legal entitlements to paid parental leave? Perhaps this is a symptom of the fact that in Australia the current minister for women is the Prime Minister, who is a man. If people in this place do not think that that is a joke internationally then I suggest they listen to how Australia is viewed in that regard.

We have a Prime Minister, who is a man, who is the minister for women. That is part the embarrassing reason why, this week, we have seen attacks on women who access the legal international entitlement to paid parental leave.