Jane Hume (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak on the Fair Work Amendment (Family and Domestic Violence Leave) Bill. I'm very proud, as a member of this government, and as a female member of this government, to rise to speak to this bill today in the same week that we also passed the Family Law Amendment (Family Violence and Cross-examination of Parties) Bill. It is a demonstration that this government is committed to addressing the scourge of family violence in this country. We have already funded over $300 million worth of services and programs to address the issue of family violence, including the $100 million Women's Safety Package in 2015.

This bill that we rise to speak on today delivers on the government's commitment to extend the decision of the Fair Work Commission in March 2018 to grant five days unpaid leave for up to 2.3 million workers on awards and for up to six million additional workers. It's very important that the parliament reflect on how we got to this important moment, so I'd like to speak about the deliberations and the decisions of the Fair Work Commission on this matter.

This bill reflects years of careful consideration of the issue of family and domestic violence leave by the Fair Work Commission, whose role under the Fair Work Act 2009 is to:

… ensure that modern awards, together with the National Employment Standards, provide a fair and relevant minimum safety net of terms and conditions …

The ACTU's claim for a new entitlement to 10 days of paid family and domestic violence leave was, in fact, rejected by the commission on 3 July 2017 after it considered extensive evidence and submissions from a wide range of interested parties. Instead, the commission indicated a preliminary view that an unpaid leave entitlement should be inserted into modern awards. The commission confirmed that preliminary view on 26 March this year when it decided that an entitlement to five days unpaid family and domestic violence leave should be inserted into modern awards as a minimum entitlement. After the commission's decision on 26 March this year, the Fair Work Commission issued a draft award term for consideration by the parties. The commission invited further written submissions after that point from unions, and also from employer groups, on the draft term and then held a further hearing on 21 June. Further submissions were made following that hearing. On 6 July this year the Fair Work Commission issued the final award term. On 27 July the model term was inserted into all modern awards, and it commenced operations on 1 August this year. The government introduced the bill into parliament in the first following sitting period. Any claim that the government has been dragging its feet on this decision is false and, dare I say, scurrilous.

The commission's decision was reached after four years of consideration of evidence and was based on the input and advocacy of a range of unions and employer representative bodies. Between October 2014 and July 2018, the Fair Work Commission considered 68 written submissions from 27 separate parties and heard evidence from 26 witnesses over 11 days of hearings in its consideration of both paid and unpaid family and domestic violence leave. Submissions were made and hearings were conducted for every single step of the process. It's worth recalling some of the commission's findings. I would like to quote some of them now. The commission said:

… we are not satisfied, at this time, that it is necessary to provide ten days paid family and domestic violence leave to all employees covered by modern awards.

It also went on to say:

The ACTU has not provided a satisfactory explanation as to how it arrived at ten days and the evidence does not support a finding that ten days paid leave is necessary.

That is from the Fair Work Commission, the independent umpire established by the previous government. The commission also concluded:

… we should take a cautious approach to the introduction of family and domestic violence leave, particularly paid family and domestic violence leave.

'A cautious approach': that was the considered decision of the commission when it decided on five days unpaid leave. The government intends to legislate this to ensure that employees who do not have access to the award entitlement will still be able to access five days unpaid family and domestic violence leave. In line with the commission's model award term, the new family and domestic violence leave entitlement in the bill will be available to all employees, including part-time and casual employees. The five days leave will be available at the start of each 12-month period and will not accumulate from year to year.

The differences between the model term and the bill are very minor and only technical in nature, and they reflect the different legal contexts in which they operate. For example, the bill deals with its interaction with state laws, which is necessary because the subject matter of leave for victims of crime was, in fact, excluded from the state referrals by all referring states. These are necessary variations and they don't in any way undermine the government's commitment to extend the entitlement for award-reliant employees to all employees covered by the Fair Work Act. This is an important improvement to the minimum safety net of terms and conditions, and the parliament should pass it without delay.

This bill is a very significant step forward in how workplaces respond to the issue of family and domestic violence. We know from ABS data that over 60 per cent of women experiencing violence from a current partner are working. The workplace can provide a place of normalcy and safety for people experiencing family and domestic violence, and in that environment colleagues can also be a vital source of emotional support. Indeed, it can be somewhat of a sanctuary. But we also know that victims of family and domestic violence will have times when they need to take leave from work to deal with the impact of the violence inflicted upon them. However, currently not all employees have the workplace right to take necessary leave from work at such a difficult time in their lives. So the government's bill that we are considering today proposes such leave for up to eight million employees under the Fair Work Act.

The government's bill provides for a new universal entitlement to five days family and domestic violence leave. It will allow people to take time off to attend to matters that would be impractical to deal with outside of work hours. The bill matches the decision of the Fair Work Commission for award-reliant employees. Legislating this universal entitlement will provide both equity and consistency between award-reliant and other national system employees and employers. There are about 810,000 small businesses with award-reliant employees and, therefore, they are affected by the Fair Work Commission's family and domestic violence leave decision. The bill does not create any additional obligations on those businesses. Larger businesses, in fact, are more likely to have an existing enterprise agreement or other registered agreement already in place and these agreements may not offer any family or domestic violence leave. So, by legislating family and domestic violence leave as part of the National Employment Standards, all businesses, regardless of their size, must provide this workplace right to employees.

Employers should expect certainty from government and from this parliament. They make decisions on the basis of what this government says it will do. In this case, we have committed to taking the right step at this time, matching the Fair Work Commission decision on unpaid leave. The commission, in determining what was right for a fair and relevant minimum safety net, decided that unpaid leave was necessary to enable employees to take time off to deal with matters while also maintaining the security of their employment. The commission rejected that paid leave was necessary. As it is required to do, the commission weighed up what was fair for working Australians and also appropriate for businesses at this time. The Fair Work Commission said that unpaid leave would confirm the significance of family and domestic violence leave as a workplace right and it would also provide an employment protection in circumstances where there is a need to access that leave. It committed to looking at the issue of family and domestic violence leave again in mid-2021, including whether further provision should be made for paid family and domestic violence leave. So the commission will be looking at this issue once more.

Up to 2.3 million award-reliant employees have had access to this new workplace right since 1 August 2018, based on the Fair Work Commission's decision. Legislating family and domestic violence leave as part of the National Employment Standards will provide this entitlement to up to six million additional employees. All national system employees will have access to this new workplace right regardless of whether they are full-time, part-time or casual employees. They will have access to this new workplace right regardless of whether they work for a small, medium or large employer. They will have access to this new workplace right regardless of whether they are employed under a modern award, an enterprise agreement or an individual agreement.

Legislating this entitlement into the Fair Work Act means that an employee who takes family and domestic violence leave will be protected from unlawful adverse action under the general protection provisions of the Fair Work Act. This means that someone can take time off work to do things that need to be done, whether it be moving house or making arrangements for their children's safety, and they can do that confident that their job is protected while they do so.

This new workplace entitlement will complement other protections that already exist under the Fair Work Act. Employees, for instance, who experience illness or injury as a result of family and domestic violence can access personal sick leave. Employees who need to care for immediate family or for household members who are ill or injured in an unexpected emergency as a result of family and domestic violence can access carer's leave. Employees experiencing family and domestic violence leave can also request flexible working arrangements, including changing their hours of work or their location of work. Combined with this new leave entitlement in this particular bill, the Fair Work Act provides significant support to employees who are dealing with the impact of family and domestic violence.

We all have a role to play in dealing with family and domestic violence. The workplace is where many of us spend a significant proportion of our time and our lives, and it is right and proper that employees in the national system have access to a consistent minimum standard of family and domestic violence leave. This new minimum condition cannot be bargained away, and it will form part of the safety net for all employees whether they work in large, small or medium businesses. Enshrining five days unpaid family and domestic violence leave into the National Employment Standards establishes the floor, not the ceiling, and it extends a guaranteed entitlement to up to six million employees under the Fair Work Act who do not currently have access to such leave.

Women need to feel safe in their communities. They need to feel safe online, they need to feel safe at home and they need to feel safe in their workplaces. This government is committed to addressing the issue of family and domestic violence. We know that around 17 per cent of women over the age of 15 have experienced violence, whether it be physical or sexual, from a current or former partner—that's nearly one in six women over the age of 15. This government is committed to resolutely addressing family and domestic violence. It is an issue that demands action on not just this front but many fronts. The bill that's before us today, to provide a minimum standard of five days unpaid leave for all employees covered by the Fair Work Act, is an important step to take now, and it's one of many actions that this government has taken on family and domestic violence.

I will reiterate again that, since we were elected in 2013, we have committed over $300 million to addressing family and domestic violence. That is more than any government has ever committed previously. In 2015 we committed $100 million through the Women's Safety Package. That provided crucial funding for programs like the 1800RESPECT line, which is a national telephone and online counselling information service, which can ensure that more women, even in remote communities, can get the support they need. We also funded local women's caseworkers to coordinate and support women who are escaping domestic violence. That includes housing, safety and budgeting services.

In 2016 we committed a further $100 million under the Third Action Plan of the National Plan to Reduce Violence against Women and their Children. That Third Action Plan sets out an ambitious agenda that, with the support of key stakeholders and the community, will substantially reduce domestic, family and sexual violence in Australia. And the work has not stopped there; work on developing the Fourth Action Plan is also well underway.

As part of this process, the Minister for Women, the Hon. Kelly O'Dwyer MP, co-chaired the COAG National Summit on Reducing Violence against Women and their Children in Adelaide at the beginning of October this year. Recent federal budgets have also underscored this government's commitment to addressing family and domestic violence. We announced a number of measures in the 2017-18 budget, including $55.7 million for community legal centres directed to frontline family law and family violence services. There was $10.7 million for the family law courts to employ additional family consultants, who prepare family reports to inform the court about risks to family safety. There was $12.7 million to establish Parent Management Hearings, a new and innovative forum to resolve family law disputes between self-represented litigants. And there was $3.4 million to expand the national pilot program for Specialist Domestic Violence Units that provide wraparound, legal and other support services to women who are experiencing or who are at risk of family and domestic violence.

Further measures announced in the 2018-19 budget include $22 million over five years to address the abuse of older Australians, which affects up to 20 per cent of elderly women; $14.2 million over four years for the Office of the e-Safety Commissioner, to help make cyberspace safe for women; $6.7 million to maintain funding for DV-alert to continue its domestic violence response training for community frontline workers; and an additional $11.5 million for the national sexual assault, domestic and family violence counselling service—the 1800RESPECT line that I referred to earlier—over the next two years. That 1800RESPECT line has proven to be a vital support service for so many women. On 27 November 2018, just this year, the government announced an additional $10.9 million for 1800RESPECT to ensure it continues to deliver a trusted and valued service to the community.

In November this year the Minister for Women also delivered the first Women's Economic Security Statement, worth over $109 million over four years, to shine a floodlight on obstacles to women building their financial security and focusing on practical measures to help change that. The measures in that statement to support women's economic independence are worth over $35.6 million over four years and include a number of measures to help Australian women experiencing family and domestic violence.

Domestic violence is an issue that this government has not ignored, and which no government can afford to ignore. It has both physically- and psychologically-damaging outcomes. Indeed, those who have suffered at the hands of domestic violence are possibly the most vulnerable in our community. This legislation is not a silver bullet, neither is the family law amendment which prevents cross-examination and nor is the inaugural Women's Economic Security Statement, but they all help and they're a demonstration of the commitment by this government. This legislation is necessary, but more so is a cultural shift: violence against women begins with respecting women.