Dana Wortley (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak about International Women’s Day and the great advances that have been made in achieving equality in this country and around the world. In doing so, I am pleased to see that we have a woman in the chair this evening. Clearly, there is a long way to go—in some countries much further than others.

In Australia we can be relatively proud of our efforts to achieve equality for women, often against remarkable odds. My state of South Australia can be particularly proud of its part as a world leader in women’s rights. While suffragette protests for the right to vote raged in London, Philadelphia and Boston in the later years of the 19th century, South Australia went a step further in 1894 when it became the first state to give women the right to vote in state parliament. The bill was enacted in 1895 and brought to life in the election of 1896. We have indeed come a long way since the passing of the Commonwealth Franchise Act in 1902, when Australia became the first country in the world to give women the right to vote and to stand for federal parliament. However, it was another 41 years before the first woman was elected.

The Labor Party can be particularly proud of its part in bringing women’s causes to the fore and promoting women to their rightful place. The Rudd government boasts more women in senior parliamentary positions than any other Australian government, and, of course, it has given us our first woman Deputy Prime Minister in Julia Gillard. On the other side of the chamber Opposition Leader Tony Abbott, in reshaping his coalition team, has seen fit to reduce the number of women in his shadow cabinet. There were three, but there are now only two in the shadow cabinet of 22, whereas women make up 35 per cent of the federal Labor government.

The efforts of women to achieve equality of course go well beyond the walls of our parliament. Many women who have strived for a career have historically been forced to balance that career with the needs of family, until recent often years without any consideration of the difficulties presented. The Rudd Labor government has thrown its support behind Year of Women in Local Government 2010, an initiative to improve the participation of women in local government leadership and management. The government will be providing nearly $500,000 for a range of practical projects to help improve the participation of women in local government.

It is much needed. Less than one-third of our local government councillors are women; only 20 per cent of senior managers are women; and, even worse, only seven per cent of our council chief executives are women. We have come a long way, but, as these figures indicate, there is a long way still to go. The government is throwing its support behind a raft of initiatives aimed at giving women a better chance to rise through the ranks in local government, among them the 50:50 Vision: Councils for Gender Equity program, which looks at women’s participation and leadership in councils and shires, and the 2010 Management Challenge, promoting gender equity in 130 local councils around Australia.

The federal government recognises the very real and practical need for working mothers, or primary caregivers, to take paid leave from work after the birth of a child without the threat of losing their job. Under this government’s historic paid parental leave scheme, working mothers and other primary carers whose children are born on or after 1 January 2011 will be able to take advantage of 18 weeks leave at the rate of the federal minimal minimum wage, which gives them the chance to have a family with greater financial and career security. This government has provided practical support for women in the workplace. Under Labor, parents for the first time have the right to request flexible and part-time work. It has also been made easier for women to afford to return to work by the increase in the childcare rebate to 50 per cent of out-of-pocket expenses and by making payments on a quarterly basis.

Australia’s delegation sent this month to New York for the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women is also indicative of this country’s success in promoting equality. The delegation included Indigenous activist and Executive Director of Koori Women Mean Business Leanne Miller, Beagle Bay Aboriginal community primary school teacher and Blank Page Summit on Suicide campaigner Mary O’Reeri, and Carole Shaw, Director of JERA International, a not-for-profit organisation promoting justice and equality for women. The three women ensured strong Australian representation to help advance the status of women on the international stage.

Australia too can be proud of the efforts of the Blessed Mary MacKillop, who fought hard against the conservative forces of the mid- and late-1800s to ensure education and opportunity for the poorest children, girls and boys alike. At a time when the rights of girls were negligible, she gave them hope and protection. She was excommunicated for her work, but the first school opened at Yankalilla, south of Adelaide, in 1867 was a milestone in our social landscape. Mary MacKillop’s efforts have been recognised all over the world. She was beatified in 1995 and, of course, it was recently announced she would become Australia’s first saint with the canonisation due to take place in October. These women—politicians, activists and teachers among them—have all done their bit in bringing the needs and rights of women to the fore in Australia. It was the efforts of women like these who took the fight to the Arbitration and Conciliation Commission and achieved the landmark equal pay ruling in 1972.

But there are many more women who do not make the headlines and who have not had the chance to move us with inspirational speeches or actions. These are the women who have had to fight hard for everything they have achieved in what, until very recently, have been often unfair workplaces—women who still have to juggle a career with raising a family, who drop the kids at school before heading to work and who often have to take work home so they can pick them up again. Even in the fairest workplace, the needs of a mother can make an easy work life a near impossibility.

International Women’s Day, which we celebrated on Monday, recognises and honours not just the achievements of the groundbreakers, the women whose names we know and who we admire, but all women. Women like my mother, Janice, and my mother-in-law, Pamela, each raised six children, walked the path and faced the struggles that women of their generation faced when the equality issues I have touched on this evening were not enshrined in law. It acknowledges these women and others who have done their bit towards achieving equality and fairness, whether through standing up for their rights in the workplace, at home, in learning institutions or in society generally. It acknowledges those who have taught or are teaching their children respect for both sexes and that some things are worth standing up for. It acknowledges the efforts of those women who fought the fight, helping to make Australia a better, fairer place for women and men alike.