Kate Lundy (ACT, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yesterday, 8 March, we celebrated International Women’s Day. In past years, for International Women’s Day I have highlighted the disadvantages, discrimination and underrepresentation often faced by women. I have spoken of some of the problems of women in other countries and of the courage and leadership shown by women such as Daw Aung San Suu Kyi in Burma, Malalai Joya, now forced out of the Afghanistan parliament and still facing constant death threats, and Zilla Huma Usman, the Pakistani cabinet minister assassinated in 2007. The oppression of outspoken women such as these continues in many countries, as attested by Dr Hamidah Marican, this year’s International Women’s Day speaker at Canberra’s UNIFEM lunch last Friday.

In Australia we tend to rely on UNIFEM Australia to focus on the international needs of and opportunities for women. UNIFEM is the United Nations Development Fund for Women and it provides financial and technical assistance in more than 100 countries for innovative programs and strategies that promote women’s human rights, political participation and economic security. Dr Marican, the executive director of the Malaysian organisation Sisters in Islam, spoke of some of the programs and organisations which can help to redress the lack of opportunities for women. She champions the development of underrepresented groups and ‘talent pools’, including women in the workplace.

In Australia, of course, we cannot be complacent. We still have a way to go before we can claim that equal opportunity exists for women everywhere. The review of the Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Act 1999 consultation report, released on 15 February this year, found that women’s earnings remain persistently lower than men’s and that Australia lags behind many other developed countries in women’s workforce participation rates. In participation in education and training, the report found that women continue to be overrepresented in areas of study linked to lower earning industries, while men continue to be overrepresented in areas of study linked to higher earning industries.

Today, for IWD, I would like to focus particularly on the opportunities we have in Australia for empowering women in two areas I am passionate about and interested in. They are quite disparate. One is sport and one is information and communication technologies. Both of these are areas in which women in the past have tended to be underrepresented and sometimes undervalued. This has certainly changed. Through both sport and ICT, women have had opportunities to develop their skills, confidence, networks and support.

Last week I was privileged to be invited to address CeBIT, the largest IT event of the year, held in Hanover, Germany, to outline the Australian government initiatives in ICT and our policies in respect of open government and Government 2.0. As someone who has been engaged in the Australian parliament’s debate and policy development with regard to IT on pretty much every committee relating to telecommunications and IT since I was elected in 1996, I was very proud to be able to say for the first time that ICT is at the top of the Australian political agenda. Obviously, incredibly important flagship policies like our National Broadband Network, the work of the Government 2.0 Taskforce, the Digital Education Revolution, the reforms taking place in ICT procurement and the ICT reform program across government, and the very important Powering Ideas policy, which outlines the research agenda for the 21st century, all combine to put a significant profile on the incredibly important issue of how technology impacts our lives and how we can put technology to work for our society and our economy. These are all parts of the Australian government’s focus on recreating Australia as a high productivity, innovative and digitally enabled economy. As I have said many times, I am extremely proud of how this set of policies will progress social equality and provide opportunities for groups that would otherwise endure continuing disadvantage.

Australia is the 12th largest ICT market globally and the fifth largest in the Asia-Pacific. The use and development of ICT underpins all industry innovation and sits at the heart of modern business and modern government. More than ever we need an ICT-literate workforce, and we cannot afford to neglect to train and employ women in these jobs. We know that in Australia men outnumber women significantly in information technology professions. In 2009, for example, men represented 78.6 per cent of IT graduates, and women, 21.4 per cent. Yet the median salary reported for both male and female IT graduates was the same, indicating opportunities for equal pay in this occupation.

Early ideas that women were not attracted to mastering IT skills and considered many of these occupations ‘boring’—I cannot believe this myself—have been overturned for generation X and generation Y, in part owing to the fascinating social networking sites that are available and the social dimension of working within the technology field. Perhaps surprisingly, the fastest growing segment using social networking, the application of new technologies, is women between the ages of 55 and 65 years. So do not be fooled into thinking this is some kind of youth focus. Women of all generations are interested in the social application of technology.

Government 2.0 represents, above all, engagement and interaction—it relates to the interactive web as opposed to the transfer of information that we have seen in traditional form onto the web. This is a transformation of the way government delivers services to, and engages with, its citizens. It represents two-way communication between government and the community, politicians and their constituents, and will change the way we do democracy in Australia.

With fewer women than men in the parliament—but a growing number—it has sometimes been difficult for women’s concerns to be given equal weight. Government 2.0 should help women redress the imbalance—at least that is my sincere hope. The development of interactive sites of benefit to women specifically has educated increasingly more women in the benefits and necessity of ICT. One example is BCK Online, a personalised, interactive portal to meet the information needs of Australian women with breast cancer. I know that there is a growing group of women who find themselves completely fascinated by the tech. To the female geeks of Australia, I shout: thank you for you commitment to a very demanding sector but one that can only benefit from your presence.

The Canberra Day holiday, yesterday, coincided this year with International Women’s Day, and I will now turn my comments to sport. We had a Sport for Women Day planned as part of the Canberra Festival. The planned activities focused on encouraging improvement in fitness and participation in physical activity. Sport has provided some wonderful role models of achieving women, and I cannot resist mentioning the success of the Canberra Capitals basketball team in winning their 7th WNBL championship this weekend. There was the high-profile presence of Lauren Jackson, and I note that the ACT Chief Minister has committed to building a statue of her. As we have a history of recognising our sporting stars in football codes, so we will be doing with Lauren Jackson in basketball. I also offer my congratulations to Carrie Graf and all of the Canberra Capitals. The Capitals have been highly successful even in the absence of Lauren Jackson but I have no doubt that her presence spurred on the team spirit and Canberra’s enthusiasm for supporting this most successful women’s sporting team.

As with involvement in information and communications technology, sport provides a platform for women to develop their skills and confidence and their ability to operate in a team. International Women’s Day provides a glorious platform for the celebration of women’s achievements in both sport and ICT. I think we have wonderful examples in both. (Time expired)

Sarah Hanson-Young (SA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise this evening to speak on a matter of public interest, and one of international significance. Yesterday, women around the globe celebrated International Women’s Day, an integral day that has been observed since the beginning of the 20th century. For the women of the world, the symbolism of International Women’s Day is an occasion to reflect on just how far women have come in their struggle for equality, peace and development. It is also an opportunity to unite, network and mobilise for meaningful change for our fellow sisters in less fortunate circumstances.

This year’s theme for International Women’s Day is focused on empowering women and men to end poverty by 2015, the target date government leaders from around the world agreed on for the eight Millennium Development Goals. With only five years remaining in the 15-year action plan to tackle degrading poverty, 2010 is the year to raise public awareness about the centrality of gender equality in achieving sustainable gains in human development.

Mothers, as we know, play a crucial role in developing communities, which is why improving both maternal and child health is a Millennium Development Goal in its own right. Yet current statistics show that more than half of the 29 developing countries are not on track to achieve either goal. What we need to see is a commitment by world leaders to prioritise gender equality; recognising that, if we are to succeed in tackling poverty around the world, empowering women in their own communities is an essential ingredient to success. In particular, we need to see the political will to adequately resource, monitor and improve the budgets for sexual and reproductive health systems in developing countries. Providing knowledge and access to reproductive health technologies noticeably reduces fertility rates in poor countries.

Today, more than half a million women in the world die annually from pregnancy complications. According to the Population and Climate Change Alliance, more than 200 million women who want to control their pregnancies lack access to contraception, with a further three billion people under the age of 25 having no hope of ever having their sexual and reproductive rights met. The two targets under MDG 5 are to reduce by three-quarters the maternal mortality ratio and to achieve universal access to reproductive health. We are failing miserably—we are nowhere near reaching this goal. Addressing the causes of maternal mortality is a global development imperative. It is intrinsically linked to the success of the other development outcomes.

Educating women, particularly young women, about their sexual and reproductive health from an early age has far-reaching effects beyond just better health outcomes. We need to recognise that, as long as global health initiatives continue to neglect sexual and reproductive health strategies and reproductive health supplies, interventions aimed at preventing HIV and improving maternal and child health will ultimately be unsuccessful. If the Millennium Development Goals are to be achieved, particularly the maternal health goal, which has only seen a reduction of nine per cent in maternal deaths—far from the 75 per cent target—then the international community needs to at least double aid funding to programs to reduce the deaths of women and children and most developing countries need to also prioritise these areas and increase their efforts.

Australia currently spends just 13 per cent of its aid budget on health and a smaller amount of that specifically on reproductive health. In comparison, Ireland spends 34 per cent, the United States spends 32 per cent and Canada spends 30 per cent. The government’s current commitment is to increase aid spending to 0.5 per cent of gross national income by 2015. We need to see a solid commitment from our government to increase this contribution to the internationally agreed target of 0.7 per cent if we are to make solid headway on Millennium Development Goals 4 and 5 for child and maternal health. While it is pleasing to see the government commitment to increase aid spending, we are nowhere near reaching our international obligations of 0.7 per cent. We need to see the government commit to that in this year’s budget. That is the challenge for the government.

This issue can no longer be ignored. It is not good enough for us to simply allow other developed nations such as Britain to carry the load on such an important issue. As a key player in the global fight against poverty, Australia needs to take a stand, particularly in our immediate region, where our nation’s wealth could be helping those most in need.

Papua New Guinea, our closest neighbour, has the worst maternal death rate in the Pacific and the second worst in the entire world, closely following Afghanistan.  The fact that women in Papua New Guinea are 50 times more likely to die during pregnancy or childbirth than their Australian sisters is a situation that we can no longer ignore. Papua New Guinea is the largest recipient of Australian aid funding, yet the stories of maternal death show we need to work harder to save vulnerable lives. Australia needs to ramp up its efforts in funding and training health workers and midwives to work on the ground with families to help this Pacific nation curb its staggering maternal death rate. Engaging in activities to help tackle these issues in our own backyard must be priority, and I urge the government to seriously show its commitment to vastly improving these horrific statistics. Each year, 34,000 mothers and over 400,000 children die in our immediate region, and we know that Australia can play a positive role in turning around these alarming figures. We need to consider an increase in our health budget. We need to commit more of our aid funding to tackling this specific issue.

The most frustrating aspect of the imminent failure of Millennium Development Goal 5 is the fact that most instances of maternal mortality are preventable. To be truly effective and sustainable in the remaining five years, the scaling up of essential interventions must take place within a framework that strives to strengthen and integrate programs with health systems as well as promoting an environment supportive of women’s rights and empowerment.

This week, as women around the world celebrate all that we have achieved, we must not forget how far we still have to go before true equality is realised for all women and girls. With 1,500 women and girls dying every day, more than one every minute, as a result of preventable complications occurring before, during and after childbirth, increased funding and health services are needed to combat MDG 5 before the 2015 deadline.

In 2009, the United Nations Population Fund revealed a staggering comparison:

It would cost the world less than two-and-a-half-day’s worth of military spending to save the lives of 6 million mothers, newborns and children every year.

This is not something which we can simply say is too hard to tackle. We know that there are simple solutions—we just need to support them. It is time to face up to the reality that, unless reproductive health and the rights of women and children are made a priority and countries like Australia step up and commit the required funding that is needed, 2015 will not be remembered as the year of success for the eight Millennium Development Goals but, unfortunately, the year of failure. We have five years to clean up our act. We have five years to help not just the mothers of the world but, particularly, mothers and children in our own region and in our own backyard.