Jan McLucas (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Disabilities and Carers) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I present a ministerial statement on the 57th session of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women.

Michaelia Cash (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Immigration) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

by leave—I move:

That the Senate take note of the document.

I rise to respond to the ministerial statement on the 57th Session of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women.

Violence against women is a global epidemic and, tragically, a normal part of life for millions of women across the globe, including many in Australia. A World Bank report estimated that more women between the ages of 15 and 54 were at risk from rape and domestic violence than from cancer, car accidents, war and malaria combined. And a New York Times article points out that according to the United Nations and other sources more than 600 million women live in countries where domestic violence is not considered a crime, and more than three million girls are facing genital mutilation.

Women in all social, economic, ethnic and religious groups are affected. According to the World Health Organization, in Australia, Canada, Israel, South Africa and the United States 40 to 70 per cent of female murder victims were killed by their partners. And, at a recent UN women's breakfast for International Women's Day, Papua and New Guinea's chief magistrate, Rosie Johnson, shared her personal and professional experience of violence against women in that country, where there are regions where 100 per cent of women experience violence, including torture.

I therefore commend UN member countries for coming to agreement and signing up to commit to prevent all forms of violence against women and girls as part of the Commission on the Status of Women this year. As Sex Discrimination Commissioner Liz Broderick stated in a press release of 18 March 2013:

The recognition that custom, tradition or religious consideration should play no part in denying women equal rights or justifying violence against them is a major step forward.

There can be no cultural or other justification for violence against women. It is, simply stated, wrong. It is unacceptable both in Australia and around the world.

It is promising to see that member countries at this year's Commission on the Status of Women were able to negotiate this resolution after last year's disappointing result when no consensus was reached. I take this opportunity to congratulate Ms Michelle Bachelet on her leadership of UN women and on the legacy she will leave at that organisation following the announcement of her intention to stand down from her position as executive director.

I would also like to reiterate the coalition's bipartisan support of the National Plan to Reduce Violence against Women and their Children. The Liberal Party has a proud history of implementing policies that will reduce violence against women. When it came to power in 1996, the coalition government implemented and funded the Partnerships Against Domestic Violence and the Women's Safety Agenda programs, which included funding for the Australian Bureau of Statistics Women's Safety Survey in 1996.

When in government, the coalition implemented a range of measures to assist women in the many roles they fulfil. During its 11 years in power the Howard government carried on the Liberal tradition of supporting and improving the position of women in Australia by recognising the many different roles that women may fulfil in their lives. The Howard government committed itself to an Australia where women were full and active participants in all spheres of public and private life across a wide range of decision making positions.

The safety of women was a top priority for the Howard government. It dedicated $75.7 million over four years to the Women's Safety Agenda, which addressed four broad themes of prevention, health, justice and services. The initiatives included the national 'Violence Against Women. Australia Says No' campaign and the national 24-hour helpline. The campaign was launched in 2004 and thousands of calls were subsequently fielded.

In relation to addressing violence against women in Indigenous communities, the former Howard government was again committed to reducing such violence. The coalition government convened the intergovernmental summit on violence and child abuse in Indigenous communities in June 2006. On 14 July 2006, COAG reaffirmed its commitment to adopt a collaborative approach to addressing family violence and child abuse in Indigenous communities, particularly in the areas of policing, justice, support and governance.

In 2005, Pru Goward, the former federal Sex Discrimination Commissioner and currently the New South Wales Minister for Community Services and Women, said:

As Sex Discrimination Commissioner I am often asked what is the greatest challenge for women's human rights in Australia - the answer has to be violence against women. If women cannot expect to be safe in their own homes and communities, how can they expect equality in society?

We simply cannot be complacent about violence against women. As elected representatives, we have a duty to do everything that we can to prevent this violence occurring.

In whatever setting, whether at home in Australia or overseas, I believe peer influence and male role modelling, within their families and through their workplaces and communities is effective. Men are able to effect attitudinal and cultural change that will work hand in hand with other strategies. In Australia, we had some great success with the Bsafe program run by the former Howard government.

The Male Champions of Change program run by the Sex Discrimination Commissioner, Elizabeth Broderick, is an excellent example of a program working to change culture through workplaces, using the leadership of senior businessmen. The White Ribbon program, which has bipartisan support, works to change the culture around violence against women through men showing other men that this is simply not acceptable.

We have come a long way in raising both the recognition and the profile of domestic violence over the past few decades, but there is still much work to be done in Australia and globally.

Lee Rhiannon (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

by leave—I thank Minister Collins for reporting back on 57th session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women in New York, particularly on the important issue of working to prevent violence against women both in Australia and internationally. Violence against women is endemic and should be a critical issue for governments. One shocking fact helps to spell out why: more women between the ages of 15 and 44 are killed by violence each year than by malaria, HIV, cancer, accidents and war combined. Another to illustrate the point: some 603 million women currently live in countries where there is no law against domestic violence.

I understand that the 17-page communique agreed upon in New York was particularly hard won in the face of opposition by conservative member states and groups such as Iran, Russia, Syria and the Vatican, with some taking issue with, for example, language suggesting a husband does not have the right to rape his wife. US pro-life groups set themselves against the statement because it claimed women have a right to their own bodies. Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood claimed:

The declaration, if ratified, would lead to complete disintegration of society…

This is a puzzling response considering the statement covers sharing of roles within families between men and women such as child care and home chores, and removing the need for a husband's consent to travel, work or use contraception.

The communique involved months of lobbying and weeks of tough negotiations. The level of concern about the conservative push-back at what most rational people would see as no-brainer statements about women's rights is witnessed in the statement of feminists and women's organisations from around the world, issued on International Women's Day this year. The groups included Catholics for the Right to Decide Mexico and Women's Front Norway. These many groups reflected an alarming trend to try to negotiate away women's rights and freedoms during negotiation on the language in the outcome document.

In the face of such opposition, Minister Collins is correct to conclude that this year's UN Commission on the Status of Women produced a landmark agreement, particularly as the year before there was no outcome document agreed upon at all.

It is a breakthrough. The participants agreed that custom, tradition or religious consideration should play no part in denying women equal rights or justifying violence against them. The documents call for an end to harmful traditional practices, such as child marriage, and to ensure that governments do the hard yards in working to meet the needs of marginalised groups like female migrant workers, women with disabilities, older women and indigenous women, which is also important. Promoting gender equality, women's empowerment and women's reproductive rights and access to sexual and reproductive services are all goals of the agreement, a key to achieving equity for women across the globe. The challenge now is for nations to act to implement the resolutions, not leave them gathering dust in the bottom drawer.

Senator Collins's statement also discussed Australia's work on the women, peace and security agenda, which she says was a priority for Australia during our term on the UN Security Council. What Senator Collins omitted to note was the history behind Australia's national action plan for the implementation of UN Security Council resolution 1325, dealing with women, peace and security. Sadly, it seemed this resolution was never actually a priority for Australia, as the senator suggested. This is a very important resolution. It affirms the important role of women in the prevention and resolution of conflicts, peace negotiations, peace building, peacekeeping, humanitarian response and in post-conflict reconstruction. It stresses the importance of their equal participation and full involvement of all efforts for the maintenance and promotion of peace and security. Yet it took Australia 11 years to issue a draft action plan for consultation—yes, 11 years to come up with a draft action plan. What a failure by Labor and the coalition to act on women's rights.

At the last estimates hearings, in February, I asked the branch manager of the Office for Women to explain what actually happened and why we dragged our heels when producing Australia's plan. Ms Steele revealed that Australia was still in the early stages of the implementation. I found out that we are yet to develop or issue monitoring and evaluation criteria, so we are still a long way from knowing whether our fledging plan may in future make—or may have already made—a difference. Ms Steele did try to reassure me that there were measures in place prior to the plan being finalised: just because we did not have a plan did not mean that actions were not already being undertaken. But when I asked Ms Steele to explain what the measures were, what has been done and how far advanced things were, Ms Steele was forced to take my questions on notice.

The Greens are a little concerned that in reality not much has been achieved at a domestic level. We examined a number of government speeches on Australia's priorities for our term on the UN Security Council, and we were unable to even find any specific mention of resolution 1325, dealing with peace and security issues. I hope this does not reflect a general lack of commitment to Australia playing its part in ending violence against women around the globe, considering that around the world at least one woman in every three has been beaten, coerced into sex or otherwise abused in her lifetime—one in three.

We know there is a need to do much more internationally and domestically to end violence against women. On International Women's Day, just passed, leading feminist Ms Anne Summers publically called for governments to treat violence against women as a crime epidemic and devote to it the kinds of resources they would mobilise if this were, say, a terrorist attack. She also suggested proper labelling of crimes to ensure we know the extent of the epidemic and zero tolerance towards those individuals who are convicted of crimes of violence against women. Finally, she suggested never forgetting the women who have died in this epidemic.

An estimated 1.2 million women around Australia over the age of 15 have experienced domestic or family violence. The negative effects of violence against women—physical, emotional and economic—must be addressed through adequately funded, appropriate health and education programs. In recent times the Australian Greens have been campaigning to broaden discrimination laws, to introduce domestic and family violence as a separate form of discrimination, and to see the federal government inject funding to provide women across the nation to access Victoria's award-winning Bsafe program, which provides personal safety alarms to women and children at risk of domestic violence, linking them to emergency services and allowing them to remain in their homes. We all need to do more to help women and children to live lives free from violence, and support them to remain living where they are, to avoid homelessness that can result from domestic violence.

Successive coalition and Labor governments for 11 years have dragged the chain on developing a national action plan in response to UN requirements. This is an international embarrassment. Now is the time for Australia to pick up its game on women's rights and work with other progressive governments to resist those countries blocking change to improve women's rights and in some cases attempting to turn back the clock to overturn women's rights. A key test of the worth of Australia's role on the Security Council will be our work for women's rights in Australia and globally. The Greens will be watching closely. Thank you.

Question agreed to.