Page 350 - Week 02 - Tuesday, 23 February 1993
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WOMEN - OPPORTUNITY AND CHOICE
Discussion of Matter of Public Importance
MADAM SPEAKER: I have received letters from Mrs Carnell, Mr Cornwell, Mr De Domenico, Mr Humphries, Mr Kaine, Mr Lamont and Mr Westende proposing that matters of public importance be submitted to the Assembly. In accordance with standing order 79, I have determined that the matter proposed by Mr Kaine be submitted to the Assembly, namely:
The Labor Government's failure to give Canberra women opportunity and choice.
MR KAINE (Leader of the Opposition) (3.13): In selecting my matter of public importance you have shown great perception, Madam Speaker, because this is an issue of real significance to the people of Canberra. It is a fact that this Follett Labor Government has failed to give Canberra women opportunity and choice. This Follett Labor Government is long on promises but short on delivery in many areas. It is true in financial management and economic management; it is true in health delivery; it is true in employment. But it is nowhere more true than in the case of the status of women.
I believe that it is an economic fact, it is a social fact and it is an indictment of this Government that in this day and age women in the ACT are still second-class citizens. It is still a fact that in recession it is women who are first out of work and who are last back into work. Women in the ACT community are the least well trained, and their lack of skills across a broad range tends to concentrate them in low-paid employment even when they find work. You find them as checkout operators, as typists, as word processors, as cleaners, as waitresses, perhaps occasionally as taxi drivers, as shop assistants; but you do not see too many of them, particularly in the Follett administration - - -
Mr Wood: Half our members are women. How about your party?
MR KAINE: We will come to you and your Chief Minister in a minute and we will see where the justice lies and where the words do not match the actions, where the promises do not match the delivery. The fact is that in the ACT Government Service as well as elsewhere you do not find too many women in the top management jobs. We are talking here after 10 years of Labor Federal government, after 10 years of Labor promises, after three out of four years of Labor government in the ACT and three out of four years of Labor government promises with Ms Follett as Chief Minister. For 10 years Labor has been making promises on this issue and for 10 years it has failed to deliver.
What all of this means is that women are vulnerable to economic change, to changes in the industrial composition of the economy. They are at the bottom end of the income scale; they are the first to suffer and they have the least skills available to them to get themselves out of the hole that our community, our society and this Labor Government put them into. They are likely to earn less; they are less likely to be promoted in their jobs; they have the least authority in the workplace where they work; and they have least chance at a career. I think this is a terrible indictment after 10 years of Labor government - not only at the Federal level but essentially at the State level as well - throughout Australia.
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