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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2002 Week 3 Hansard (6 March) . . Page.. 674 ..

MS TUCKER (continuing):

Many Australians have been embarrassed by the way the federal government has tried to wriggle out of its obligations when they have found themselves in breach of these conventions. They have argued, "The committees are too busy" or "The committees are outside their mandate." There has been a lot of discussion and legal opinion on whether or not that is the fact.

This motion is about discrimination against women and trying to make a more accountable system. Even though people may live in countries that have signed on to CEDAW, quite often it will be extremely unlikely that they will have avenues of appeal.

If we saw a serious gender analysis of a lot of the policy of the federal government, we would find that they could be challenged. Ms Gallagher is chairing a committee looking at women's issues. I am hoping that that committee will do an assessment of how well policy is audited for its gender implications. That is very important. It is certainly important in the federal arena. It is important in industrial relations. The policy of the federal government in that area has been taken as gender neutral, and it clearly is not. Women are much more disadvantaged by the federal government's industrial relations policy.

The GST has gender implications. Women are more likely to be in poverty and so more likely to be discriminated against and suffer under that tax system. There are real questions if you are serious about understanding the gender implications of policy and the potential for discrimination arising out of particular policy decisions.

Mandatory sentencing was about a very fundamental human right. There were interesting gender issues in that as well. I am very concerned that the rationale given by the federal government for not supporting CEDAW has been given credit today in this place. I do not agree that those arguments have any credit.

Mrs Cross said that we should leave this to the federal government because it is the federal government's business. To the contrary, we now have a constant link with the federal government on treaties and conventions. In the last Assembly it was going through one of the standing committees. I am not sure which committee it is going through this time. I have not found that out yet. The federal government acknowledged the need for us to be involved in the debate. During the last Assembly I went to one of the initial seminars on this subject in the federal parliament. Members of various political parties from various state and territory parliaments came to that seminar to understand the processes of treaty and convention signing. So there is an acknowledgment that we need to be involved.

We have every right to be involved, apart from that particular process being put in place, because we are elected here to represent people in our community, over half of whom are women. Of course, we need to have a say if we think the plight of women or the welfare of women could be improved by a national position which brings about greater accountability through international fora. I cannot accept the argument that it is just the federal government's business.

Ms Dundas' motion is a good motion. It is appropriate that it be debated this week with International Women's Day coming up. It is a strong motion. I am glad the government is supporting it and I even congratulate them. We need to take a strong position on behalf

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