Page 401 - Week 02 - Thursday, 8 March 2007
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very strong advocates for their children. They belong to the school organisations, the preschool organisation and they often care about the environment because they want the world to be here when their children grow up. But in whatever way they are very active community participants. To then be involved in organisations specifically about women is something that a lot of women do not have much time left over for, because women generally put their own interests last. That is still, I think, true of women who have a family in particular. So that is worth looking at.
In Clive Hamilton’s and Sarah Maddison’s book that they have recently edited called Silencing Dissent Sarah Maddison has an article that is specifically about the progress, or lack of it, of the women’s movement and organisations over that 10-year period, and it is salutary reading. When I was doing my thesis work and so on, which was done from a feminist’s perspective, I observed that one of the very first things that is recognised by Third World women—and I was writing about Third World women—is that women need organisations. It is just the number one, because not every woman has the ability to speak up for herself, and that is particularly true of illiterate women in countries like Sri Lanka, Bangladesh or the Pacific islands.
So the whole movement for women was about forming and empowering women’s organisations that could then speak. And, as I said before, those women’s organisations have to be democratic and they also have to recognise that not all women are equally placed in our society. So when we talk today about gender we have to remember that women cross the whole spectrum, as do men; that some women do not have the same voice as other women; and that very frequently it is middle-class educated women who, by reasons of birth or other factors, perhaps scholarships, such as I had, who go to university. We were the lucky ones, and we have a voice, but there are many of our sisters do not have voices. Therefore, I feel that when we speak we must always be aware of their interests. Where there is poverty and where there are families concerned, women are often the ones who are doing it tough, the ones who are juggling the pennies, trying to get food on the table and, particularly in a housing-stressed market, trying to just put a roof over their heads.
I just want to talk very briefly about the impact of welfare to work connected with WorkChoices, because when we talk about WorkChoices we are really talking about people who have jobs. Welfare to work has thrown a whole group of women onto the market who often are not prepared. As Sarah Maddison said yesterday, what do you do if you are a woman on the sole parent benefit, a job is offered to you and for all kinds of reasons you cannot take it? What happens is that you are breached of your benefit and you are forced to go through a very hard time.
I do not hear the voices of those women being represented in the debates that we have about gender and about WorkChoices, and we know why—because they do not have strong advocacy groups. I think there is such a group but I do not believe it is one of the ones the federal government is funding, and, without funding, women’s organisations do not have a voice. Many, many women lack advocates in these very constrained political times.
MS GALLAGHER (Molonglo—Minister for Health, Minister for Disability and Community Services and Minister for Women) (4.27): I will just speak briefly as we have a function next door due to commence in a couple of minutes to recognise some
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