Page 735 - Week 03 - Tuesday, 8 March 2016

Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video

(2) calls on the ACT Government to provide an annual statement to the Assembly in the sitting week nearest to International Women’s Day addressing women’s:

(a) safety both in the home and the community;

(b) equity in the workplace and financial parity over their lifetime;

(d) social participation and perception of public safety; and

(3) calls on the ACT Government to, where possible, collect sex and gender disaggregated data to make this reporting possible.

This motion seeks to update the process surrounding the delivery of the annual statement on women’s economic and social progress. In 2010 former member Meredith Hunter brought a motion compelling the Minister for Women to deliver an annual statement on the economic progress of women in the ACT. In particular, it called for an update on the progress of the Australian Services Union pay claim case that sought to address the underpayment of women in the community services sector.

In that same year national unions and the federal government lodged a test case in Fair Work Australia. It was lodged on the most basic premise—that, as caring roles, community sector jobs had been considered women’s work and had been, as a result, both undervalued and underpaid. In 2012 Fair Work made a landmark decision determining this had been the case. A path was then laid out to bring community sector workers to an equitable wage position.

While Ms Hunter’s motion is now overdue for an update, I support its purpose and today seek to strengthen and expand the scope of this annual statement. It is no coincidence that women continue to be over-represented in low income households and under-represented in leadership roles in the private and public sectors. The fields they dominate are both underpaid and under-resourced.

Before entering this place, I organised early childhood educators who were seeking the same recognition of historical underpayment as women were experiencing in the community sector. As Minister for Women I am still driven to action by the injustice of their wages and know from the stories those workers have shared with me that low wages and the weight of unpaid caring they often undertook outside work had dramatic impacts across their lives.

The low wages in the early childhood education sector not only disrespect women’s work but the reason for the disparity is founded in a historical disrespect for the work of women. In 1969 Zelda D’Aprano chained herself to a commonwealth building to bring about awareness of the disparity in wages for women and the inequity that it led to in our community. Today in Victoria women workers employed in the early childhood sector have chained themselves to the offices of Malcolm Turnbull, calling on the federal government to fund early childhood educators. They have made a claim

Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video