Page 737 - Week 03 - Tuesday, 8 March 2016
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
I would like to thank Meredith Hunter for her commitment to the community sector pay agreement and to the pursuit of equality for all women, and I look forward to reporting on progress as a city in future years.
MRS JONES (Molonglo) (11.22): I thank the minister for bringing this motion to the Assembly today. I welcome the idea that we should have an improved statement on women’s safety, both at home and in the community, equity in the workplace, financial parity over a lifetime, health outcomes, as well as social participation and perceptions of public safety. This area of policy is one of the areas, fortunately, where we operate in a largely bipartisan manner across the chamber and across the community. There are very few people who would not take real heart from improvements in this area of action.
Today I, too, welcome International Women’s Day as an important reminder that there is still a lot to do to allow women to have real choices about their family and their careers. We talk a lot about women’s outcomes, whether they are in the workplace, in domestic life, our superannuation or our health. There is still a lot to be achieved to allow women to enjoy the same level of choice about their lives as men do. The practicalities of women’s multifaceted lives need also to be welcomed in the workplace. We need to keep having a conversation about making it easier for women to enter work or to return to work after having children.
Likewise, women who prefer to be 100 per cent working at home need to also be respected. If choice is to be real then that choice needs to be respected and promoted as well, because a great deal of work is done in the home, and on working on the next generation and the people who will lead us into the future. We need to keep having a conversation about this and we must never forget to value the different choices that women make. There is still a long way to go in this space but there are small steps that can be made, and it is all about increasing the ability of women to choose their lives.
We heard this morning from Mr Hinder that his mum was denied a loan when she really needed one and was no doubt able to maintain payments, as we all do. My Italian grandmother never learnt to drive. The frustrations that we deal with today are somewhat different because a great deal of work has been done, but it does not mean that there are not frustrations, and that is why I welcome and support this motion today.
I suggest that by working together across the political divide we have a focus on different groups, which is a positive thing, because across the entire debate it means that all women have some focus put on them. I know the government has done a great deal of work, which we are very supportive of, in an area that is commonly discussed today, which is that of violence against women, particularly in the domestic setting. That violence can be in various modes. It is not always just about physical violence, which is what we picture first-up; it is about women having actual control of their lives, their money and their opportunities.
We also hear a lot about women on boards and women at the top of their careers. It is good that we track those statistics and continue to work on improving those outcomes because that gives younger women and women who have not yet got there the hope
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video