Page 741 - Week 03 - Tuesday, 8 March 2016
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The motion does build on the motion that was brought here by my colleague Meredith Hunter in 2010, a motion that acknowledged International Women’s Day and also called for an annual statement to the Assembly on the ACT’s progress in improving women’s economic and financial independence, including an analysis of improvements in the pay equity status of women within the ACT public service.
International Women’s Day is a great opportunity to put a place marker in our parliamentary calendar to stop and reflect on the work that we have done in removing the social and financial barriers to gender equality and to review our progress across all the indicators. When my colleague Ms Hunter brought her motion for debate on International Women’s Day in 2010 the focus was very much on the financial parity of women with men. Interestingly, the theme for this year’s International Women’s Day event is centred around just that—take a pledge for parity.
There have been gains made in the standing of women in our society. From 2010 to 2014, for example, the percentage of women on the boards of ASX200-listed companies grew from 8.3 per cent to 18.6 per cent, yet the Workplace Gender Equality Agency’s second annual report scorecard indicates that Australia still has far less women in positions of senior management and that there are more women in lower paid jobs and lower paid sectors of the workforce. The national gender pay gap is 18.2 per cent and has been between 15 per cent and 18 per cent for the past two decades. It is encouraging that here in the ACT that pay gap is a little less and sits at around 11 per cent, but it is still not something that we should be complacent about.
Women continue to be disadvantaged in the workforce because of the role they play in being primary caregivers. The 2014 study found that 49 per cent of women experience discrimination in the workplace at some time during their pregnancy, parental leave or on return to work, and one in five mothers indicated they were made redundant, restructured, dismissed or their contract was not renewed because of their parenting obligations.
Women also play a strong role as carers in families, which impacts on their capacity to work. Australian women account for around 92 per cent of primary carers for children with disabilities, 70 per cent of primary carers for parents and 52 per cent of primary carers for partners. It is little wonder that Australian women continue to be over-represented as part-time workers in lower paid industries, and are under-represented in leadership roles in the private and public sectors.
Changing work practices and change in the way we respond in the workplace so that there are genuine choices for women will require a commitment from both men and women. It will be a good thing for men to continue to assume greater family responsibilities, and certainly the research indicates that both men and women in the main want this. It would deliver an immediate practical impact for children and women, but also, as we know, when men face the same issue as women in terms of managing their work-home balance there is likely to be a stronger implementation of practices that support families in the workplace. It is a shame it has to be like that, but it does seem too often to be true. It is that walking a mile in someone else’s shoes that helps people get a little more focused on the issues at hand.
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