Page 175 - Week 01 - Thursday, 9 April 1992
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In listening to the proceedings of the Assembly so far this week, I was somewhat surprised that more was not made of the fact that our Assembly is unique in Australia, and perhaps in the Westminster system, in having a woman Chief Minister and a woman Speaker. That this unique and remarkable fact went unremarked suggests that the arrival of women in leadership positions in our society is beginning to be accepted, although not quite commonplace yet. If this is so, if women being in top jobs is becoming accepted now, then my belief in the achievability of real social justice advances would seem to have a solid foundation.
However, the choices open to women in our society are still restricted. For example, women have fewer and less attractive career opportunities, less financial security, greater domestic and nurturing duties, and the list goes on. I am committed to improving women's choices in our society, to a fair and equal share for women. This, in part, is what I have come here to help bring about.
For those in the chamber who think that little remains to be done, I need not remind members that women are, and remain, an economically disadvantaged group in our society. Their earnings are an average of 20 per cent below male earnings, even where they have qualifications and experience equivalent to men. Even in the graduate labour market women are paid significantly less than their male counterparts. This fact seems to cast some doubt on the efficient working of the market and free enterprise system so glowingly praised in some speeches it has been my duty to sit through in recent times. Greater social justice is an achievable goal. While the presence of women in this chamber and the achievements of high office prove what can be done, there remains much more to do, and to do as a matter of urgency.
I have chosen to focus on women's issues; but I acknowledge that many groups in our community suffer disadvantages, oppression, discrimination, prejudice and financial hardship - and not just the groups conventionally labelled as disadvantaged. My role as a new MLA and as Speaker will be to ensure that as far as possible all voices are heard, not just the loudest voices, or even the most articulate. I believe that as elected representatives we are duty bound to seek out and express the views, needs and desires of the less advantaged sections of our community, and I dedicate myself to that role. I sincerely encourage all members to follow suit.
At this point it might be useful to make concrete a few distinctions. I do not subscribe to the kind of social Darwinism so fashionable amongst lazy conservatives. A world in which survival of the fittest is the dominant political creed and social philosophy is not a satisfying world, it is not a pretty world, it is not an environmentally sustainable world, and most of all, despite the calls of its proponents, it is not an inevitable world.
Equal opportunity for all, which requires active, positive discrimination in favour of those currently disadvantaged, is what I mean by social justice. It requires active social policies to secure it. I do not resile from that and I contest the view so glibly bandied about by the social Darwinians that the pursuit of social justice is futile. The presence of women in senior positions, not only here but also in Victoria and Western Australia, is proof that real social change is there for the taking if we have the will and courage to go for it. It is not about me or Ellnor Grassby, or Kate Carnell, or Helen Szuty, or Annette Ellis or the Chief Minister as individuals; it is about a social movement to secure social justice for all.
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