Page 354 - Week 02 - Tuesday, 23 February 1993
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Madam Speaker, my Government's approach to enhancing the status of women in the ACT has been based on maximising opportunities and choices for women. We have concentrated our efforts in three main areas - in women's work force participation; in the right of women to be free from violence in their own homes; and in involving women in the decision making process. In all of our work we have sought to keep the women of the ACT informed so that they, in turn, can make informed decisions on matters regarding their futures. The Government, of course, keeps in touch with the needs of all ACT women through my Women's Consultative Council, a council which has a very proactive role in the community in finding out at first hand what it is that women believe needs to be addressed.
We also provide a deal of information to women in the ACT so that they can make informed choices. That information is provided through our excellent Women's Information and Referral Centre, which operates here in Civic and provides information on a wide range of issues to all women. It also conducts some workshops and training and so on for women and is a very well used facility. We also publish Women ACT, which is distributed to over 600 organisations and individuals in the ACT to keep them informed on matters of interest. We have, in addition, promotional activities such as "Working opportunities for women", which was held last year and which focused on employment and training choices for women in the ACT. Over 1,000 women attended that particular function and I believe that it was a great success.
Mr Kaine also made some very erroneous statements with regard to women's employment. Perhaps I should not say "erroneous"; he made very selective use of statistics to support his cause, but not very convincingly. I will turn to employment. The January 1993 labour force survey reveals that there were 70,800 women employed in the ACT. That represents 45 per cent of all ACT employment, but I think the good news is that between January 1992 and January 1993 full-time employment for women increased by 6,400, or 15 per cent, to over 48,700 jobs. I think an increase in full-time jobs of 15 per cent in a year is something that both sides of politics ought to be applauding. Over the same period there was a small fall in part-time employment for women; in fact, 200 jobs or one per cent.
So in the past year we have seen a 15 per cent increase in full-time employment and a one per cent decline in part-time employment. In January 1993, to use those figures again, the female participation rate was 66.7 per cent - a phenomenally high figure in Australian terms, but in fact it was up from 62.3 per cent in January 1992. So the participation rate grew substantially in that year as well. Female labour force participation in the ACT continues to be very much higher than the national average, which in January of this year was 50.8 per cent. So we are some 16.7 per cent up on the national average.
The unemployment rate for women in the ACT rose from 6.3 per cent in December 1992 to 8.4 per cent in January 1993. The present unemployment rate for ACT females is, however, substantially lower than the national average, which in January 1993 was 10.6 per cent. But in looking at this issue the Government has introduced a range of initiatives. Mr Kaine can stand over there and denigrate those initiatives, but I would say to you, Madam Speaker, that, compared to his own party's actions in trying to write off those initiatives in 1989 and again at the Federal level in trying to destroy the women's affairs machinery, I think they should be looking very closely at these initiatives and perhaps learning something from them.
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