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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 3 Hansard (8 March) . . Page.. 699 ..

MS TUCKER: So we have two different documents coming out from the Government on women in the ACT. That is why we could not find the women's action plan on the web. We look forward to seeing that and also look forward to seeing "Women in the ACT - A social and demographic profile". That will have basic information very important in developing policy.

Ms Carnell: It is on the Net, Kerrie. It is on the Government's web page.

MS TUCKER: I was looking for the women's action plan on the web page, but it is not there yet.

Ms Carnell: That is not there yet. It will be there in two weeks.

MS TUCKER: That is what I am trying to clarify - which is here and which is not here yet. When I have an opportunity, I will be looking at the document that is ready. I am sure that will be very interesting. The concerns about having a gender focus in policy development have been spoken about for a long time. Later I will read out something from the Women's Electoral Lobby which I think encapsulated the need for a gender focus. It is important that people not believe that policy can be gender neutral. There are just so many examples of how that is not the case.

In a women's forum at the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association Conference in New Zealand, women from many countries around the world talked about issues for women parliamentarians and policy for women's issues. A male representative from the Northern Territory who walked into that forum had not listened to anything, particularly details form women in the developing countries. He announced that it was rubbish that you needed to have a gender focus. He said that men could equally represent women, that men could make decisions for women and that men and women were basically the same. That was quite an offensive statement, particularly in light of some of the stories we had just heard from women from the developing countries.

You cannot claim that policy is gender neutral. I will give you a few examples of how it clearly is not in Australia. These are not necessarily ACT issues but some of them are. There was an interesting paper on gender bias in legal aid. Gender bias in legal aid is not a new concern for women's groups in Australia. In 1994 the Federal Attorney-General's Department investigated gender bias in the New South Wales Legal Aid Commission. It concluded that there was indirect discrimination against women because the majority of legal aid expenditure was in criminal matters, where the majority of men sought legal aid, as compared to family law matters, where the majority of women sought legal aid. Since then, gender bias has increased. We know that that is certainly the case in the ACT. I raised that in estimates last year.

Another example would be industrial relations. The Chief Minister talked about union membership today in question time. If you look at conditions that people are successful in achieving for workers, it is clear that the industrially strong end up with the better deal and that women are highly represented in industrially weak industries. There is a disparity in conditions and salaries between men and women, so there is a gender bias there.

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