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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 3 Hansard (8 March) . . Page.. 704 ..

MR STANHOPE (continuing):

life. We do not need to look particularly hard at those facets of life to be reminded on the raw data, on the figures, on the contribution rates, of the disadvantage that women continue to suffer.

The Chief Minister mentioned that I attended the International Women's Day breakfast this morning as a representative of the ACT branch of the Labor Party. She chided me gently just now about the fact that we in the Labor Party, those of us on this side of the house, are forced in this parliament into a position where we could not be represented at that breakfast by a woman member. This is something of which we are acutely conscious and aware. It is something we are determined to rectify at the next election. That position that the Labor Party finds itself in is not particularly enhanced when I look across the chamber or look at the crossbench. We do have in this parliament enormous disproportionality of representation. Only two out of 17 members are women. We all acknowledge and accept that that is not acceptable.

There is a debate to be had about that and a responsibility vested in each of the parties that seek representation in this place and seek to govern to adopt deliberate strategies for overcoming that disadvantage. Those of us within the major political parties in particular need to recognise why women we support in ACT elections are not being elected. That is a major imperative we face.

As was mentioned at the breakfast this morning by the guest speaker, Julie McCrossin, so much of the disadvantage suffered in relation to representation in business, in the professions and in politics comes down to some of the traditional roles that have been foisted on women as a result of child rearing, parenthood and everything that has flowed traditionally from the fact that it is women who bear children. So much of the discrimination that women continue to bear and have borne in the past is related directly to the child-rearing and primary caring role that women have traditionally adopted as a result of their biological circumstances.

There are enormous implications for us as a community in overcoming the biases and the discrimination that have resulted from the fact that women have been constantly discriminated against in employment because of their primary carer role. They have not proceeded through the professions to the same extent that men have. Their career progression has been truncated as a result of an expectation that they will provide that primary caring role for children; that they will pursue that primary caring role through schooling; that they will sacrifice their own recreational and professional lives.

Within business only 1.3 per cent of executives in the top 100 major corporations or companies in Australia are women. Less than 10 per cent of all legal practitioners who are elevated to the bar and take silk are women. Only 3 or 4 per cent of the judges in the nation are women. Only 2 or 3 per cent of the specialists within the medical professions are women. It would be interesting to reflect, for instance, on exactly how many of the VMOs employed in the ACT are women. Almost none.

Most of this comes back to that discrimination that results so much from the expectations and the bias that have developed over the years in relation to the primary caring expectation that we have of women. We need to address these issues and we need to

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