Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 8 Hansard (8 August) . . Page.. 2537 ..

MR HUMPHRIES (continuing):

unpaid work needs to be included in the case of people who are in paid work but contribute some of their time in unpaid labour as well.

The danger of defining people purely in terms of the time that they spend in paid employment as opposed to the time that they spend in unpaid employment or those people who spend their entire time in unpaid employment is an extremely important issue. With the increasing focus on paid work and life balance, it is critical for policy makers to have clear information on the different workloads of people in the community. This is particularly relevant for women, as they increasingly need and want to participate more fully in the paid work force as well as care for children and other family members. The option of choice and the opportunity for people to be able to balance the requirements of their paid and unpaid employment are needs that this community must acknowledge.

There are slightly more female carers than male carers in the ACT. More women-18.7 per cent-undertake the role of primary care. Men account for only 4.5 per cent in that category. People in the ACT have the highest rate of voluntary work in Australia. We are the volunteering capital of Australia. The average number of hours contributed by each volunteer tends to increase steadily with age, with women over 45 years of age doing the most voluntary work of any category of person in this community.

Mr Wood made reference to the Australian Bureau of Statistics time use survey, which incorporates unpaid work in the community and which was first issued in 1992, with the last one being issued in 1997. I acknowledge that it has been an important tool as it has provided useful data to decisions makers across our nation. It contains a selection of national-level data on the time spent in paid work, unpaid household work and shopping, caring for children and frail, sick and disabled people, community participation, education, leisure and personal maintenance. The significant problem with the time use survey is that it does not include a capacity to provide state and territory-level data. It is only manifested at the national level. Whereas I do not detract from the importance of having national-level data, it is extremely important for each state and territory to know the patterns of volunteer labour within its own community and the absence of such data is a significant disability.

Mr Speaker, the ACT government has not been able to obtain the information about unpaid work in the Canberra community from the time use survey. Apparently, it cannot be disaggregated, which is of considerable concern. The next time use survey is scheduled, on my advice, for 2006. I think that Mr Wood said 2005. My advice is that it will be in 2006; obviously, it will be about that time. It would still not include any specific capacity to obtain information about the states or territories. As Mr Wood indicated, thereafter it is proposed that the survey will be conducted every 12 years.

The ACT, particularly those in the ACT government who are working in statistics and are preparing baseline data for all sorts of activities in this community, want that information more regularly than every 12 years. I share the concern expressed in this motion about its unavailability. Information on voluntary work is available for the ACT and has been used, of course, in the State of the Territory Report. We have data in that document from 1995. Updated data for the year 2000, I understand, is being released by the ABS next week, and then the ABS proposes to do this survey on a six-yearly basis.

Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .