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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 02 Hansard (Thursday, 4 March 2004) . . Page.. 769 ..

I hope I have put forward a broader argument to the fact that we need to support women’s organisations in the ACT. I hope the next budget includes more specific funding to go not just to women’s sport and to women in the community but also to women’s organisations. Those organisations can then help organise women and support them in advocacy and organisational roles to impact on our still male-dominated economic and political structures and put forward the views that they know will help improve our society. Women are important to society and we should support them as they move to make society better.

MS GALLAGHER (Minister for Education, Youth and Family Services, Minister for Women and Minister for Industrial Relations) (4.20): International Women’s Day is celebrated around the world. It recognises that peace and social progress require active participation by and equality of women. The first International Women’s Day was celebrated in 1911 in Germany, Austria, Denmark and a number of other European countries. Since then women around the world have campaigned continually for their rights and equality.

International Women’s Day is an occasion on which to reflect on how far women have progressed in their quest for recognition, equal rights and peace. Progress has been made in recent decades. In some poorer countries women’s access to education and health care has increased, although members in this place all know that much more can be done. Women’s participation in the paid labour force is growing.

Many countries have adopted legislation that promises equal opportunities and respect for women’s human rights. However, the majority of the world’s 1.3 billion poor remain women. Women on average still earn less money than men for the same work. All around the world women continue to be victims of violence, with rape and domestic violence listed as significant causes of disability and death for women.

Women in Australia have worked to achieve equality since the first strike was organised by the Militant Women’s Movement, calling for equal pay for equal work, in the Sydney Domain in 1928. Australian women have made continued efforts to improve their own status. At the same time women have enhanced the social, economic and cultural life of all Australians. Some in our community would say that in Australia, and particularly in Canberra, we no longer need an International Women’s Day. Their view is that in our society women have achieved equal status to men. It is true, as Australia’s commentator Anne Summers notes in her latest book, that women in Australia are doing wonderful, powerful and innovative things. Some are involved in exciting and path-breaking activities, but that is not the full story.

Nationally there has been an increase in female-headed sole parent families who are reliant upon government support. Many women still do not have adequate superannuation. Access and affordability to housing is a major issue and there are many women across Australia and in Canberra who cannot find suitable child care. At the other end of the spectrum, women are still not well represented as company directors, as barristers appearing before the High Court, or as High Court judges.

There is also a positive picture for many of Canberra’s women, although this again is not the case for all. Women in Canberra are generally highly educated, articulate, employed

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