Page 393 - Week 02 - Thursday, 8 March 2007
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I would like to talk firstly about gender equity issues in Australia generally and then focus on what we have done in the ACT to address these issues and also to briefly discuss two recent reports, the first from the Australian National University and the other from the Human Rights and Equal Opportunities Commission. Both provide interesting analysis and recommendations on this issue.
Unfortunately, the social positions of women and men are markedly different and fundamentally unequal. However, gender equality is a complex and paradoxical goal. It requires both equality of opportunities and sex-based differences to be recognised and addressed.
A gender equal society must neither discriminate against nor between women. It must be remembered that a large failure of the debate about gender equity emphasises sameness. This is misleading and destructive to the cause as it fails to recognise the differences of women and men and is an acknowledgment that government programs and policies affect women and men differently. While on some occasions men and women may need to be treated equally, in other areas this is not so—for example, in employment conditions relating to childbirth.
Despite many improvements in the status of women in Australia, there are still many inequalities. Firstly, the suggestion that women have achieved equality in the work force is a myth. Women are earning less in relation to men than they did a decade ago. Women are still responsible for the majority of unpaid domestic labour, including housework and childcare. Despite the common held belief that Australia has achieved equality in the employment sector, women still find themselves at a marked disadvantage in this area. It is worth nothing that women make up just 33.6 per cent of the full-time labour force. Their earnings are 81 per cent of men’s and, overall, women earn only 66 per cent of what men do.
This has clear disadvantages not only for women individually but also impacts on the choices of heterosexual couples concerning housework and childcare as it is often economically more viable for women to take responsibility for unpaid work because of their lower earning capacity. Despite the increased numbers of women in completing year 12 and going on to higher education, women are still concentrated in occupations such as retail, teaching, nursing and clerical work occupations that have a limited career structure and earning capacity.
Men still dominate most positions of power within Australia. Men hold 98.8 per cent of senior executive positions and 75.3 per cent of seats in the federal parliament. Unfortunately, Australia does not seem to be meeting its obligations under international labour conventions. In fact, we are going backwards. In the 1970s, the gaps between male and female rates of pay were being narrowed. However, since the 1980s, there has been little progress in removing that remaining gap.
There is also a new wave of anxiety following the recent changes to the industrial relations regime under WorkChoices. Added to this is the threat of further casualisation of the workforce and the push for individual contracts, both of which cause great disparity for women’s working conditions and pay.
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