Page 405 - Week 02 - Thursday, 8 March 2007
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The importance of this debate is clearly evident, especially while the country is governed by a federal government that continues to enact regressive laws that adversely affect our population. Once again the injustice of the WorkChoices laws has been exposed. While it is still early days for the laws, the data so far clearly shows that the gap between men and women in the work force has widened. Until these laws are dropped and full equality in the work force—in fact, in all aspects of life—is achieved, International Women’s Day will continue to be an important day on the world calendar.
MS PORTER (Ginninderra) (4.41): I am very pleased to be able to join Mr Gentleman and other people in this place today in talking about gender equity. Along with Mr Gentleman, I read with interest the report in the Canberra Times that Australian adolescents are suffering as their parents experience problems balancing their work and home life, with less time to spend with their children. The report, as Mr Gentleman says, recommends that a federal law be introduced to prevent discrimination against workers who ask for more flexible hours to care for their children, their elderly relatives or people with disabilities in their families.
Only this morning, at the breakfast to celebrate International Women’s Day, the ACT Chief Police Officer, Audrey Fagan, spoke about her experience as a policewoman and how the AFP has been recognised as being a family-friendly workplace. Of course, as Ms Fagan said, this aspect of the AFP is central to the service’s response to the sad event of yesterday’s plane crash in Indonesia, with the apparent tragic loss of two of their officers, along with the lives of many others, and with a large number suffering serious injury.
On a lighter note, Ms Fagan reflected on the fact that, as part of her work-life balance, she was having breakfast with her daughter today, as her daughter was attending the breakfast with her classmates. It was pleasing to see such a large number of young women from Canberra’s public and private schools at the breakfast.
To return to the research featured in this morning’s Canberra Times, the article emphasises the importance of parents’ different roles and how significant difficulties are created in work-life balance through overwork. Fortunately, it does seem that we have moved on, at least in terms of this research, in our expectation of women being the ones in the family with household and caring roles.
However, women still report, as other research substantiates and as Mr Gentleman said earlier, that they still carry the lion’s share—or should I say the lioness’s share?—of this role. In fact, the Canberra Times article quotes the HREOC report It’s about time: women, men, work, and family as arguing that women still shoulder the greater burden of unpaid work, while men want more time with the kids. There is a serious issue here, that is, the issue of how much we value the contribution of both men and women as parents.
Today’s report in the Canberra Times comes as no surprise to me. Many years ago I learned of research undertaken in the United States which showed that that country’s version of welfare-to-work policies had led to a rise in juvenile crime and delinquency among teenagers. The research showed that forcing mothers into the paid work force
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