Page 2125 - Week 07 - Wednesday, 6 August 2014
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I think that this is an interesting observation, and one that may well be pertinent for us here in the ACT. The Attorney-General has today outlined that provisions are in place in the ACT to protect the rights of parents in the workplace—and these are commendable—but this report is basically saying that it is the attitudes towards pregnancy and parenting that are causing problems and that people need to better understand the law and what rights it provides for parents. So it is very much a cultural issue as much as a legal issue.
Turning to the specifics of Mrs Jones’s motion, my understanding is that much of what she has called for in part 2 of her motion is already happening in the ACT, and the attorney has spoken to that to some extent. It seems, on our research, that the ACT Human Rights Commissioner does collect data about discrimination.
However, the pregnancy discrimination is not broken down into workplace/non-workplace as there have been so few cases reported. My understanding is that there were only three pregnancy complaints in each of the last two years. As such, further disaggregation could potentially lead to the identification of individuals, and the Human Rights Commission is reluctant to do this.
The ACT Human Rights Commissioner has separate categories to sex discrimination, categories that are effectively more detailed than the Sex Discrimination Commissioner pulled together for her report, partly because the Sex Discrimination Commissioner was attempting to compile data across the country and the data sets were different.
As such, I have supported Mr Corbell’s amendments that outline both the data collection that currently occurs and the legal and workplace frameworks that are in place in the ACT to protect the rights of women who are pregnant and all parents during the parental leave stage of their lives.
Finally, I will be moving an amendment. I did want to add another amendment, because I think what part of Mrs Jones’s section 2 is trying to do is ensure that the government responds to the issues that are highlighted in Ms Broderick’s report and that any issues that might exist in the ACT—and unfortunately I suspect that some do occur—are identified and addressed by the government. It really goes to that question of certainly looking at and identifying this issue in light of Mrs Jones raising this motion.
We seem to have all of the right rules and all of the right policies in place, but what the national report highlighted was that gap in culture and implementation and I think that is where it is valuable for the ACT to reflect, to analyse the findings in the national report and to examine whether there is anything we can learn from that, for practical implementation in the ACT. I do not think there is any lack of will here in the territory, but there is also no doubt that there is always room for improvement in these sorts of areas. That is the tenor of my amendment. I added it, hopefully, to enrich the text that is already in place.
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