Page 747 - Week 03 - Tuesday, 21 March 2017
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women and girls reach their potential. The ACT government strongly supports women and girls in our community, and the past year has been an incredibly important one in many different areas.
Before we focus on this work, I would like to outline the clear disparities that still exist in almost all areas. For example, 90 per cent of adult victims of sexual assault are women, while 95 per cent of offenders are men. 22 per cent of Australians still believe domestic violence is acceptable, and over 70 women are killed every year by a current or former partner in Australia.
As Minister for Sport and Recreation, I am acutely aware that in professional sport women earn a fraction of the money made by their male counterparts. Only 8.7 per cent of televised sports news covers women’s sport. We also know that pathways for women and girls to stay in sport and progress their way up to the elite level are not as prevalent as they are for their male counterparts.
There is still an unacceptable gender pay gap of 16 per cent nationally, although we have seen an improvement in the last 12 months of a 1.2 per cent reduction. Here in the ACT our pay gap is much lower, at 11.5 per cent, and even lower in the ACT public service, at 3.6 per cent. In the media, women make up 55 per cent of journalists, but it is still primarily men who decide what we watch and read, with only 7.4 per cent of senior managers being women.
Some studies show boys receive eight times more attention than girls in the average classroom. Women are still under-represented in the legal profession, with only 3.4 per cent of all managing partners and 15.6 per cent of equity partners being women. In terms of leadership in business, only 12 per cent of CEO positions are held by women in Australia.
The ACT is doing well in many areas where women and equality are concerned, but we know there are many in our community that are not doing so well. Madam Speaker, we want to do better. We want to improve the lives of those people that may be vulnerable, isolated or experiencing discrimination. The ACT government is working hard to address these issues.
The ACT women’s plan 2016-26, tabled here in August 2016, sets out some of the key directions and priorities for improving outcomes for women and girls living in the ACT. The priorities to be addressed over this 10-year period are health and wellbeing; housing and homelessness; safety; economic security; and leadership.
The plan has a particular emphasis on improving outcomes for women who are vulnerable or experience discrimination, including women with disability, women from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women, older women, women heading single parent families and women who are socially isolated. The plan recognises that women may be even more vulnerable where there are multiple layers of disadvantage, commonly referred to as intersectionality.
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