Sydney Listening Tour

It has been a busy few weeks with the Listening Tour of South Australia, New South Wales and Tasmania now behind us. I wanted to fill you in on the highlights from a few events in Sydney.

In late November the Women and Work Research Group at the University of Sydney co-hosted an academic roundtable to discuss the emerging research issues relating to the three themes of the Tour. It was fantastic to hear about the exciting research that is happening in such a diverse range of areas. Key issues that were raised included the availability of quality part time work, the gendered nature of unpaid work, the impact of the welfare to work reforms, low paid women workers and Workchoices, pay inequity and the limitations of the Sex Discrimination Act 1984 in broadly tackling discrimination and harassment.

I was heartened to hear from one participant about reforms in the United Kingdom that are impacting positively on the availability of flexible work practices, and I have since been thinking about how we could get similar changes happening in Australia. If you want to find out more about the UK reforms check this link out.

What became clear to me from this meeting is the importance of our policy work being grounded in a solid evidence base, and the need for us to develop mechanisms to facilitate stronger relationships between researchers and policy practitioners. This roundtable was an important step in this process and I look forward to working with these researchers over my five year term.

More recently as part of the Sydney Listening Tour I held a focus group with members of Asian Women at Work where I was very concerned to hear about some of the issues they are facing in the workplace. Low pay was a significant issue with some women earning around $5-10 with no access to sick and annual leave entitlements. Some women also recounted stories of unacceptable working conditions. Many women reported that they were subject to racist remarks and harassment daily. The women I met with showed incredible strength and resilience. The level of camaraderie between the women demonstrated the value of having an organisation such as Asian Women at Work to provide support and information to migrant women about their rights in the workplace.

The final event of the NSW Listening Tour was a service visit to Mudgin-Gal Aboriginal Women’s Corporation based in Redfern. Mudgin-Gal provides a range of support and education services to Aboriginal women in the inner city areas of Sydney. In response to the themes of the Tour the women told us about the difficulties they encountered finding work, while managing their caring responsibilities which often care of their extended family and kinship circles. One exciting project that the organisation is currently running is the Virtual Sisters program. This is an excellent initiative to support Indigenous women and I encourage you to get involved.

That’s all from me for now. Stay tuned for when the Listening Tour returns at the end of January 2008. Best wishes for a safe and healthy festive season.

Liz

For me, International Human Rights Day was a day of real inspiration. I was struck by the power of women coming together to support each other.  

I brought together a number of extraordinary Indigenous women leaders from communities around Australia, and a small group of women business leaders with the objective sharing knowledge, ideas, and resources for the benefit of both the communities and business.  

We welcomed June Oscar from Fitzroy Crossing in the Kimberley, Raymattja Marika from Yirrkala in East Arnhemland near Gove, and Bronwyn Penrith from Mudgin-Gal Aboriginal Women’s Corporation in Redfern, Sydney. Also in our group was Sally Evans from Westpac, Margot Faraci from Macquarie Bank and Anne Cregan from Blake Dawson.  

June shared with us the successes of the recent changes to the take-away alcohol licensing and how she was building the case for extending the changes beyond the initial six month trial. For example, prior to the alcohol changes, the Royal Flying Doctor was evacuating people to Perth for crisis medical treatment twice a day. Since the changes, this has drastically reduced. Police call outs have also reduced, and people have reported being less frightened during the nights. The push to get the alcohol changes in place came from the recent Women’s Bush Camp, and the women remain determined to keep the restrictions in place.  

Raymattja has been developing wonderful cultural learning ideas with young people and their parents involved in sharing their stories using information technologies, including YouTube. She is also committed to developing a longer term community and business plan, building greater self-reliance for the community, including housing infrastructure and business opportunities. To find out more about Raymattja’s project click here.

Bronwyn also shared the many innovative ways in which her service is supporting women to lead lives free from violence and substance abuse. Projects including Virtual Sisters , where business and other women offer skills and resource to the service, Healthy Family Circles, where women come together to develop their skills and plans for the future, and Counselling on the Run, which provides women with basic skills to support others in their communities.

The gathering was a wonderful opportunity for a group of women to understand each others issues, and how they could work together to find solutions.  Indeed, some solutions are already progressing as a result of the meeting. The exciting opportunity for us is that from these small beginnings will emerge a greater dialogue between business and community to create a shared agenda for change.  

Liz

12-13 December 2007

From Hobart we travelled to Launceston where we held a community consultation, a business roundtable and meetings with Ministers and Shadow Ministers.

One issue that struck me as concerning was the lack of availability of before and after school care provided on site for public school students, particularly in the primary years. This was raised on a number of occasions as an added impediment to people engaging in paid work while managing their caring responsibilities.

People living outside the major regional centres were experiencing difficulties in accessing essential services, particularly in circumstances where they were caring for a disabled child or adult. There was a perception that essential services were being centralised thereby increasing the sense of isolation that many people felt outside the two major centres. This problem is magnified by the lack of transport options in regional areas. The lack of employment opportunities for skilled workers was also raised as a barrier to economic independence for women.

The largest employers in Launceston were small business and state government. Business representatives agreed that flexibility in workplace arrangements was important but without addressing the issue of job redesign progress was varied. Some considered the absence of any paid maternity leave had a negative impact on the retention of women in the workplace, however there was a view that any system would need to be at a nil cost to business.

While we were in Tasmania, new figures were released showing that Tasmania has experienced the most rapid ageing of the population over the last twenty years, and subsequently has the highest median age of all states and territories at 39.1. This is influenced by the fact that Tasmania is an increasingly attractive retirement destination and that many younger Tasmanians leave to pursue work opportunities. Lack of retirement savings for women emerged as a common theme given the age profile and lack of availability of superannuation for women in the earlier years.

Thank you to all the people who participated in the Tasmanian leg of the Listening Tour. I look forward to hearing more from you through the blog over the next few months.

Liz

Tuesday 11 December 2007

The issues of a rapidly ageing population quickly became front and centre stage. The Office of the Anti-Discrimination Commissioner has done a major report telling the stories of older Tasmanians revealing severe financial pressures, and the lack of access to aged care facilities. Go to http://www.antidiscrimination.tas.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0018/70308/57610-Age_publication.pdf.

The challenge for Tasmania was confirmed just today by the release of the latest Australian Bureau of Statistics which reports that Tasmania now has the oldest population in Australia, with a median age of 39.1 years, overtaking South Australia. This can be contrasted with the youngest state, being the Northern Territory with a median age of 31.1 years. For more about this finding from the ABS, go to http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/mf/3201.0?OpenDocument.

Our evening consultation in Hobart generated lots of discussion about the pressures on grandparents, who after caring for their own children, and often both being in paid work, are now under pressure to take on part-time or sole caring responsibilities for their grandchildren. This pressure comes at a time when, for some older people, they are also under pressure to stay in paid work.

I was really concerned to hear stories about how common it is for older women to have no choice but to stay working in high pressure jobs, like class room teaching, until their mid-sixties, when their male colleagues are more often able to move out of paid work earlier, due to better retirement savings. At our meeting with the Unions Tasmania Women’s Committee, we discussed at length the adverse impact on older women now as a result of their past direct discrimination in younger years, including being forced to leave paid work on marriage, or upon the birth of their first child, their unequal ability to invest in superannuation when their male colleagues could, This has meant that many older women now simply can’t afford to leave paid work due to the small savings behind them.

Is this your situation, or the situation of women you know?

I would really like to hear more on this.

Housing generally has also been discussed a lot – lack of crisis accommodation, long public housing waiting lists, increasing private housing costs, both rentals, and home ownership.

We also heard about the Safe at Home Program for an improved criminal justice response to family violence. I’ll be keen to share more about that with you shortly.

Liz

4 December 2007

Two more events as part of the NSW Listening Tour this afternoon have left me thinking about some key questions and I’m keen to hear what you think.

We had a focus group with some men working in financial services this afternoon and it became clear to me again that engaging men in the dialogue around gender equality is a critical part of our work. The men told me about the pressure they felt around being the breadwinner. This pressure was born out of financial necessity, including the cost of childcare and housing, as well as social expectations placed on men.

Work intensification was an issue for the men, and it was apparent that the competitive nature of paid work was having an impact on how flexible work practices could be implemented, particularly in times of high work pressure such as the end of the financial year. There was an example from one man who was able to negotiate an agreement with management which allowed him to work from home and partake in family caring responsibilities. Management agreed that his performance would be assessed by the results that he would achieve, rather that the time that he put in to the job. This was an embryonic change in the big scheme of things but it represents the start of change.

I left this focus group asking myself some questions which I will put out to you:

How can we engage men on the gender equality agenda?

How can we give a platform and voice to the silent majority of men who support gender equality?

We held a public consultation in the CBD this evening and some more interesting questions came to the fore. Participants raised issues such as how we can make flexibility a universal practice, the problems of the individual complaints process under the Sex Discrimination Act and the legal response to women experiencing violence.

One interesting point from this consultation has stuck in my mind and it relates to how we can bring about attitudinal change on flexibility in the paid workplace. It might be useful to look at how attitudes towards climate change shifted. At first, the attitude about climate change was that we couldn’t afford to do something because of the impact on the economy. We have now reached a point of urgency where the attitude has changed - we now can’t afford not to do something about climate change. I think that we are close to point of urgency around flexible work practices with Australia’s ageing workforce and impending skills shortage. We are in a position where we simply can’t afford not to implement flexibility in the workplace.

Some more questions for you:

Do you think we are at the tipping point with change around flexibility in the paid workplace?

How do you think this change will happen?

I look forward to hearing some of your ideas on these questions.

That’s all from me for now.

Liz