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