The Northern Territory Listening Tour started with a public consultation which we held in partnership with the Northern Territory Anti-Discrimination Commission and the NT Legal Aid Commission. My colleague, Tom Calma, the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner and Acting Race Discrimination Commissioner also joined us for this leg of the Tour.

Participants at the consultation put forward a very clear message about the need for a cultural shift which would allow men to readily take up flexible work practices. A few women told us that, while flexible work practices were available, men are still not taking them up because the workplace culture doesn’t allow them. This means that the status quo of women undertaking the majority of caring responsibilities remains. As well as education and empowerment of employees to better negotiate flexible work, participants agreed that employers need to be educated to understand the caring responsibilities of their employees.

One suggestion from a participant was for employers to keep statistics on the employment, pay and career progression of women in comparison to men. This could then be part of an annual report which could set out how the employer is tracking towards gender equity. I would like to build on this idea at a national level, with the introduction of gender equality benchmarking which would track our progress as a country towards full gender equality.

In the afternoon I met with people from town communities in the Darwin area with the staff from Larrakia Nation. Members of these communities expressed their concern about elements of the NT Intervention, particularly the quarantining of Centrelink payments. We heard story after story of older women and men, and women with children walking long distances in the searing heat to get their store vouchers, then either walking or needing to take a taxi to the store and a taxi home with heavy bags. These implementation problems are creating difficulties on a daily basis for many people. The availability of housing is another critical issue. In one community, up to 4 generations of family are living under one roof. In this community of 52 homes, only 3 had stoves that were functional.

The staff at Larrakia Nation informed me of the shortage of rehabilitation services for alcohol abuse in the area with a 50 person wait list for their service.

The dire need for more low cost and culturally appropriate housing was brought home to me when I visited people living in the long grass. The conditions were third world, with many people living with severe chronic illnesses. Some were long term residents of Darwin. Others were in town for a range of reasons. The camp was tucked well away in the long grass in order to avoid the daily patrols of police and council officers who will move them on when they have nowhere to go. Darwin has the highest rate of homelessness of any capital city in Australia. Visiting the long grass was a sobering experience.

Thank you to the vibrant community of Darwin for sharing your stories with me. We will be travelling to Arnhem Land over the next two days so until then..

Liz

As I drove with the team from Broome to Fitzroy Crossing, I was taken by the magnificent landscape of red dusty dirt, beautiful rock formations coupled with the odd roaming cow or horse. For those of you who haven’t had the opportunity to see this part of the world, Fitzroy Crossing is the town at the heart of the Fitzroy Valley in Western Australia’s Kimberley region. The Valley has a total population of around 4000, with around 1500 living in the town of Fitzroy. The area has a significant Indigenous population, with four main Aboriginal language groups converging at the crossing.

On the night we arrived, we met up with the management committee of the Marninwarntikura Women’s Resource Centre. The committee is made up of women who volunteer from the community to oversee the strategic direction of the centre. We heard about some of the great programs run from the centre including a mobile play group which rotates around the 45 surrounding communities, providing mums and kids with educational and social activities.

The Centre also provides services for local women including counselling, legal services and social activities. The annual women’s bush camp is also organized by the Centre, where women come together from the various communities to discuss their issues and make plans for change. At last year’s camp, the women decided on three objectives – to lobby for a 12 month moratorium on the sale of alcohol, to advocate for services for men and boys, and a better relationship with Police.

Last year, a ban was put in place to restrict the sale of full strength take away alcohol. The Women’s Centre fought for this change as a measure to address the violence and associated health and social problems linked to alcohol abuse. I was shocked to hear that some estimates suggest that 30% of babies are born with fetal alcohol syndrome. Since the ban, police reports show that domestic violence reports have decreased by 43% and school attendance and engagement has risen. Some of the senior women in the community told me that, since the ban, they have been able to sleep peacefully through the night without fearing for their own safety or that of their family. Police estimate that call outs for alcohol fuelled violent incidents have decreased by 55% since the ban. I was so inspired by the collective determination of the women to ensure that every woman in the community has the right to live without the fear of violence.

Over the next two days we had meetings with service providers, a community BBQ and visits out to remote communities. I heard the consistent themes of alcohol related violence, the scarcity of housing, problems with transport and the accessibility of services, health problems associated with alcohol and poor nutrition, lack of services for men and boys, and the shortage of appropriate education and employment opportunities. I was impressed by Nindilingarri Cultural Health Services, with its focus on culturally appropriate preventative health promotion. The Health Service has installed a music studio as part of a spiritual health promotion program to encourage personal and cultural expression through music as a way to improve community health.

I want to thank June Oscar, Emily Carter and Michelle Kwikki from the Marninwarntikura Women’s Resource Centre for hosting our visit and for their warm hospitality. I am inspired and energised by their courage and determination. As our photos attest, we met many strong women and men from the diverse Fitzroy Valley, and I feel deeply privileged to have heard their stories as part of my Listening Tour.

Liz

The WA Listening Tour kicked off today with a meeting with the Pay Equity Unit at the WA Department of Labour and Consumer Protection. Did you know that WA has the largest gender pay gap of any state or territory? The difference between men and women’s full time earnings in WA is 27%. This is 11% higher than the national average. The Pay Equity Unit is doing some interesting work to address this issue including industry specific education and awareness raising, gender pay gap audits and reviews and monitoring and reporting of trends. You can read more about these initiatives here.

We then made our way to the Curtin Graduate School of Business where we held a public consultation in partnership with WiSER (Women in Social and Economic Research, Curtin University) and the Equal Opportunity Commission, WA. Around 40 passionate and engaged participants raised concerns similar to the rest of the country - anxiety about retirement savings, the need to recognize and value unpaid caring work and the right for women and children to live without the fear of harassment and violence.

Specific to WA, participants put on the table the significant gender pay gap and housing affordability, particularly for women on low incomes or on welfare. One gentleman echoed the sentiments of a number of older people I have met on my Tour, telling me of his frustration about the new requirements for older drivers to sit new tests at the age of 85 and the bureacracy to be negotiated to undertake the test.

As you have read on this blog, the gender gap in retirement savings has been a significant issue raised throughout the Tour. I was fortunate to meet with the researchers at WiSER to discuss this complex issue in more detail. In the words of Therese Jefferson, a researcher at WiSER with expertise in this area:
Australia’s superannuation system poses particular difficulties for women who have broken patterns of paid employment and relatively low wages. Economic simulations show that women in the baby boomer cohort will spend around 35 percent less time in paid employment than their male counterparts. This will translate into a gender gap in compulsory accumulations of a similarly large magnitude. In addition, interview based studies reveal that many women are uncertain about how to save for retirement. For some, the problem is having too little money to participate in a savings scheme, while for others there is a real concern with ‘how to get started’.

I look forward to working with the talented team at WiSER to develop policy solutions for closing the gender gap in retirement savings during my term as Sex Discrimination Commissioner.

Our next stop was the Liquor, Hospitality and Miscellanous Union (LHMU) where we held a focus group with 11 of their women members. The participants came from a range of industries including aged care, child care, hospitality and cleaning. The greater part of the discussion focused on the aged care industries where the women told me of their concerns about their own situation - level of pay, hours of work and poor stafffing levels - as well as the treament of their residents. Their testimonies reinforced my growing concern about how poorly we seem to value both the paid and unpaid work of caring in our community. One suggestion put forward was to regulate a staff to patient ratio in the aged care sector, similar to the child care sector, to ensure an appropriate workload for staff and the quality of care. The women I met with are an inspiration and I encourage all those responsible for the quality of our caring sectors to use their determination to make these changes happen.

Next time you hear from us will be from Fitzroy Crossing and the Kimberley region of WA where we will be spending the rest of the week. Until then..

Liz

I observed a real groundswell of support for gender equality around International Women’s Day this year. Breakfasts, lunches, dinners, marches, afternoon teas, speeches and community awareness raising activities were held across the country to celebrate our achievements as women and to bring attention to our ongoing pursuit towards equality. I felt a great sense of renewed optimism and camaraderie amongst women at all the events I attended.

To mark International Women’s Day 2008, GetUp!, an independent, grass-roots community advocacy organisation has launched a campaign to raise awareness of pay inequity.

Did you know that women working full time earn 84 cents in the male dollar? When we take into account casual and part time earnings, the pay gap is even bigger with women earning 66 per cent of what men earn.

As part of the ‘Equal Pay for Women’ campaign, GetUp! is collecting signatures for a petition to the Australian government.

The petition calls on the Australian Government to take action to achieve equal pay for women. I encourage you to sign it and spread the work to your family and friends. Click here to see the campaign.

Liz

Gender equality - let’s not let it become a lost Australian dream

Today I will give my first speech to mark International Women’s Day. On this occasion, women gather together across the country and around the globe to bring attention to our ongoing quest for equality and justice. We celebrate our achievements, look honestly at our challenges and plot our course for the future.

Eighty years ago when the first International Women’s Day rally was held in Sydney, women called for equal pay for equal work. Not only do we still not have this but the gap has widened over the last few years.

We still see few women in decision making roles. In the case of boardrooms, women’s participation has only increased from 8.4 percent in 2003 to 8.7 percent in 2006. We are moving at a glacial pace.

True equality does not seem like a radical demand, but even today there are many women who struggle to balance work and family as I have found on my Listening Tour. As you have read on this blog, sexual harassment is still alive and well across all workplaces.

Efforts to create equality between women and men in Australia have been in retreat. Despite the fact that few laws actively discriminate against women, real equality does not exist for many women in their daily lives. We are no where near the so called ‘tipping point’ on gender equality.

I was recently privileged enough to attend the United Nation’s Commission on the Status of Women in New York. This is an annual gathering where governments and women’s organisations meet together - over 5000 participants - to share experiences, challenge each other, and commit to future action to secure gender equality as a human right for all women, everywhere.

There was a general view that Australia in recent times had moved away from its ground-breaking role it had previously played advocating for the rights of women, for example, through supporting the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW).

From my informal discussions with women in the corridors of the United Nations building, it is clear to me that the international community is waiting and watching. Will Australia resume its leadership role in the journey towards gender equality?

Globalisation and technology offer new ways of communicating with one another and influencing change. I urge women to capitalise on these advances and use them to push for a better future where women’s concerns are at centre stage, locally and globally. What’s to stop us harnessing the technology that is already a part of our lives and using it to inspire and activate women across generations and cultures, across cities and states, across schools, communities and workplaces?

A new federal government gives women an enormous opportunity to influence Australia’s future direction. Achieving gender equality is at the heart of that future.

But to do so we must speak up and stand together. We are a prosperous nation full of innovation and talent. Women make up more than 50 per cent of that potential. The sky is the limit.

Liz Broderick