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