A Letter of Concern

25 March 2008

By Kellie Tranter

Dear Minister

On International Women’s Day 2008 Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon said “...This day is an opportunity for all of us—women and men—to unite in a cause that embraces all humankind.  Empowering women is not only a goal in itself.  It is a condition for building better lives for everyone on the planet...No one can dispute the evidence that this is so.  And no one can gainsay the outcome of the 2005 World Summit, when leaders reaffirmed that gender equality and human rights for all are essential to advancing development, peace and security.”Ban Ki Moon’s comments compel me to draw your immediate attention to the 2007 report ‘How well does Australian democracy serve Australian women?’  Australian women owe a good deal to its authors for the time and effort they obviously put into compiling such a comprehensive and detailed report.  Sadly, the picture it paints for women living in this country is alarmingly bleak.

I have noted, and often recently commented, that gender orientated legislation and the bureaucratic bodies to support it have been in place in Australia for a long time, that their impact seems to be lessening over time and that we need to revise, or perhaps reform and revitalise, gender orientated legislation and the bureaucratic bodies that administer it.The Australian democracy report prompts me to raise some urgent questions:

• Australia ratified the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) in 1983.  Why does Australia still maintain reservations about article 11 of the (CEDAW) concerning the provision of paid maternity leave and women’s employment in frontline combat positions in the armed forces?  Is the limited ratification a reflection of limited acceptance of the real principles?
• Why has Australia refused to ratify the Optional Protocol to CEDAW, which would strengthen the enforcement mechanisms of the convention by allowing individual complaints to be taken to the UN if domestic remedies have been exhausted?
• Is there any reason for Australia slipping back to eighth on the Gender Empowerment Measure (GEM) of the 2006 Human Development Report? I note that Australia was ranked seventh in 2005.  Is the Rudd Government aware that its Australian Embassy and Mission to the EU website is currently misleading the international community by incorrectly stating that “Australia is performing well on international indicators of gender equality.  The 2007/2008 United Nations Human Development Report ranked Australia second in the world on its Gender Related Development Index (GRDI) and eighth in the world on its Gender Empowerment Measure (GEM).  Both of these rankings are increases on 2003 measures, representing improvements in the global status of women.”? Our GEM ranking has gone down from fourth in 2003 to eighth in 2006!
• Why is Australia one of the few remaining democratic societies that does not include a constitutional or legislative recognition of equality between men and women?
• Do you acknowledge or are you aware that the 2006 assessment of the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women raised the following concerns about Australia:

1. inadequate awareness and understanding of CEDAW at State and Territory level;
2. the absence of an ‘entrenched guarantee’ prohibiting discrimination against women and providing for the principle of equality between men and women;
3. a lack of ‘impact assessments’ that would measure the practical effect of legal (and policy) measures taken; and
4. the lack of a national system of paid maternity leave.

• What action has been taken, as required by the UN Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (BPFA), on the structures and processes that enable the legislation to take proper effect – the administrative practices, policies and programs that ensure women enjoy their rights in practice?
• How are women’s equal access to economic resources being guaranteed as required by BPFA (A2)? 
• Australia having ratified a number of International Labour Organisation Conventions (ILO), what commitment is being made by the Rudd Government to:
  • pursue a national policy to promote equality of opportunity and treatment and eliminating discrimination in employment (Article 2, 111 Discrimination (Employment and Occupation) Convention, 1958, ratified by Australia in 1973)? And what are the Government’s plans to address concerns raised about the level of consistency and coordination of EEO and anti-discrimination legislation and related policies between the national and State and Territory levels?;
  • ensure equal remuneration for men and women workers for work of equal value (Article 2, 100 Equal Remuneration Convention, 1951, ratified by Australia in 1974)?; and
  • enable people with family responsibilities to exercise their right to engage in employment without being subject to discrimination and as far as possible, without conflict between their employment and family responsibilities (Article 3, 156 Workers with Family Responsibilities Convention, 1981, ratified by Australia in 1990)?
• Is the Rudd Government going to ratify ILO convention C183, the Maternity Protection Convention, 2000, which creates an entitlement for women to a minimum of 14 weeks maternity leave?
• Is the Rudd Government going to address concerns that Australian anti-discrimination legislation is considered ‘slow and uneven’?
• Is there any reason that the Equal Employment Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Act 1999 makes no reference to unions, consultation with women, or targets?
• Does the Rudd Government accept that the Human Rights & Equal Opportunity Commission has been severely hampered in its ability to hear discrimination cases, in its allowable compensation amounts remaining ‘pegged’ at an inadequate level and by the fact that costs are not awarded to successful complainants?
• Is the Rudd Government going to undo the Howard Government’s 1996 40% funding cut to the HREOC and the cut to its powers?
• Is the Government aware that there were large cuts to the Affirmative Action Agency in 1997 along with the removal of the requirement for complying companies to submit annual reports, or for government agencies to check company compliance before awarding contracts?
• Wouldn’t you agree with the views espoused by the authors of this report that the legislative framework that does exist in Australia has proven vulnerable to undermining through under-resourcing, unsympathetic appointments and administrative arrangements?  If so, what plans does the Rudd Labor Government have to rectify that?
• Why is there no mention of gender equality in the aims of the Commonwealth Office for Women?
• Is the Rudd Government going to restore the federal Office for the Status of Women (which the Howard Government relocated to the Department of Family and Community Services and renamed the Office for Women) and going to ensure that gender analysis is undertaken in the provision of policy advice?
• Since 2003 there has been no national policy consultation process with women’s NGOs.  How is the Rudd Government going to protect the interests of underrepresented groups including Aboriginal women, women from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds, women with disabilities, refugee women and lesbians?
• Does the Government know that Australia ranked seventeenth in the 2007 World Economic Forum Global Gender Gap report? 

A slip backwards from fifteenth place in 2006.

The findings of the Australian democracy report are perfectly consistent with the fact that Australian statistics now show that:

1. Women do more than twice as many hours of unpaid domestic work than men, provide the most unpaid childcare and family care, and do more voluntary work.
2. Anywhere from 40 - 57% of Australian women will experience physical or sexual violence at some point in their lives.  Staggering statistics when we consider that Australia’s population is now above 21 million.
3. Australia and the US remain the only OECD countries without publicly funded maternity leave.
4. Women hold just 7% of the Top Earner positions (80 positions out of total of 1,136).
5. A female CEO earns two-thirds the salary of her male counterpart.
6. In Human Resources, where women are more commonly found as Top Earners, the pay gap is still 43%.
7. In 90% of industry sectors, the median salary for women was less than that for men. There was no industry in which women were more likely than men to be top earners.
8. 60% of female Top Earners work in the bottom 100 ASX200 companies by market capitalisation.  
9. By May 2007 female average weekly earnings were just 83.6% of males’, evidencing a gender pay gap of 16.4%.

What message did it send Australian women when the Howard Government was not held to account for using $10 million of underspent monies from the federal governments ‘partnerships against domestic violence’ to fund the governments household terrorism kit (including the infamous fridge magnet)?

The Rudd Government undoubtedly will do better than this.  But Australian women deserve better.  A lot better.  They deserve to have this Government address the failings of its predecessors, identify how they were allowed to occur and to put forward a clear and comprehensive plan and solutions for the future.  

The federal election has been and gone but Mr Rudd’s assurances of being a “prime minister for all Australians” remain on record.  By accepting the CEDAW Convention, the Rudd Government has committed to undertake a series of measures to end discrimination against women in all forms and is legally bound to put its provisions into practice.   Part of that duty, and one that is attainable with Labor Governments throughout Australia, is to pull State Governments into line with our international obligations.  Some areas of concern in New South Wales include:

1. the New South Wales Anti-Discrimination Board suffering a 23 per cent cut in funding to its policy and research branch in 2003 following publication of a report that criticised the Labor State Government’s handling of ‘race’ related issues in the media?  Does the Rudd Government feel that this approach encourages free and informed discussions?;
2. the extent of damages that can be awarded in anti-discrimination matters in New South Wales, which have been capped at $40,000.00 since 1982 despite expert legal commentators confirming that that sum is grossly inadequate to redress unlawful conduct or to deter recidivist respondents; and
3. the NSW Labor Government’s abolition in 2004 of the Department for Women and its replacement by an apparently less well resourced Office for Women.                                                    

I trust that you will not fail to honour Australia’s international agreements and look forward to your immediate response.

Yours faithfully 

Kellie Tranter