Motions

AFL National Women's League

Ms HILDYARD (Reynell) (12:45): I move:

That this house—

(a) congratulates the AFL for establishing the National Women's League;

(b) wishes the players all the best for the inaugural 2017 season; and

(c) recognises the important role that providing elite sporting pathways for women plays in encouraging girls to participate in sport.

I rise today to speak about something very exciting for Australia, and particularly for South Australia. Of course, I speak of the establishment of the AFL National Women's League, which will—very excitingly—commence in 2017. It is an incredibly important time for women and girls in sport. We have a moment before us to work together to address the gender inequality that exists in sport—in pay, in sponsorship, in media coverage—and together we are doing so and together we are turning things around.

As I said in this chamber on Tuesday, sport, and football in particular, is many things to many people. It is a game that many of us in this place love, that many of us have played, or, in my case, participated in, as I had the pleasure of doing at the half-time match of Sunday's SANFL grand final—where my stats were, not so impressively, one mark, one kick, 25 tackles on Cornesy. It is a game that brings us much joy and, indeed, sometimes despair.

Mr Griffiths: Twenty-five tackles?

Ms HILDYARD: Yes, on Cornesy, particularly.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: None of them successful, but—

Ms HILDYARD: Not that many successful, no.

Mr Griffiths: Isn't that assault?

Ms HILDYARD: No, it's a tackle, a legal tackle of course. It would be entirely inappropriate off the oval, but on the oval it was a legal tackle—not very successful, but an attempt to tackle nonetheless.

Sport, particularly football, is something that brings us much joy and, indeed, sometimes despair. It is a way to bring community members together, it is an industry, a profession, a way to be active, and undoubtedly a passion for all of us. For decades, through our shared passion, football has brought women, men, girls and boys together at our clubs, but girls and women have not always equally participated on the oval. For many this has been frustrating. However, it is our shared frustration and our shared passion that we can harness to address this inequality.

To have women's AFL teams competing at the highest level is a huge step forward for girls and women in sport, a huge step forward for equality in sport, with huge and multiple implications for girls and women in sport at the local level. Having women play at the highest level means that girls can dream big and work towards having their highest football goals realised. It also sends a strong message to all sporting codes that girls and women are welcome to equally and actively participate at every level of sport in their chosen code.

It is a point of immense pride that South Australia has a team in this inaugural competition. The Adelaide Crows, together with the Northern Territory, will be joined in the first year of this league by Carlton, Collingwood, Melbourne, Fremantle, Brisbane, GWS Giants and the Western Bulldogs. Having an AFL team based here in South Australia will provide inspiration to our local girls and women wanting to follow their football hopes and dreams. Congratulations to the Crows and the AFLNT on recognising and embracing the role that women can and will play in football, a previously male-dominated sport, into the future.

This is a great step forward for the Crows, for the AFLNT, for football and for the achievement of gender equality in all aspects of sport. It is a clear demonstration of the fact that times are changing, that clubs at the highest level are recognising that women in sport, and women's sport, must be promoted, supported and treated equally. It is a step that comes on the back of significant and enduring work by the SANFL, the SA Women's Football League and many local clubs, including the extraordinary Christies Beach Football Club in the electorate of the member for Kaurna, just on our border, to include, support and promote girls' and women's football and, most importantly, to change club culture to ensure they are equally included in all aspects of club life.

Having girls and women play at your club is not just about scheduling another match: it is about thinking about your club's culture and about how you support these girls to equally and actively participate. Thank you very much, and well done, to the clubs who are doing just that across our state. On that note, I am very, very proud of our government's $10 million funding announcement for women's change rooms. This also deeply contributes to the goal of equal participation of women and girls in club sporting life. With adequate facilities for women, clubs send a very clear message to girls and women wanting to participate at their club that they are welcome to do so and welcome to be included in every single aspect of club life.

Providing pathways to elite sport for girls and women helps strengthen their participation in every level of sport. I can see in the clubs in my electorate the growing interest for young women in this sport. The channels that are opening up for young women show how quickly we will take forward women in football. It is very exciting for our state to be on the ground floor of this new league. It is a source of great pride that the Crows have, as their two marquee players, Chelsea Randall and Kellie Gibson. Chelsea is already a three-time all-Australian, and has starred for Melbourne in exhibition games against the Western Bulldogs. She has also twice been WA Women's Football League best and fairest.

Kellie is a former junior level Rugby Sevens player who has been working for the SANFL this year, and plays for local, very successful, football club Morphettville Park in our South Australian Women's Football League. Kellie has been incredibly generous with her time in the development of this sport for girls and women. She has, on request, helped with numerous events for our local Southern Football League, and has been instrumental in assisting to get our inaugural girls' competition going in this league.

We are very excited to have two such incredible and accomplished players in our Adelaide Crows team. They are extraordinary role models for women in sport and absolutely exemplify the behaviour and commitment that we want in our top women athletes. As Chelsea said:

When I was 11 years old, we weren't able to play [senior football]…So, to be given an opportunity now to be playing football at the most elite level in the [competition], and to be wearing the yellow, blue and red colours for the Adelaide Crows, is amazing.

Last month, we also got the great news that Adelaide has signed a woman coach for the team. Because Goddard has played, coached and umpired football and will bring incredible passion to the role. Her focus will include good club culture, which I am sure we can all agree is crucial for the development of women's football. She said, 'Something that little girls in Adelaide aspire to is how I would gauge our success.'

Young Lilly Brown of Morphett Vale in my electorate this year is Auskicker of the Year. I had the pleasure of seeing her at one of our state women's games earlier this year when I had the privilege of tossing the coin to get the game going. I asked her whether she wanted one day to play in a state women's game, and Lilly replied, 'No, Katrine, I want to be out here on Adelaide Oval captaining Port Power'. These are the dreams I speak of. I understand that Lilly had the great fortune of accompanying some of the women's players earlier this week to the Brownlow Medal, and I certainly hope that Lilly Brown goes on one day to claim her own Brownlow Medal. I hope that we, through the development of our women's football in South Australia, will provide every opportunity for her to do so.

I look forward to seeing Bec Goddard's great work as coach and to seeing the final result of the first draft. I know that Bec will be magnificent, both in terms of developing women's players and, very importantly, in terms of developing and profiling our women's game. I really hope that many young girls see AFL as a genuine opportunity to pursue their sporting dreams. As a feminist, a unionist and as a long-term advocate of equal pay, however, it would be remiss of me not to mention the incredible pay gap that the AFL has sanctioned for the women's league.

Each player in the new women's league will receive just $5,000, not including health insurance or payment for media and club appearances. I hope that members of this chamber would agree that this is unacceptable and is not a fair wage for the hours and work expected of these women, who will be in public life.

We absolutely can do better, and we must do better, and together, through our Women in Sport Taskforce in South Australia, and through many other mechanisms, we can. It was in 1972, as you know very well, Madam Deputy Speaker, that we first fought for, and won, the principle of equal pay, equal remuneration—the principle that if men and women do the same job they should be paid the same amount. In 2012, we enshrined, through the Australian Services Union's equal remuneration case for 200,000 community workers across Australia, the principle that inequality in pay should also be addressed through taking into account the lower rates of pay associated with industries dominated by women—football is not one of these.

On both of these long-established principles we fail our women footballers. Paying an amount so inferior to their male counterparts is unacceptable. Paying an amount so far away from our minimum wage is also unacceptable. As we rightly embrace women's participation in football, we must value and respect our players in many ways, including through the industrial mechanisms available to us. In doing so, in respecting women players in this way, we send a message that we do equally value women's sport as a whole.

Since having the privilege of starting the South Australian Women in Sport Taskforce, alongside many other leaders in our South Australian community, a task force that is focused on improving gender equity in all aspects of women's sport and for women in sport (pay, media, spectatorship, sponsorship, etc.), on changing the face of sports leadership, on improving spectatorship, and on attracting women's events to South Australia, I, along with other members of the task force, have been overwhelmed with support and with the sense that it is time for a change, time to make a difference.

Together, we can make a difference. People often ask me what they can do to support women's sport and to support women in sport, and there are many things that we can do. One of the things that we all can do as often as we can is to actually get out there and watch the women play their chosen sport. As the summer season of sport approaches, there are multiple Strikers games, and all sorts of other games that are coming up. We have a rugby sevens tournament coming to South Australia, a softball tournament. We can all make a difference in a multitude of sports by getting out there and making the decision to not just go to the men's game, but to actually go and watch and cheer for the women's game as well.

There is a growing campaign to increase spectatorship for women in sport. If you do get along to a game, and I am certainly happy to share an extensive calendar of women's sporting events that are coming up, both over the summer season and into next year's winter season, we ask people to #watchthewomen, and to take photos at those events and share them as much as we can. That is, absolutely, a way that we can all choose to get behind women's sport and support it, and, over time, really change the media coverage of sport in Australia.

The media coverage of women's sport in Australia currently sits at 9 per cent of all sporting coverage. Growing our spectatorship is just one way we can really start to make an impact on that very, very sad statistic. I look forward to seeing many members of this house out at a number of the women's games and to cheering on our women footballers very loudly in their inaugural season in 2017, and beyond.

Mr WHETSTONE (Chaffey) (12:58): I will rise to start my contribution and then I am sure that you will ask me to start again sometime later today. I would like to speak on this motion in congratulating the AFL on establishing the national Women's Football League and generally recognising the importance of creating pathways for women to encourage more young girls to participate in sport and to give girls and women a pathway to greatness.

I know there are many young, aspirational AFL women players out there who would like to think there is a pathway there for them to be able to play at elite level. The rise in women's football right across Australia, including South Australia, has been phenomenal. The announcement of the national women's football league to be played in 2017 is a first step in continuing to grow participation in football and across a range of other sports.

The Adelaide Crows/Northern Territory team that will take part in the inaugural competition has already created much hype amongst the state level of women's football here in South Australia. Before this, females were playing more for fun. I notice that the member for Reynell continues to go down the road of payment, money and equity. Yes, I think there is an issue with the inequity between women's sport and men's sport, but there is a starting point and that starting point is next year when women will be playing in the peak competition in the AFL. I am hopeful that this will be the platform, and I would like to seek leave to continue my remarks.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.

Sitting suspended from 13:01 to 14:00.