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House of Assembly - Fifty-First Parliament, Second Session (51-2)
2008-05-01 Daily Xml
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WORKING WOMEN'S CENTRE

The Hon. S.W. KEY (Ashford) (15:43): Today I wish the chamber a happy International Workers' Day. As people would know, it is 1 May, May Day, which is certainly a very important day in my calendar, and I hope that people have a good day today celebrating May Day. I would like to continue my remarks on the Working Women's Centre. I had the opportunity to make a grievance speech yesterday and since that time the Working Women's Centre has been able to supply me with their 2006-07 annual report.

I guess the sad news is that the work that is done by the Working Women's Centre is absolutely overwhelming. It has always been a very busy and effective organisation, but I must say that I was very shocked to find that in the past year (2006-07) it reported that it received over 2,581 inquiries. When you consider the very small number of staff that that centre has, that is an enormous number of inquiries to deal with.

It also says in the report that there have been ongoing cases because not all of the inquiries that they receive are just five or ten minute questions. They have also handled anywhere between 192 and 212 cases that are ongoing, and that is in each quarter of the year 2006-07. So in that reporting period they again have had a number of long-term cases.

I know from talking to the staff and also from my own experience in the industrial relations area that there are a number of problems associated with the WorkChoices legislation. We do not need to go over those issues again because I think they have been very well traversed, but one of the big problems for women workers is that a number of them not only work in precarious employment (part-time or seasonal employment) but many of them work in workplaces with fewer than 100 employees. That, in itself, has caused a number of problems with advocating for workers in those areas because, under the WorkChoices legislation they were not able to take up some of those issues because of the limit on the number of employees in that workplace.

In a number of cases women came to the Working Women's Centre (with the view that they had been wronged in some way) to find that—despite the fact that there were certainly grounds for the case that they wanted to run—their workplace was too small. This point has been made in this place on both sides. South Australia is basically a place where we have small to medium workplaces. I know that both the minister and the shadow minister are well aware of this fact, but it does cause problems with providing remedies for the different issues that were raised.

I also note that, despite the proposed cut of $97,000 to South Australia's Working Women's Centre, I think in the next financial year, the Working Women's Centre is actually very efficient at assisting some of the people who come to them with inquiries. I put on record that Teresa Von Wasserling has celebrated 10 years of service at the Working Women's Centre. This what the annual report says about her:

During this time she worked with 3,663 women—

probably more than that, but at least that many—

delivering specialised assistance and completed case work of 834 women recovering [approximately] $823,163 in compensation and lost entitlements for women in South Australia.

That is just one of the workers at the Working Women's Centre, and obviously the results are very impressive.

Yesterday, I mentioned the different work that the Working Women's Centre staff do, but, when you look at the annual report, you can also see the amount of campaigning that is done by the Working Women's Centre, the Fairwear campaign, just to mention one; and they are obviously looking at the life of outworkers, workplace bullying, supplying information to seminars and workshops (on both a national and state basis), and also being involved in looking at violence in the workplace, which unfortunately has increasingly become an issue that has been identified. The Working Women's Centre has also continued its publication rate.

Time expired.

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