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House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, First Session (52-1)
2011-09-27 Daily Xml
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OLDER WOMEN'S SPEAKOUT

The Hon. S.W. KEY (Ashford) (16:27): I was honoured to be asked by Helen Storer, President of the Older Women's Advisory Committee of South Australia, to open the upcoming Older Women's Speakout. I remember when the network was established and I went to the first speakout. In fact, my late mother, Steve Key (her real name was Sheila but she called herself Steve) was then working at the Adelaide Central Mission, now Uniting Wesley, being one of the activists of that network.

I was telling one of my friends who is the same age as me about this invitation, and I thought it was interesting that, although I knew the group's history and had been involved in the campaigns over the years, they had decided to invite a middle-aged woman to open their speakout. I was shocked by her reply. She said, 'You're not middle-aged, you're old—older.' She said, 'So are you assuming that you are going to be living until you're 110?' I thought it probably was a good point. She is right: I am in the older senior category, although I am not eligible, I might add, for a senior's card yet.

The ABS identifies older women in census data as aged 60 and over. In the 2006 data it states that in South Australia there are 170,000 women aged over 60; that is 22 per cent of all women in South Australia. Admittedly, this was in the last census, not the one we have just been through. It is interesting, when you look at the profile, that 80 per cent of older women are Christian; 9 per cent do not have a religion that they identify with; 1 per cent are Buddhists; and other religions are not really common in this age group. Ten per cent did not state a religion at all.

It was interesting to note, too, that 60 per cent of older women were born in Oceania, 19 per cent were born in Northern and Western Europe, 10 per cent were born in Southern and Eastern Europe, and 8 per cent did not state what their birthplace was. The thing I did find particularly worrying in these statistics is that 20,000 older women care for another person with a disability in South Australia.

I think this is an underestimate, but 1,000 older women provide unpaid childcare for their own children, 22,000 provide unpaid childcare for other children, including their grandchildren, and 18,000 women are employed in the paid workforce. The thing that I think is particularly of interest to members in this place is that the country electorates that have the highest proportion of older women are Finniss and Goyder, and the city electorates are Morphett, Hartley, Elder and Colton.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Is that it? I thought there would be a lot more to say about the elderly persons. Member for Norwood.

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