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House of Assembly - Fifty-Third Parliament, Second Session (53-2)
2016-05-17 Daily Xml
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Working Women's Centre

Ms HILDYARD (Reynell) (15:47): I rise to speak on an urgent issue very close to my heart. The South Australian Working Women's Centre, which has operated since 1979 and which was the first of its kind in Australia, is under threat again. The Working Women's Centre does incredible work with and for vulnerable working women and on the gendered nature of many employment issues.

Its services are invaluable for women with nowhere left to turn, particularly women who work in low paid jobs, in un-unionised workplaces, and who have not had access to good information about their workplace rights. In the last financial year, it delivered 83 information sessions with over 2,500 women in attendance, answered over 1,300 women's questions about work, took on 230 new cases and 120 ongoing cases.

Through the tireless work of its committed staff, led by an extraordinary leader, Sandra Dann, it kept hundreds of women employed who had issues that were able to be resolved. The South Australian Working Women's Centre has been advised by the federal Turnbull government that its funding is now secure only until 31 December 2016 and that between now and then it will be required to engage in an open procurement process with no guarantee about the type of services it will be tendering to provide and whether it will be focused on the needs of working women or will be generalist.

The process itself is not clear, and there is no suggestion that the process will be one that results in sustainable, ongoing funding. Given the lack of certainty about funding, the jobs of these incredibly talented staff are at risk and their ability to continue to provide high quality services to women who need them is under threat. The Working Women's Centre's services are targeted towards vulnerable women who do not have the means to access assistance elsewhere. Its clients include Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women, women from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds, women affected by disability, and women who live in remote areas.

In addition to its excellent service provision, the Working Women's Centre produces educational materials, delivers community education, provides valuable policy advice to government and makes public comment based on its considerable expertise. Rightly, we will be hearing more from it about the risk to its vital services created by a cruel federal Liberal government that does not care about the most vulnerable workers in our community.

Women experience particular issues that impact on their ability to maintain connection with the workforce, and it is these issues that our Working Women's Centre professionally confronts. Women make up 42 per cent of our workforce, but earn 17.2 per cent less than men. Average superannuation balances for women at retirement are 52.8 per cent less than those for men—retirement incomes that put women at risk of living in poverty.

Working Women's Centre figures indicate that up to one in four women has experienced some form of sexual harassment in their workplaces. In discussion with the Working Women's Centre about issues of funding, it provided me with so many examples of real and complex issues faced by vulnerable working women and inspiring examples of how it has supported women to resolve them.

For example, a young woman chef without strong English language skills experienced unwelcome and frequent touching and sexual advances in her workplace. Her head chef repeatedly requested a sexual relationship with her and she repeatedly told him that she did not want one. Her coping mechanism was to remain focused on her work and to remain polite. The unwelcome sexual advances continued for over a year and over that time the head chef became more coercive in his manner and threatened her that if she made a complaint it would lead to her dismissal.

The young woman—an international student—felt powerless to challenge the unwanted behaviour, given her impending 457 visa application could not be made without her employer's support. Eventually, her mental health deteriorated and she told a young friend about her situation. Fortunately, the friend she told knew about the Working Women's Centre and they were her saviour.

We know that the Australian workforce is highly gender segregated and that women continue to be concentrated in industries traditionally offering lower pay and less security than male-dominated industries. We know that women are more likely to be engaged in insecure work, more likely to be award reliant, less likely to be unionised, and still discriminated against due to pregnancy and family responsibilities.

To ensure the safety and security of all women at work and the accessibility of effective advice for women, we need to value the services of the Working Women's Centre. We need to fund them effectively and sustainably. We need to respect their profound contribution to the lives and wellbeing of South Australian women. In doing so, we will ensure women continue to have access to quality, independent advice that makes a difference and helps to guide and empower women at their most vulnerable moments.

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