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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, Second Session (54-2)
2021-03-16 Daily Xml
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Motions

South Australian Parliament Workplace

Ms HILDYARD (Reynell) (11:52): I move:

That this house—

1. Commits itself to leading cultural change within the parliamentary workplace;

2. Welcomes the recommendations made in the Equal Opportunity Commission's Review of Harassment in the South Australian Parliament Workplace;

3. Declares that sexual and discriminatory harassment will not be tolerated in the parliamentary workplace; and

4. Takes the necessary action to implement Our Watch's Workplace Equality and Respect Standards.

As I have spoken about to some degree this morning, a deep anger and sadness is continuing to be felt by women and our supporters across our nation in light of the harrowing allegations of sexual assault by powerful, entitled men. As I have mentioned earlier in this house, it is a burning anger and an incredible determination that were on display in abundance yesterday at the Adelaide March 4 Justice and at similar marches around the country.

Women have had enough. We have had enough of the violence that sees a woman killed every six days in Australia. We have had enough of sexual harassment. We have had enough of the entitlement and disrespect that lead to violence and sexual abuse against women. We have had enough of the gender inequality that underpins violence, disrespect and harassment. We have had enough of being diminished by the 'not all men' comments when we raise our voices and call out violence.

We have had enough of the fact that most women—many of us in this place and too many of our mothers, sisters, friends, colleagues and daughters—have an experience of sexual violence, harassment or discrimination and that so few in the past have been prepared to report or have been believed when they do so. As many of us very loudly yelled yesterday in solidarity with one another and with the many women for whom it was too hard to attend: enough is absolutely enough. As one speaker put so very well yesterday, the growing sentiment is: if you are not with us, get out of our way.

Over the past few weeks, extraordinarily brave women have brought to public attention the most harrowing accounts of alleged rape and sexual assault—alleged rape, sexual assault and harassment that have allegedly occurred at the hands of male parliamentarians and political staff. We have heard the unwavering, strong, inspirational voice of Australian of the Year, Grace Tame, whose courage is inspiring others who have been sexually abused to raise their voices. Again, I say grace indeed.

It is absolutely incumbent on this parliament to ensure the voices of women such as Grace Tame and others, and those whose voices we have not heard but who have also suffered, are heard. It is incumbent on our parliament to hear and decisively act on the voices of those who spoke out through this review of the South Australian parliamentary workplace. This week has indeed been a watershed moment in terms of our community utterly rejecting gendered violence and inequality.

We will make sure that this is a turning point. Women are angry and are determined to see meaningful change. Across this state and across our nation, women have spoken and we will not be silenced until all of us are safe—as I said in the last sitting week of parliament: wherever we work, whoever is our boss, whomever we work alongside, whatever our position is, when we are at home, when we are out at night, during the day, at school, in a park, at a shopping centre, whatever we are wearing, however much we have had to drink.

I close by saying that I am so sorry for all those who have been assaulted or abused for what they have gone through. We are inspired by the courage these and others have shown in coming forward. It will drive many of us to continue to speak for as long as it takes to ensure every single woman, every single girl, can live her life free from violence, harassment and abuse. I say also: we are also with those who cannot come forward.

The equal opportunity commissioner's review of this parliament uncovered many terrible instances of abuse occurring in this place and in other political and government buildings. This motion is about our parliament committing to immediately commence making overdue changes. It is about declaring what we will absolutely not tolerate, and I commend this motion to the house.

The Hon. V.A. CHAPMAN (Bragg—Deputy Premier, Attorney-General, Minister for Planning and Local Government) (11:57): I thank the member for bringing this motion and indicate my and indeed our support to it. I, too, after cabinet, attended the rally yesterday, which was a contemporary, loud speak-out of people, particularly women, who feel aggrieved in certain circumstances where they are the victim of discrimination, behaviour which is violent and of course where there is sexual exploitation or discrimination.

It is a voice that is never going to be silenced. It is something that women, and our mothers and grandmothers before us, have had to endure and it is a matter where, as contemporary representatives and as a woman, I personally feel it is very important that we continue to make that noise and to ensure it is heard—and progressively it has been heard and there have been initiatives that have been passed. My parents' generation, my mother's generation and my grandmothers' generation fought to have the right to continue to have employment after they married.

I hear those stories, and young girls hear these stories of women in that generation being forced to retire when they married, being forced to hide their engagement ring just to eke out a few extra months of employment. It seems utterly bizarre to us, but it is important that we do recognise that there are still inequities that need to be dealt with.

The report that was done in relation to the more discrete area of workplace harassment and discrimination is something we have canvassed in this parliament just today, and we are taking up the responsibility to have a good look at it ourselves and see how we can improve it for the occupations of women.

If we look at the employment circumstances of women, in a way we have gone from women having the opportunity to work, the right to work and equitable arrangements for access to superannuation and pay and the like, to the stage where we now have a highly feminised workforce. Great, but that has also brought other complications and responsibilities that we have to deal with.

The military has had to deal with this. All hierarchical places of employment have had to deal with it, including the police force, which I referred to earlier. Even in the parliament, where nobody could fail to recognise the power imbalance that can occur between, perhaps, members in the parliament and others, or members in the parliament and other staff in the workplace, we need to recognise that, and we need to be able to make sure that especially in those circumstances the protections are employed.

At the moment, we have a number of initiatives already in place, and one of them relates, in this motion, to acknowledgement of the Our Watch Workplace Equality and Respect framework guides. I just want to inform the house that the Our Watch's Workplace Equality and Respect framework guides agencies through an organisational change process to promote gender equality. The Workplace Equality and Respect process supports agencies to assess their organisation and identify key actions to ensure that gender equality and respect are at the centre of their workplace.

A total of 24 state government agencies have developed action plans in line with the Workplace Equality and Respect framework. I thank the Equal Opportunity Commission and commissioner for their work to progressively advance that. These action plans, I inform the house, outline tangible actions at all levels of the business to create a culture that promotes mutual respect, support for those who need it and equal opportunity. These actions also support agencies' submission for White Ribbon accreditation.

I just want to inform the house that paragraph 4 of this motion is well and truly underway. It is being pursued and continued by our government. As Attorney-General, and responsible for the Equal Opportunity Commission, I can proudly say that that is continuing.

The White Ribbon Workplace Accreditation Program engages a whole of organisation commitment to stop violence against women. It aims to foster a whole of organisation commitment to stop violence against women, meeting 15 criteria under three standards to create a safer and more respectful workplace. A total of 24 government agencies are currently undertaking the re-accreditation process, having been first accredited five years ago. All other government agencies will submit their evidence for re-accreditation assessment prior to or on 30 April.

Again, this is not a new concept. We are already signed up to it. We are committed to it. In fact, I seem to recall that the man sitting next to me here was one of the first of our male members of parliament to sign up as an ambassador.

The Hon. D.C. van Holst Pellekaan: Yes, the two of us did it together.

The Hon. V.A. CHAPMAN: Yes, the mover of the motion and the minister have both signed up. Good on you, because we do need to set an example. The Chiefs for Gender Equity is a group of senior business leaders from prominent South Australian companies representing key industry sectors brought together with the common aim of advancing gender equity. Supported by the Equal Opportunity Commission, the group aims to educate and encourage other SA businesses to better address gender equity in the workplace.

For example, last year the Chiefs for Gender Equity released a suite of practical resources and guidelines for small to medium enterprises to advance gender equity and create supportive, equitable and safe workplaces. This work was possible due to the $25,000 in funding provided to the Equal Opportunity Commission via the Premier—again, a Premier I am proud to sit next to and be part of his team. We are very committed to that.

I just want let you know what the SA public sector gender equality data standards project is. The aim of this project is to identify and recommend standard definitions for SA public sector workforce gender equality data, with reference to current national gender equality data benchmarks. These standard data definitions will inform a road map for future work to improve public sector workforce reporting capability in relation to gender equality measures.

This project is a partnership between the Office of the Commissioner for Public Sector Employment, the Equal Opportunity Commission, the Office for Women and the Department of the Premier and Cabinet. We not only have to do these things but we have to document them, we have to share them and we have to employ them, and that is precisely what our government is doing. I thank the member for moving the motion and support the same.

Dr CLOSE (Port Adelaide—Deputy Leader of the Opposition) (12:04): I rise to support the motion, as is everyone who is speaking today, which is terrific. I want to point out a couple of features of the importance of this motion. We have been presented with an equal opportunity commissioner report that has a number of recommendations that will be addressed through the committee that we have agreed to establish. One refers to actions of the political parties. But recommendation 6, parts (a) and (b), is specifically about actions that the two chambers ought to be taking.

I commend, therefore, the member for Reynell for stepping up and taking the initiative in articulating a motion that fulfils those two parts of recommendation 6. I think it is very important that we show that there is a sense of urgency and that, while some of us might have preferred to simply endorse the recommendations and move into implementation, we accept that a committee has now been established in order to work through the detail of those. But, at the very least, the one that can be acted on now has been acted on thanks to the initiative of the member for Reynell.

I would also simply like to note, as I think has been reflected in the last two speeches also, the degree of frustration that people feel in the community and that I myself feel that we are still having to move motions that declare that sexual and discriminatory harassment will not be tolerated. I accept that that is what we have been asked to do and I utterly support that we are doing it. It is so frustrating that we are living in a culture where that is even a question and it is necessary to articulate it.

I took very much to heart, when watching the news last night, the interviews that were done with women around the country at all the various marches. Young women said, 'I know that my grandmother and my mother fought for these issues and now here I am fighting.' Older women said, 'I have been fighting for these issues, yet here we are still fighting for them.' Thank goodness people are still fighting for them. What a shame that that is still necessary.

Let's see each step forward as a step towards progress, a step towards the time when young girls and young boys become teenagers and young adults and do not have to keep talking about this because our culture has moved on sufficiently. Let's not let go of that as our earnest hope and our target that we can reach a place where people are treated with respect, where power is shared fairly and where we do not have to articulate that we do not support sexual harassment and discrimination because it is simply no longer a question that that would ever be tolerated.

The Hon. D.C. VAN HOLST PELLEKAAN (Stuart—Minister for Energy and Mining) (12:07): I certainly rise to support this motion. We have had a very productive morning in parliament this morning in regard to getting work underway. It is not until that work is done and implemented and we actually see real change that we can be any more than satisfied with having started down that path, but we certainly have started down that path this morning and in a bipartisan way as well.

This motion from the member for Reynell probably best encapsulates, to my mind, what we have jointly as members of this chamber embarked upon today. I certainly support this motion. The member for Reynell and I have worked together on a lot of these types of issues. In fact, together we established Parliamentarians United Against Domestic Violence a few years ago. We were extremely pleased to have all members of parliament at the time, and subsequent members who have come in, sign up for that.

I am very pleased with regard to the work that is already underway throughout government with regard to departments being White Ribbon accredited. One of the key things about White Ribbon accreditation is that it is not just about signing up, getting a tag and coming back next year to see if you are still good enough. White Ribbon accreditation is actually about living the values and delivering and implementing them every hour of the day, every day of the year.

To see more and more state government departments over recent years gain White Ribbon accreditation I think is outstanding and reflects extremely well not only on the government and on the leaders of those departments but also, most importantly, on the people who work in those departments, because if the people who work in those departments do not actually deliver and act on the values associated with that White Ribbon accreditation then it ceases to exist. You do not get accredited for a year or five years and, 'Good, you've passed the test,' so you are assumed to be okay: it is a living, ongoing matter.

There is a lot of work to do. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind and no doubt in the minds of my colleagues that, while we have been progressing in South Australia in these areas for many years now, the progress has not been fast enough and it has not delivered enough yet. So the united effort of all members of this chamber—and I am very optimistic with respect to the members of the other place as well—to come together to speed up the transition to achieve more, to get us to where we need to be as a state, but in this particular situation with regard to our house of parliament leading by example for the rest of the state, is a very important step forward.

I endorse the words of those speakers who have gone before me. I strongly support this motion and say again that this motion encapsulates very well a lot of the commitments that we have made together this morning and the work that is already underway throughout government and throughout the state.

Ms HILDYARD (Reynell) (12:11): I start by thanking all who have spoken in support of this motion. As much as I was feeling angry and sad yesterday, and have been over the past few weeks, certainly yesterday but also our debate today have given me some hope that there is a way forward on these issues. Hearing the various comments in the speeches about our commitment to making change certainly makes me feel more hopeful not only about the way forward for our parliament but also, as the member for Port Adelaide said, about the way forward for future generations.

I thank everybody for their comments and reiterate, as the member for Port Adelaide did, that, yes, we did pass a motion this morning that absolutely and rightly sets up the committee to look into and to implement the various intent of the recommendations, including the code of conduct that was agreed to through amendment. This motion, as the member for Port Adelaide said, really is about responding to recommendation 6(a) and 6(b). I think it is also very important for our parliament to make a very clear statement about our commitment to change, to be very public about that statement and also to make a very clear statement about what we will absolutely no longer tolerate and to be very clear about that.

Again, thank you to all who have spoken. Thank you for the cooperation with which people have spoken in relation to this motion. I very much look forward to working with all members of the house very quickly to make decisive, clear change—change which is very much overdue but change which I believe together we can make and which, as I said, will make a difference not only to this house but also for future generations. I commend the motion to the house.

Motion carried.

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