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Legislative Council - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, Second Session (54-2)
2020-04-07 Daily Xml
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Bills

Statutes Amendment (Free Menstrual Hygiene Products Pilot Program) Bill

Standing Orders Suspension

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS (Treasurer) (15:41): I move:

That standing orders be so far suspended as to enable the Hon. C. Bonaros to introduce a bill forthwith.

Motion carried.

Introduction and First Reading

The Hon. C. BONAROS (15:42): Obtained leave and introduced a bill for an act to amend the Education Act 1972 and the Education and Children's Services Act 2019. Read a first time.

Second Reading

The Hon. C. BONAROS (15:42): I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

It gives me great pleasure to reintroduce the Statutes Amendment (Free Menstrual Hygiene Products Pilot Program) Bill 2020, together with my parliamentary Labor colleague the Hon. Irene Pnevmatikos. The bill allows for a trial of dispensing machines providing free menstrual hygiene products in South Australian government schools. I am extremely proud of the work that we have done, together with the Hon. Irene Pnevmatikos, on this most important issue, which I am sure she will speak to shortly as well.

Unfortunately, to date the government's response to the bill, or to any proposal for a rollout of free menstrual hygiene products across our schools, has been utterly disappointing. I was hopeful, after the last sitting late last year, based on discussions at the time with the minister, that we might see an announcement by the government, but that announcement did not come. I was hopeful again at the beginning of this year, when we sat again, that we would hear an announcement from the Minister for Education about a rollout of a scheme, but sadly there has been absolutely zero from the government in relation to this most important issue.

In fact, the last noted correspondence or discussions that I have had with the government have been ones that have repeated the message that it is satisfied with the current piecemeal arrangements operating in our schools with respect to the provision of pads and tampons, and that seems to suggest that there is absolutely no interest in securing free menstrual products in government schools. It is utterly disappointing because our students deserve more support, respect and dignity than the response they have received so far.

I will note, on that basis, that it is not just the opposition and SA-Best calling for a program that provides menstrual hygiene products. The Commissioner for Children and Young People has prepared a report, which has been provided to the government, which I will detail soon during this speech, outlining the same request. She has a petition on her website.

From time to time, she initiates petitions on particular issues, seeking support from members of the community. Those petitions are then presented to the relevant decision-makers and community leaders to encourage them to consider taking the actions proposed. In this instance, it has been suggested that, if you are aged 13 years or older, you are invited to sign a petition with the aim of ending period poverty. The commissioner's website states:

Please help us to achieve our goal of reaching 5,000 signatures by sharing the campaign with your friends and family before 28 May, 2020. #endperiodpoverty…

In South Australia there are girls who cannot afford to buy sanitary hygiene products. Commonly referred to as 'period poverty' this impacts on the capacity of the girls affected to attend their school, sporting and social commitments.

Period poverty also causes girls to feel shame for being dependent on others to supply essential hygiene items, forcing them to use inadequate alternatives that include socks, tissues and toilet paper.

No girl should have to worry about how they are going to manage their period. Every girl has the right to access feminine hygiene products.

To address this inequity, the Commissioner for Children and Young People, Helen Connolly, is calling upon government, the feminine hygiene industry, and community stakeholders, including schools, community groups, sporting clubs and public and private hospitals and universities, to work together to end period poverty permanently in South Australia. An accessible, non-stigmatising supply and distribution scheme for a range of free hygiene and sanitary products that will reach South Australian girls in regional and metropolitan locations who cannot afford to purchase these essential items themselves, must be devised as a priority and be put in place ideally before International Menstrual Hygiene Day on 28 May, 2021.

I think that quote and petition sums things up very neatly. We have the commissioner, again, who has prepared a report that has been submitted to the government calling for some assistance to end period poverty in our schools and amongst our young girls and young women. That 2019 report of the Commissioner for Children and Young People was labelled Leave No One Behind. As previously noted by me in this place, it documents a series of discussions and conversations the commissioner had with children and young people who explained to her what living in poverty is like for them and what they think needs to be done to address the impact of it right now.

From December 2018 to June 2019, the commissioner consulted with more than 1,400 South Australian children and young people aged 12 to 22 via workshops, focus groups, a poverty survey and a poverty summit. It included a number who have a lived experience of poverty, with the remainder drawing on their observations of those in their schools and the broader community who say they live with the impact of poverty daily.

Poverty is real in South Australia and across the country more broadly. The inequity that exists between rich and poor continues to grow in this country. In 2018, SACOSS reported more than 60,660 South Australian households living below the poverty line. That represents 9 per cent of all households, or 131,945 South Australians, 22,350 of whom are children and young people aged under 18. That is what the commissioner had to say in her report with respect to the lived experience of children and young people not able to freely access hygiene and sanitary products. She said in her report:

Participants told us about the impact not being able to afford hygiene products such as deodorant, toothpaste and soap has on young men and women. They commented on how being poor impacts 'whether or not you bathe well and get the right amount of care for your body'…For young women 'period poverty' was a real issue raised in a number of groups. Girls told us about missing school because they couldn't afford sanitary products. A number of girls spoke about the products being available at school, but that the process of accessing them was embarrassing and required quite a lot of self-disclosure which many were not comfortable to provide…

'For a lot of females in poverty, menstrual products are inaccessible.'…

A young person also talked about how hygiene needed to be ‘role modelled’, explaining that if you are not taught how to take proper care of yourself then it is difficult to know what to do, or what and how to ask for help. We learnt that for some families because good hygiene is not achievable, it is therefore not taught.

I find it heartbreaking that there are children and young people in South Australia who do not have access to such basic items that the rest of us take for granted.

I say again, as I said when this bill was first introduced by my colleague and I, just imagine the indignity for a teenage girl of having to go to the school office when she is menstruating to ask for a pad or a tampon, because that is the only way they will be made available in emergency cases by schools. Just imagine having to disclose such personal information about yourself—that you are bleeding and in need of a tampon—to whoever it is that you happen to be confronted with at the office, whether that be a man or a woman. It would be embarrassing to all of us, and it just should not be happening.

The current regime of accessing pads and tampons in our schools is woefully inadequate and has to change. The issue is one of access and my fear is that the minister and the government have not understood that key point: that this is one of access. In her report the commissioner made the following recommendation, that the:

Government, Feminine Hygiene Industry, and community partners expand the current piecemeal provisions of sanitary product support and develop a free, accessible and non-stigmatising supply and distribution scheme for a range of hygiene and sanitary products.

As I understand it, there has not been a response yet to this report—and I stand to be corrected if that is not the case, but that is certainly my understanding. I have already outlined, again, the government's position to my questioning on this issue in the chamber as being woefully out of date and dismissive of our young girls attending schools in South Australia.

I previously noted that I had met with the commissioner, after her report was published, regarding the viability of the current process and also the appropriateness of those arrangements in schools in terms of accessing sanitary products. I note that just recently the commissioner made further public comments regarding the same.

Given that we are reintroducing the bill, I think it is important to place on the record again that during the discussion I had with the commissioner she advised that her office had undertaken a test to see what schools were doing in practice. They contacted 24 schools. The commissioner confirmed that most schools provide products upon request, but these have to be dispensed, as I said, by an adult staff member.

Staff also reported that the availability of products is not readily promoted or publicised by schools and that the arrangements are, at most if not all schools, ad hoc in nature. Teachers have reported that they purchase sanitary products out of their own pay packets to ensure that students who need them are provided with sanitary products. It is appalling that students do not even know what the current process is to obtain a tampon or a pad at a school and the arrangements across schools are not consistent.

It is a piecemeal process that is offered, one that smacks in the face of ensuring accessibility, affordability and availability in a non-stigmatised environment, and, of course, a very important consideration in this context to all cultural groups. The need for these products is no different from the need for toilet paper. They should be universally available without exception.

The issue of toilet paper is one that we have heard a lot about recently. During the COVID-19 pandemic we have all probably experienced the mad rush to the supermarkets to try to get your hands on toilet paper, which has been very sparsely available. We know what it is like for that to be in short supply in our supermarkets. The prospect of having to use the bathroom without toilet paper has hit home and hit home hard for many of us who have been unable to purchase such a vital commodity.

As I said before, just imagine if schools did not provide toilet paper. As I said before, just imagine if our male students were forced to trot down to the office, find a staff member and request toilet paper when they used a toilet as opposed to a urinal, because that is precisely what we are asking young women, living in poverty, to do each and every time they have their menstrual cycle and do not have access to menstrual hygiene products.

Menstrual hygiene products are essential in schools, the same way toilet paper is. They should be budgeted for the same way as toilet paper and soap. I have called on the Premier to step in and take the lead on this crucial issue because so far, unfortunately, the education minister has failed to do so. He would like us to believe that the current system in our schools is sufficient.

The commissioner's report clearly indicates that that is not the case. It clearly indicates that there is an urgent need to end period poverty amongst young girls, particularly in our schools. It can and does have significant and life-changing impacts on a young woman's life by adversely impacting her participation in a range of school activities or missing out on school altogether.

Young girls and women should be able to manage their menstruation hygienically with confidence, with dignity and without stigma, regardless of their personal and/or financial circumstances and, of course, the personal and/or financial circumstances of their families. It should be the unanimous agreement of this parliament that it is totally unacceptable that any girl—in fact, I would go further and say any girl or woman—in Australia is unable to access sanitary items due entirely to their financial circumstances or because they are at school.

It is imperative that we find ways of making menstrual hygiene products accessible to those young girls and women who would not otherwise have access to them and that the government assist in the facilitation of such access. The opposition and SA-Best have indicated their overwhelming willingness to the government to work on a proposal that could be accepted by everybody in this parliament. I think this bill is indicative of our continued efforts to reach an agreement with the government whereby all of our schools are placed on an even playing field and all young girls have access to the products they need.

If successful, the effect of the bill would be to establish a pilot program for free menstrual hygiene products, including the rollout of dispensing machines across government schools, as specified by the minister. The reason it is important to go down this path is for those reasons that I have already articulated and that is that it is not appropriate, it is not okay, to expect young girls to have to go and ask somebody else for one of these products.

We know that there are organisations that have said that they are willing to assist, and that this will not cost the government; in fact, it will not cost the government a cent if we go down the path of taking up the offer to install existing dispensing machines in schools by organisations that are backed by the producers of sanitary products and some of our major supermarkets. The machines would be GPS tracked so that when they run out of products they can be refilled and made accessible at each and every one of our schools throughout the state.

The bill goes on to provide that the pilot program will commence within six months of the bill's passage and will run for six months. The Commissioner for Children and Young People will then prepare a report on the pilot to be provided to the minister and tabled in parliament within six days after receipt of the report. I note that both the Education Act and the Education and Children's Services Act have been amended in this bill, a reflection of the fact that the latter act has yet to commence, I believe.

As we all know, the Victorian Labor government announced a world-first program to provide students in every government school in that state access to free pads and tampons. That has been deemed as a great success and is being rolled out more widely. I think it is important to note the Victorian example because the Victorian government did not need legislation to pass that initiative, and this government does not need legislation to pass this initiative, but in this instance we have seen that the government has failed to take action in and of itself and so that is the reason why this bill is once again being introduced in this parliament.

I think it is important to also make mention of the Scottish government's proposal, which I did last year but I will do again now. In 2017, it announced that it would distribute free menstrual hygiene products to those in low income households, as part of a six-month pilot program in Aberdeen. That program, which was launched by the Scottish Cabinet Secretary for Communities, Social Security and Equalities, Angela Constance, made those products easily accessible to those who needed them but could not afford them. They were funded by the Scottish government and provided for free at selected locations, such as schools, shelters and food banks. At the time, it was the first program of its kind in the UK and was expected to help approximately 1,000 women and girls in its six-month trial.

The Scottish government recognised that its policies in this area had fallen short of what was needed to even begin to tackle period poverty. The trial's outstanding success saw an expansion of the project in May last year before the government dedicated £5.2 million to offer free products to all pupils in Scotland in August 2018. In January of last year, the Scottish government committed a further £4 million to tackle period poverty, making free sanitary products available in more public places. The funding is given to councils, which work with other organisations to meet local needs.

Since that time, and in fact at the beginning of this year, Scotland has become the first country in the world to attempt to end period poverty full stop by providing sanitary products to every young woman and girl in need of them across the country. While free menstrual products were already made available under the provisions that I have just spelled out, including in schools and universities and colleges, the Scottish government has seen fit to pass laws to make those products free across the board, across the entire country, for all young girls and all women.

The bill passed the Scottish parliament with 112 votes in favour, none against and one abstention. There are, of course, expected to be some hurdles, because that was a mammoth, I think, effort made by the Scottish government, but at the end of the day it was deemed that none of those hurdles were not able to be overcome. The Scottish government has said, 'Look, we know this is going to cost some money, we know that there are going to be challenges, but this can be done.' They voted unanimously in favour of that proposal.

We have a country, on the one hand, that has managed to provide sanitary products across the board for all young girls in need of them, for all women in need of them, and yet here in South Australia we have struggled to roll out a package that sees sanitary products made available to young girls in our schools.

I think it is somewhat regrettable that we have been forced to drag the government to the table on this issue again via legislation because it has not had the tenacity to do what Victoria has done, what other jurisdictions have done, what Scotland has done. I know that the Hon. Irene Pnevmatikos and I are certainly not alone when it comes to this. The Advertiser has reported that teachers and parents are also demanding that the state government provide free pads and tampons from dispensing machines in schools, and in a survey that they undertook after we raised this issue last year, about 80 per cent of 1,362 respondents absolutely agreed that such a program should be rolled out. It is a program that the Australian Education Union also supports. It is a no-brainer.

I will just make mention again of the work that I have done with Share the Dignity. That is the organisation that I referred to earlier, which rolls out dispensing machines in various locations throughout the state. There are a couple of trial ones in schools. We have advocated for them in terms of getting them into our public hospitals, and I am grateful for the Minister for Health and Wellbeing's assistance in relation to opening the doors for us in terms of having those discussions. I remain hopeful that those hospitals that have indicated that they are eager to get these machines will be able to do so, because as I said before, the program that Share the Dignity runs comes at absolutely no cost to the government.

Each machine is installed by Share the Dignity. The products that are used in these vending machines are provided by Share the Dignity. They come with a two-year guarantee in terms of product supply, so it costs absolutely nothing. They are GPS tracked, which means that every time they are running low, volunteers in the community who work for Share the Dignity will be able to go and restock these machines and ensure that they are available for those people who need them.

Following on from that, I also met with the Adelaide Lord Mayor. It was probably the shortest meeting I have ever had because, again, it was a no-brainer. When I put that proposal with Share the Dignity to the Lord Mayor and said, 'How about we roll some of these out across Adelaide?' she said, 'Absolutely, yes; we'll just need to find the right locations.' So there are moves within the community to make sure that these sorts of vending machines that offer free menstrual hygiene products are easily accessible to those in need, to young girls and to young women in need, but this bill ensures that they are available throughout our schools, so that all of our high schools have access to a scheme, albeit under a pilot program, that would ensure that their students have access to the products they need in managing their periods.

In a society as rich as South Australia I think it is completely unacceptable that any young student should have to forgo their education, their sporting pursuits or any other activity because they have their period. As I said before, International Menstrual Hygiene Day is celebrated on 28 May each year to raise awareness of the importance of good menstrual hygiene management. That date was selected based on the average number of days of a period cycle (28), and the fifth month (May), based on the average menstrual cycle of five days.

Since it began in 2015, International Menstrual Hygiene Day has encouraged open dialogue about the financial hardships faced by many women and girls in this space, and it would be timely if the occasion this year could be used by the Marshall Liberal government to make an announcement that would have the support of all members of this parliament. With those words, I commend the bill to the chamber.

The Hon. I. PNEVMATIKOS (16:12): It is with great pleasure that I introduce this bill today with the Hon. Connie Bonaros. The extent of the impact period poverty has on young women and girls is immeasurable, whether it is from shame, stigma or financial restrictions, and there is no one definite answer for why period poverty occurs. No matter, girls and young women should never go without access to sanitary products.

We recognise that period poverty is a multilateral issue. Given the many dimensions to this issue, I acknowledge that research in this area is limited and it is difficult to explore the full extent of period poverty in South Australia. However, there is enough evidence to suggest that period poverty is not an uncommon situation for those families living below the poverty line.

In South Australia, 60,000 households live below the poverty line. About half these people are female, many of whom will have their period on a monthly basis. Remote Indigenous communities have been hard hit by the effects of period poverty. The University of Queensland's report 'Water, sanitation and hygiene in remote Indigenous Australia: A scan of priorities', found that some areas had no sanitary bins in bathrooms, and others had no soap or the toilets were clogged up.

One account in the report mentioned that the sanitary bins were located outside the toilet, and the girls were embarrassed to use them. The lack of access to hygiene facilities highlights the lack of awareness of period poverty. Dr Nina Hall, who conducted the research project, said that they set out to evaluate drinking water quality. However, the issue of feminine hygiene and the facilities related to that was both unexpected and could not be ignored.

In the report, women and girls mentioned that the issue of period poverty and access to sanitary items often was not taken seriously or discussed. They expressed that they felt shame when talking about menstrual issues. Access to sanitary items in rural areas is expensive and at local shops can be up to $10 a packet. The study found that girls who were normally law abiding felt forced to steal sanitary pads from local stores. It is completely unacceptable that women and girls are put in a position where they feel they have no other option but to steal essential items.

The Commissioner for Children and Young People, Helen Connolly, identified period poverty as a key issue for schoolgirls through her report: Leave No One Behind. Of schools surveyed in the report, 74 per cent believed that access to sanitary products is an issue for their students, and 11 per cent of the schools surveyed reported that lack of sanitary products is having an impact on student attendance.

During the consultation period, Helen Connolly indicated that girls talked about how these items were expensive and that on a limited income 'a choice between sanitary pads and food on the table was always won by food'. Period poverty significantly impacts a school student's ability to attend and engage at school. We know that it is critical for all children to engage in learning at school. Poor school attendance significantly impacts a child's economic potential over the course of their life, health outcomes, self-esteem and sense of control.

Teachers have recognised this gap and some have reported taking it upon themselves to purchase items for school students. This should not fall as a responsibility to the teacher and it is purely unacceptable. Because of the taboo nature of menstruation, period poverty is often hidden in our communities. Non-government organisations such as Share the Dignity, Essentials 4 Women and Foodbank have each recognised that this is an issue that many in our community face, and they are working towards, as best they can, assisting those who need products.

It is not enough that only these non-government organisations are working on period poverty. We, as a parliament, must do more about it. This pilot program will see young women and girls in school reach their full potential. The program we are putting before the parliament will be rolled out for a six-month trial. Free menstrual products will be provided in government high schools for students to use whenever they need them. We know that programs such as this work.

Victoria is a perfect example of how a state government is ensuring that girls are given all the opportunities to succeed at school. I applaud the Victorian Premier Dan Andrews and his government for rolling out a similar program that, as he said, 'is to help girls thrive at school because getting your period should not be a barrier to getting a great education'.

After six months a review of this trial will be undertaken to look at the feasibility of implementing the program long term. It is important that the review looks at the strategy and effectiveness of the program to ensure that the program is getting to the most vulnerable in the community. This review should also consider the potential increase in poverty as a result of the current health crisis and the coronavirus pandemic in assessing the importance of an ongoing program aimed at women and young girls.

I know that there is a lot of support for this bill from the general public. We have been talking to students, teachers and parents about the proposed program and each group has expressed their support for the program. I hope that the South Australian government will also support this bill. It is an important show of support to the most vulnerable in our community at a time when it is needed most. We know that without this service, girls and young women will miss out on education opportunities. I would like to thank the Hon. Connie Bonaros for her contribution to this bill, testament that when we work collaboratively in this parliament we can achieve things for South Australia.

Debate adjourned on motion of Hon. D.G.E. Hood.

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