Governor’s Address in Reply extract – Gender

Governor’s Address in Reply |Gender Extract | 24 June , 2021  

I now turn to the important issue of gender equality. I acknowledge there are others here who share concerns and focus about needing to progress gender equity issues.  I particularly thank you, Madam Deputy President, as the member for Murchison.  You spoke about this in detail in your recent contribution and I believe our comments will align well.  I also acknowledge and thank you for putting forward a motion to establish a sessional committee on gender equity.  I support this initiative as an excellent proposal for this parliament.

This is not a new issue or challenge.  However, the COVID-19 pandemic has shone a spotlight upon the entrenched gender fault lines impacting too many women and girls across the world.  Tasmania is not immune to this very serious situation.  In May this year, UN Women released a report entitled The social protection response to COVID-19 has failed women: towards universal gender-responsive social protection systems.  This report notes that while the COVID-19 pandemic started as a major public health challenge, and I quote:

… it quickly morphed into a protracted socio-economic crisis with which countries are still grappling. This crisis … has been a great revealer, laying bare pre-existing structural inequalities of class, gender, race and migration status, while exposing yawning gaps in social protection systems.

This report identifies that globally, the crisis has had a disproportionate impact upon women generally. For example, women predominate in temporary, part-time, self-employment and informal economies – all of which were hit hard by lockdowns and related economic constraints.  Further, a high proportion of female workers compared to male workers are reliant upon sectors hardest hit by the pandemic, such as hospitality, food and beverage industries, wholesale and retail trade and arts and entertainment, to mention a few.  Women are also over-represented in the essential frontline services in health care and other social services that are most at risk in pandemic circumstances.

Research and economies have established without a doubt that crises such as this pandemic are not gender-neutral.  COVID-19 impact research reveals women internationally and here at home are affected disproportionately and differently from men, affecting access to employment and livelihood, to education, health services and safety from violence.  At the national level in March this year, the AMA released a statement on the impact of COVID-19 on women, which corroborates the global research of the UN report.  This statement from the AMA includes this:

Research suggests during times of crisis such as the COVID-19 pandemic, the challenges and burdens faced by women are exacerbated, with women’s economic security, participation in formal employment, political representation, health outcomes and educational achievements negatively impacted and more so than men.

Further it notes that:

Within the health care sector, nearly four in five healthcare workers in the frontline tasked with managing the pandemic were women, increasing their exposure and potentially their family members to the virus.  As pandemic‑related work responsibilities increased, women were more likely to manage increased childcare and schooling obligations, coupled with disproportionate household responsibilities, even amongst dual-earning couples.

In light of the pandemic experience last year, with even more urgency, I called for the 2020-21 state Budget to include gender-impact statement, with other jurisdictions such as Victoria, for example, including it as a matter of course.  While it did not eventuate that time around with the budget presented in November, the then minister for women, Sarah Courtney, did undertake during budget Estimates in November to examine the feasibility of implementing a Tasmanian gender impact budget statement.

While it was heartening to see the last federal budget restore the national gender‑impact statement previously abandoned under Tony Abbott’s prime ministership, that does not relieve this state from implementing a similar responsibility and accountability measure.  Hence, I reiterate that call now and hopefully we will see a Tasmanian gender impact budget statement to be included when the forthcoming state budget is delivered in August.

Further, I reiterate my call to go further than that, to actually take the same concept and extend it to Cabinet consideration.  I call for the template for Cabinet papers to also include, as part of its standard planning and approvals checklist, a gender implications component, as it is my understanding it does have already an economic and financial implication analysis provided.  Again, this is a well-established practice in some other jurisdictions, such as New Zealand.  These are both a gender impact analysis of the budget and a gender impact component to a Cabinet consideration.  These are only small initial steps, but what they seek to do is ensure gender equity implications and ramifications of the Government’s decision-making processes upon the immediate and long-term wellbeing of Tasmanian women and girls is identified, is acknowledged and hopefully addressed in a more meaningful and effective manner.

I have been hopeful the Governor’s Address would provide an update regarding the progress of the inquiry into the parliamentary workplace culture that was agreed to in March by the presiding officers, all three party leaders and the Assembly independent at that time, just prior to the election being called. 

It is interesting to note the South Australian parliament has just established a joint committee to inquire into and report on recommendations which arose from the South Australian Equal Opportunity Commissioner’s report into harassment in that parliamentary workplace.  That committee has also been charged with drafting an MP code of conduct for consideration of both Houses of the South Australian parliament.  They have not only done their harassment assessment of their parliamentary workplace, they now have a committee working on progressing that.  We also noted the federal parliamentary inquiry of a similar manner is progressing. 

It would be a shame to see Tasmania abandon this worthwhile endeavour and risk falling behind as a responsible parliament that ensures its workplaces are safe.

Watch or read Meg’s complete Governor’s Address in Reply speech.