This statement of principles was developed at a workshop of the Social Policy Committee in March 2021, updated to March 2022.
The National Foundation of Australian Women’s (NFAW) policy position on Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) and Paid Parental Leave (PPL) is set in the context of a productivity agenda to help boost economic recovery following the COVID-19 pandemic.
Women play a key role in this recovery. They took on additional hours of caring responsibility in the home during periods of COVID-19 lock-down in 2020, in many cases stopping work or reducing their hours of work and financial security to do so. By January 2021, women’s workforce participation had reached pre-COVID levels , although there is evidence that women have been disproportionately affected by the pandemic (in particular, single women with families).
Compared to other OECD countries, Australia has among the highest rates of women in part-time work and among the lowest in full-time work – women constitute 37.9% of all full-time employees and 67.2% of all part-time employees in Australia. The Workplace Gender Equality Agency has reported that women continue to dominate the more insecure part-time and casual roles (56.3%), including working experiences and conditions that are very different to that of men.
Together with the Equality Rights Alliance, Early Childhood Australia, The Parenthood, the Thrive by Five Campaign, key institutes and researchers, we believe that women’s participation and economic productivity can be boosted by:
We support short, medium and long term measures to achieve these goals, given current economic constraints.
This statement of principles was developed at a workshop of the Social Policy Committee in March 2021.
The principles that will drive our analysis of proposals in this area are:
• The rights of aged care users and workers must become central to the aged care system. These rights must be grounded in the UN Declaration of Human Rights and include:
These rights must be available without discrimination on the basis of gender, ethnicity, sexuality, religion or any other personal characteristics; and where appropriate special protections should be made to ensure that the rights of minority groups are respected.
• The Aged Care Act must be rewritten to elevate the rights of users as central to the operation of the Aged Care System. The Act must be based on a universal right to high quality, safe and timely support and care to assist older people to live an active, self determined and meaningful life, and ensure older people receive high quality care (RCi Rec 1).
• Measures to combat ageism in the community and the economy must be enhanced (RC Rec 26).
• Aged Care should be delivered in a single holistic system that meets the needs of older Australians as they age (RC Recs 4; 25):
NFAW supports the launch of https://www.safetyrespectequity.com.au/ in demanding a future in which all women enjoy safety, respect and equity. It is within reach and it starts here
The Attorney-General’s Department has issued a discussion paper on penalties for wage theft.
The National Foundation for Australian Women has made a submission in response, arguing that the government’s discussion paper significantly underestimates the extent of the problem and the scope of the response that is required.
What behaviour is covered by the term ‘wage theft’?
Wage theft is shorthand for employer practices which include
• paying a base hourly rate that is below the relevant award or minimum wage base rate
• ignoring obligations to pay penalty rates for hours worked in the evenings, on weekends or on public holidays
• failing to comply with obligations to pay overtime rates or other incentive-based payments, bonuses or loadings
• failing to provide or pay out leave entitlements or failing to pay superannuation entitlements
• ‘cash back schemes’ whereby workers receive bank transfers of correct legal wages and are then forced to give back a proportion of their pay to the employer in cash
• ‘off-the-clock violations’ where staff are required to work beyond their scheduled or clocked-off finishing time, or to complete training relating to their employment without pay.
While widespread, wage theft is not gender neutral. The behaviour involved most commonly and most significantly affects low paid employees in part-time and casual work—all groups in which women predominate. It is also commonplace in industries in which women predominate such as hospitality and retail (NFAW, 2017, 1). While it disproportionately affects migrant workers, among migrant workers it disproportionately affects women (Berg and Farbenblum, 2017, 32)
The Minister for Women has done a gallant job of extracting some money from the Government for women.
However, $109 million over 4 years is roughly $26m a year. You cannot do much to increase women’s economic security on an investment of around $26m a year. You have to pad it out with old budget initiatives and do what you can on the cheap.
That’s why many of the measures announced today are double edged. They are often useful measures, but they are only useful because there is nothing better. They propose band-aids where there should be a safety net and seed funding where there should be systemic change.
Violence
Take the case of women fleeing violent relationships. The Government announced that it will make it easier for women violence to borrow from their superannuation to pay for accommodation and legal support. This, knowing that many of those women will have been victims of financial abuse, that one in three women have nothing in a superannuation fund to draw down anyway, and that the rest have far too little--and will now have even less.
Or take the Government’s continued support to the Good Shepherd micro-finance no-interest loan scheme, which helps with the purchase of household items, rental bond and other necessities. Of course this is a measure which deserves support. It is also a measure which would not be necessary if the National Plan National Plan to Reduce Violence Against Women and their Children prioritised capital and recurrent funding for emergency and longer-term accommodation options and better targeting of support in welfare and social services.
There are also unequivocally useful measures to support victims of family and domestic violence. These are mainly legislative changes streamlining property settlement and protecting victims from direct crossexamination by their perpetrators in family law matters.
NFAW also welcomes new electronic information sharing system between the Australian Tax Office and the Family Law Courts so superannuation assets can be identified quickly and accurately.
NFAW BELIEVES IT’S TIME FOR A STOCKTAKE OF THE PARENTAL LEAVE PAYMENT (PLP)
The PLP has been in operation for seven years. In view of the forthcoming election and the recent modest changes proposed by the ALP, NFAW believes it’s time for a comprehensive re-examination of the PLP.
The Australian government was an early leader in the provision of financial support for mothers. The Maternity Allowance was introduced in 1912, primarily to help reduce infant mortality. Some form of that payment mostly continued over time. In 1979 Australian Award covered working women were given the right to take 52 weeks of unpaid maternity leave. At the time it was expected that paid leave would evolve over time. However, by 2008, two thirds of Australian women didn’t receive paid leave.
Despite the overwhelming evidence about the importance for children and parents of time spent with children in the early years, progress in receiving paid leave had been glacial (apart from government employees and a low number of largely better paid women). By 2007, Australia and the USA were the only OECD countries without some form of universal payment. As a result, the Rudd government asked the Productivity Commission to examine what support parents of children up to 2 years should receive, by looking at:
Their final report was released in February 2009 and the government implemented the current scheme, based on the report’s recommendations, from January 2011.
Summary
Impacts of Government proposals to cut family benefits
OMNIBUS BILL FTB PPL Child Care and other savings
The National Foundation for Australian Women deplores both the content and process of the Bill now before the Parliament.
We urge the Parliament to reject the Bill.
NFAW has consistently advocated for improvements to the basic Government Paid Parental Leave Scheme, and to child care. Our various submissions and statements on these matters are on our website.
We have consistently argued for the maintenance of appropriate basic supports for families, for young people, and for the aged.
This Bill seeks to introduce savings which have been consistently rejected since their first appearance in the Hockey Abbott Budget. It introduces new savings, and further modifies proposals for savings to Paid Parental Leave to fund changes to child care.
We are in support of improvements to child care. We have concerns about aspects of the current policy proposal.
We completely reject financing improvements to child care by means of reducing payments to women, to families, to young people, and to retired Australians. Other savings options exist.
This Bill should be rejected.
Comments on Selected Recommendations of the 2017 report of the Senate Finance And Public Administration Committee concerning Gender Segregation In the Workplace
Introduction
NFAW is a non-politically aligned feminist organisation committed to examining the potentially differential impacts of policies and their outcomes for men and for women, and whether the consequences of policies, intended or unintended, may adversely impact on women.
We appreciate Labor’s invitation to put our views on the matters identified in the consultation paper. Our commentary below is numbered to mirror the sections of the consultation paper to which it responds.