Fair Work (Family and Domestic Violence Leave) Amendment Bill
Tuesday 21 February 2023
Ms CLANCY (Elder) (11:14): I rise today in support of the Fair Work (Family and Domestic Violence Leave) Amendment Bill 2022 to amend the Fair Work Act 1994. I was proud to stand as a member of the Malinauskas Labor team during the state election, presenting a suite of progressive policies to make South Australia a better place. I, like the many other Labor women running for parliament, was grateful that within my team I had the leadership and guidance of our then shadow minister for women and the other compassionate women leaders already in our parliament, including our steadfast then deputy opposition leader.
This bill is fundamental to the commitment to women that we took to the election—a commitment focused on advancing gender equality and employing the power of government to bring an end to domestic violence. By introducing a new minimum employment condition for public sector and local government employees of 15 paid days of family and domestic violence leave each year, we are taking an important step toward fulfilling that commitment.
Currently, state system employees' entitlement to family and domestic violence leave is governed by an inconsistent set of policies, procedures and industrial instruments. Public sector employees are entitled to some paid leave through a determination of the Commissioner for Public Sector Employment, and local government employees are entitled to unpaid leave under their awards. This simply is not good enough. At their most vulnerable time, South Australians experiencing domestic and family violence should not be worried about their income. Workers experiencing domestic and family violence should not be made to choose between their safety and their financial security and the support they need. They should have both, they deserve both, and the successful passage of this bill will go a long way in ending that choice for many South Australians forever.
It is reforms such as these that make me proud to be Labor and proud to be union. We must pay credit to the tireless work of the Australian Services Union and the Australian Workers' Union for organising and campaigning to bring about this policy shift. Our movement is at its best when our party not only hears but listens to and actions the calls of the union movement. Our friends in the ASU and AWU have been calling for this reform for 15 years, leading the charge for family and domestic violence leave in the local government sector. I thank the members, organisers and officials of these unions, including Abbie Spencer and Peter Lamps, and indeed the broader union movement who have tirelessly advocated for this change.
I am proud to stand here as a member of the Malinauskas Labor government seeking to legislate that change. Legislating paid family and domestic violence leave empowers victims and survivors to seek the support they need and put in place any safeguards they may need. Family and domestic violence leave can be used for any purpose relating to a worker experiencing family and domestic violence. Such reasons could include, but are not limited to, seeking health care, legal or court proceedings, receiving legal advice, or finding alternative living arrangements. No-one should be made to choose between the safety and security these services provide and the economic security of work.
It is important to also point out that workers should not be punished for accessing these entitlements. That is why, unlike other leave entitlements, family and domestic violence leave will be calculated including any penalty rates or overtime payment that that worker would ordinarily receive, and this leave is available to all public sector and local government workers, whether they be full-time, part-time or casual.
This bill also provides additional protections for workers taking family and domestic violence leave. The last thing victim survivors need is a boss making life more challenging than it already is. Our amendments to the Fair Work Act include robust confidentiality requirements so that workers can rest assured that their personal information will be treated appropriately. Neither bosses nor human resources can copy or retain evidence provided by their workers to support a leave claim. Employers would also be prohibited under this reform from requesting information from an employee about the nature and extent of the domestic and family violence they are experiencing. This bill makes it a criminal offence for an employer to disclose information obtained through these processes without the consent of the employee to whom the information relates.
Enshrining a minimum 15 days of family and domestic violence leave each year for public sector and local government workers sends a clear message to the business sector, the labour market and local communities across our state. South Australia's biggest employers, the public sector and local government sector, do not and will not tolerate family and domestic violence.
As of this month, private sector workers are also entitled to 10 days of paid family and domestic violence leave, thanks to legislation passed by the Albanese Labor government last year. It comes as no real surprise that it took a Labor government federally to also introduce this reform. With a look across the chamber today, it is abundantly clear that the Labor Party is not only the party for working people and families but also the party for women. While anyone can experience domestic and family violence, it is overwhelmingly women who do.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics tells us that one in four women have experienced intimate partner violence since the age of 15. One in four women have experienced emotional abuse by a current or former partner since the age of 15 and, on average, a woman is killed by a current or former intimate partner every 10 days. This cannot just be seen as a women's issue. We must all play a role in ending domestic and family violence. We must all continue to challenge attitudes and behaviours we see that consider women lesser than men. We must all work to ensure the next generation understands what respectful relationships look like. And we must all work together to dismantle the systems of power that allow some men to perpetrate this violence.
I acknowledge that men are also victims and survivors of domestic and family violence, and I acknowledge the men we lose to family and domestic violence. My focus is on women today because four in every five perpetrators of this violence are men, and this must end. Even if we locked up and threw away the key of every current and future non-male perpetrator of family and domestic violence today, we would only reduce these cases by 5 per cent. Men are the overwhelming perpetrators of this violence and the buck must stop with them.
I am bewildered by the men in the social media comments section of my colleagues and I who, at even the slightest allusion to the fact that women make up the overwhelming majority of victims of family and domestic violence, bring up often an entirely unrelated matter, which does disproportionately affect men. To these men, not all men, I ask this: where is your energy every other day?
Over the weekend before last, I stood alongside women from this place, business and community to honour and mourn all the women lost to violence in 2022. As it has been every year I have attended, it was a moving event. I love women coming together to support other women—women standing together—but, gosh, I hate that we have to. I hate that events like this have to happen. I dread the fact that we will be back on the steps of parliament next year at the same time doing the exact same thing.
When I had the privilege of working in this space at Women's Safety Services South Australia (WSSSA, as it is affectionately referred to), I would think about how sad it is that the organisation has to exist at all. There are well over 120 staff spread over six locations, all working to support women and children experiencing domestic and family violence—and that is just one organisation of many. Imagine a world where these organisations all become obsolete because, to put it bluntly, men choose to stop abusing women. It breaks my heart that that sounds like a complete fairytale because it should not.
Mr Speaker, do you know when the phrase, 'When is International Men's Day?' most searched online? It is 8 March—International Women's Day. I mention this fact because it is important. It is important to acknowledge that the systems of power and privilege that allow some men to perpetrate family and domestic violence are the same systems that keep us divided and perpetuate the myth that gender equality comes to the detriment of men. That is what we are seeking to change, and it is bills such as these that will go a long way for achieving gender equality for everyone.
In summary, all power to the men who walk beside us such as those I am often surrounded by in parliament—those who are supporting legislation such as this. While the majority of domestic and family violence perpetrators are men, the majority of men are not perpetrators. We can and we must all strive together to achieve gender equality.
I also wish to speak to another aspect of this bill, which seeks to amend the objects of the Fair Work Act to include promoting and facilitating gender equality, ensuring this is taken into account by the South Australian Employment Tribunal when determining future industrial entitlements.
The Malinauskas Labor government has a strong vision for achieving gender equality and one day bringing an end to domestic, family and sexual violence and all other forms of disrespect and discrimination that disproportionately affect women within our community. We are committed to working alongside service providers, women's organisations, women experiencing domestic violence, and other stakeholders to use all possible opportunities available to us to prevent and end domestic and family violence.
Already our state government has restored the $800,000 of funding over four years that was shamefully cut from the Women's Domestic Violence Court Assistance Service by the former state government. This vital service supports women with intervention order applications, variations and revocations, ending tenancies, and liaising with police to report breaches of intervention orders. We also reinstated the $1.2 million of funding to Catherine House that was, again, disgustingly cut by the former state government. Catherine House is an incredible service providing a safe and secure place for women experiencing homelessness, often as a result of family and domestic violence.
This bill is an example of our government's commitment to enacting a range of legislative change, preventive actions and policy, and options for recovery to help women stay safe. I stand proudly as a member of the Malinauskas Labor government, a state government that is unapologetically pro worker and relentlessly against family and domestic violence. Domestic and family violence has no place in our community. Everyone should feel and be safe. I commend this bill to the house.
