SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2024
Welcome to WEL-Informed, your bi-monthly newsletter with feminist updates and news about campaigns from WEL, the national, independent, non-party political, feminist advocacy group.
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WEL calls on the Federal Government to make public hospital provision for reproductive health services, including abortion, a condition of public hospital funding
Yet again Australian women face attacks on their autonomy and reproductive rights. The ‘campaign’ began November 2022 in the Senate with Senator Matt Canavan and Alex Antic’s ‘Children Born Alive’ Protection Bill. The Bill was referred to a Senate Committee Inquiry, which has since recommended against consideration.
Then in August 2024 Senator Ralph Babet put a motion seeking Senate condemnation of babies ‘left to die’ after failed abortions. The motion was not carried but disturbingly several prominent coalition front benchers including Michaelia Cash supported it. Liberal Senator Maria Kovacic spoke against the motion and was subject to an online petition with 12,000 endorsements calling for her to be dumped as a Coalition Senator.
Most recently a Bill curtailing women’s access to late term abortion was narrowly defeated in South Australia. In Queensland the now Premier and MPs likely to serve in his new cabinet opposed the 2018 legislation which decriminalised abortion in the state.
If enacted, proposed legislation to prevent late terminations for any reason, including the health of the mother and the viability of the foetus, would mean that already traumatised women would be forced to go to full term with all the distressing consequences and human rights infringements of ‘forced birth’.
The ‘horror’ meme of ‘live births’ in late pregnancy termination is imported from right wing and religious extremists in the United States, zealously embellished by their Australian counterparts.
Feminist and health journalists have maintained excellent commentary on the evolution of the debate during the last three weeks. Many women MPs at the state and federal level have condemned the Bills, including Jacinta Allen, Premier of Victoria and Katy Gallagher the Federal Minister for Women.
Since all states finally removed remnants of criminal provisions in their legislation, abortion law had been considered relatively settled in Australia. The latest attempts to roll back and subvert legislation that is the product of decades of effort and feminist advocacy by organisations such as WEL, punctures that complacency.
We are facing a situation where individual states and territories, pressured by religious interest groups, could pass legislation which, step by step, is intended to undermine women’s right to choose.
Federal MPs quick to condemn the South Australian Bill and the ambivalent stance of the Queensland LNP but claiming impotence since ‘abortion is a state issue’ may have forgotten Tanya Plibersek’s brave commitment before the 2019 election to ensure that abortion is provided consistently in public hospitals.
As the Guardian reported at the time, she indicated that tying reproductive health services to federal funding provided in the five-year Commonwealth-State hospital funding agreement was necessary to end the 'patchwork provision of abortion that currently occurs across the country’.
WEL understands the next Commonwealth-State funding agreement for 2025-2030 is currently being negotiated. Following the most recent developments, we expect that the relevant federal and state ministers will be seizing this opportunity to incorporate consistent access to free public reproductive health services, including abortion, through public hospitals as a condition of Commonwealth funding.
Leading up to the federal election WEL plans to campaign, alongside our allies, for the Federal Government to take responsibility for ensuring the states and territories provide equitable and consistent access to reproductive health services across Australia.
More on the recent attempt to wind back abortion rights in South Australia…
As the ABC reported on 17 October, South Australia's upper house narrowly voted down a private member’s bill introduced by Liberal MP Ben Hood to amend abortion laws that would have required women wanting to terminate their pregnancy after 28 weeks to deliver their baby alive.
Under SA legislation passed in 2021, a pregnant person can get a late-term abortion after 22 weeks and six days if it is deemed medically appropriate and approved by two doctors. According to SA Health, in the first 18 months after the legislation was implemented, "fewer than five" people had their pregnancies terminated after 27 weeks.
When the bill was introduced, the South Australian Abortion Action Coalition (saaac) stated that: "This Bill, if passed, attempts to import the worst elements of a polarised US-style abortion politics, which Australia has largely managed to avoid. While Hood and his supporters claim that the bill addresses the ‘unintended consequences’ of existing abortion law, it does no such thing. In fact, this bill seeks to erase the years of evidence-informed debate that resulted in the decriminalisation of abortion in SA."
As saaac pointed out, the bill was extreme in containing a mandatory birth component that is not reflected in any other abortion legislation in the world. Yet, disturbingly, it was defeated by the narrowest of margins – with both major parties allowing a conscience vote, nine voted in favour of the bill and 10 against.
WEL notes that continued vigilance is needed to prevent similar action taking place in other Australian jurisdictions.
Productivity Commission report on Early Childhood Education and Care
On 18 September the Australian Productivity Commission released its long awaited report, ‘A path to universal early childhood education and care’.
Free, locally accessible and high quality Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) is fundamental to achieving women’s equality and to children’s social, emotional and cognitive development. Together with reproductive rights and justice, universal and free ECEC has always underpinned WEL’s policy platform.
The Productivity Commission report provides advice on creating a pathway for the Government to deliver a ‘universal’ system of early childhood education and care.
Crucially for women’s equality advocates the Treasurer’s Terms of Reference also included impact on economic growth through enabling workforce participation, particularly for women.
The Commission’s most significant recommendation to improve affordability is that families earning less than $80,000 a year and up to $140,000 for those with multiple children in care, should get three days a week of free childcare for 48 weeks of the year. It recommends the government’s Child Care Subsidy (CCS) then be tapered down by 1% for every $5000 of adjusted taxable income over the minimum. Families with a combined income of $580,000 or over would not be eligible for any subsidy.
The report claims that almost all families using ECEC would benefit from the changes. Half of families would be eligible for Child Care Subsidy rates of 90% or more; nearly 80% would be eligible for subsidies of over 75%. The Commission says this would add $4.7 billion a year to the $12.7 billion childcare subsidy cost as shown in the May 2023 budget.
One widely welcomed recommendation is removal of the ‘activity test’; a condition which bars parents from being eligible for subsidied fees if they do not engage in set hours of work, study or other approved activities: a requirement that falls most heavily on the poorest communities.
Essentially the Productivity Commission’s preferred option is a modified version of the status quo, representing the least additional financial commitment. Over a ten year period the report claims that the reforms will deliver free/low cost, high quality, well regulated, locally accessible ECEC to the nation’s poorest families for three days a week and increased subsidies for others.
WEL has a number of concerns about the report’s recommendations, shared with advocacy groups such as The Parenthood, the Centre for Policy Development and the Minderoo Foundation’s Thrive by Five.
Georgie Dent, CEO of The Parenthood has written to the Productivity Commission stating that the Report fails to meet the term of reference relating to improving economic growth through enabling women’s workforce participation.
This is because the Commission’s preferred funding model would, in the report’s own words, have a ‘negligible’ impact on employment participation. Yet extensive evidence suggests that other funding models can lead to major economic benefits such as productivity improvements, increases in GDP and a substantial increase in women’s lifetime earnings.
WEL is equally concerned that the Productivity Commission’s recommendations to retain (modified forms) of the Child Care Subsidy paid to providers (see pages 80-83 of this report) flies in the face of the conclusion of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) Childcare Inquiry 2023 that ‘the design and implementation of the Child Care Subsidy has only limited effectiveness in putting downward pressure on fees’.
Private, for profit providers, in many cases international corporations, now comprise 52% of services in the Australian ECEC sector. The proportion of not for profit (13%) and community managed (20%) services is diminishing. Government preschools comprise 4% of services and Local Government services 7%.
The Productivity Commission Report takes a largely neutral stand on the increasing concentration of for profit providers. It seems to be at pains to argue the virtues of a (better regulated) market and demand driven system where governments only move in to fund remedies for market failures - such as in substantial areas of Australia with limited or no ECEC. This model is manifestly inadequate in the delivery of employment, aged care and disability services. We do not tolerate government subsidies for private, for profit schools.
As Assistant Commissioner Professor Deborah Brennan warns in her powerful personal statement in the second volume of the report: ‘Aspects of Australia’s highly marketized approach to ECEC will work against equitable, high quality provision unless moderated. Accordingly, I suggest measures to strengthen and expand not for-profit provision, attention to the financial strategies of large investor-backed and private equity companies, and regulatory strategies to discourage providers whose business models and labour practices do not align well with the National Cabinet vision’ (336-339).
While we urge the implementation of the report’s recommendations as critical steps towards universal ECEC, WEL also urges the government to develop a strategy to enlarge and strengthen not for profit, community managed, local and state government services.
Menopause Health Care Leave? WEL says long overdue
On 17 September the Senate Community Affairs References Committee released Issues related to menopause and perimenopause, the report from a wide ranging inquiry initiated in November 2023.
All but one of the committee members were women senators, representing Labor, Australian Greens and the Liberal Party. Nearly 300 submissions were made.
WEL welcomes the Report and the (unanimously agreed) recommendations. The Report is yet another indictment of the gender bias pervasive in the health system and of discriminatory attitudes and practices in workplaces that shame and hold women back.
The Committee heard evidence of misdiagnosis, family breakdowns and divorce, crippling mental health issues, and suicidal thoughts among women as a result of stigma and insufficient support related to menopause.
Submissions and witnesses at the Committee’s seven public hearings described how women faced “significant barriers in accessing diagnosis and treatment” and their workplaces, families and the broader community often had little understanding of what they were going through.
Recommendations include women having a legal right to work flexibly during menopause and the federal government making hormonal medications cheaper and easier. As a result of the inquiry, reproductive health leave is now on the industrial relations agenda. Other recommendations cover improving doctors’ awareness of menopause, which it called a health issue “where women’s voices and pain have been ignored or poorly understood” for decades.
The inquiry heard women were being forced out of the workforce years before they planned to leave because their employers were not accommodating of their symptoms, even when relatively straightforward solutions are available. Women aged 50-54 years could lose $15.2 billion a year in forgone earnings and superannuation, according to a submission from Chief Executive Women.
Small workplace changes – such as improved ventilation, flexible working hours or locations and private rooms available when symptoms are bad – could significantly help.
WEL notes that the report discusses the scattered and inadequate attention paid to menopause in the National Women’s Health Strategy 2020-2030. We understand that an implementation Framework for the Strategy is about to be released and look forward to that including specific goals and indicators for menopause care with associated initiatives and budget funding.
Unpacking Federal Government DV funding: where is the money going?
WEL outlined key elements of two national reports released on domestic, family and sexual violence in our August newsletter. We welcomed the Federal Government’s announcement on 6 September of $4.7 billion in funding to end gender-based violence.
But where is this funding going? So far there is no real clarity and little transparency about the destination of the funds, let alone whether it represents new and additional funding.
Government messaging has promoted the funding as targeting front line domestic-violence services and prevention. In fact, the $3.9 billion over five years is for the National Access to Justice Partnership agreement scheduled to be signed by 30 November 2025, which simply replaces the former Agreement due to expire.
We are relieved that negotiations on the new agreement include $800 million of new money over five years to fund legal aid services supporting women and children and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander (ATSI) communities and family violence prevention. However ATSI service advocates comment that the funding is population not needs-based and will not alleviate the crisis faced by their communities, particularly in the Northern Territory. Moreover the funding is not set to flow until 1 July 2025.
So, the bulk of the funds are for a continuation of frontline legal services including women’s legal services, ATSI legal services, family violence prevention legal services, legal aid and community legal centres generally.
While welcome, the funding package is not a response to the Rapid Review of Prevention Approaches report. It has been rightly criticised as not even scraping the sides of the need when divided by six states and two territories.
WEL recognises that there is a separate National Partnership on Family, Domestic and Sexual Violence Responses 2021-27. In November 2023, Ministers Rishworth and Elliot allocated an additional $157.2 million to states and territories. A further $351 million over five years was announced in September 2024 to be matched in each case by state and territory governments. This funding will support specialist women’s and children’s services and men’s behaviour change programs. It is aimed at delivering a nationally coordinated approach.
The Government says that details about this funding and where it will go are to be released in the mid-year economic fiscal outlook at the end of 2024. WEL anticipates a much greater level of detail and clarity in the Treasurer’s statement than we have seen so far.
WEL has consistently advocated for transparency in funding allocations and better reporting on outcomes. Governments cannot resist billion dollar announcements, but when unpacked, they do not always amount to a real increase, usually covering CPI and wage increases with no new money to enable services to meet growing demand.
In the meantime in the midst of a cost of living crisis, women and children fleeing violence are struggling to access support with frontline services under increasing pressure
Select Committee on Reproductive, Maternal and Paediatric health services in Tasmania
WEL is pleased to see the establishment of this Inquiry, tasked with making recommendations on State Government action to ensure that reproductive, maternal and paediatric health and perinatal mental health services meet the needs of Tasmanian parents, families and children.
The recently appointed Committee has received submissions covering reproductive health services, maternal health services, birth trauma, workforce shortages, midwife professional indemnity insurance, perinatal mental health services, paediatric services for children ages 0-5 years and the Tasmanian Child Health and Parenting Service (CHaPS). All these issues have ramifications across Australia.
The inquiry will seek to examine disparities in the availability of services, staffing and outcomes between Tasmania and other states and territories; Tasmanians living in rural, regional and metropolitan areas, and people experiencing socio-economic disadvantage.
Submissions closed on 16 September and the first hearing was conducted on 21 October. WEL Committee member Kristyn Begnell addressed this session (in her capacity as Chair of the Australian Home Births Association), along with a Tasmanian representative of the Australian College of Midwives. The ACM submission is one of many made to the Inquiry which highlight the serious inequities in women’s reproductive (including maternity) health services in rural and remote Australia, with Tasmania as a microcosm.
Anniversary of passage of NSW Abortion Law Reform Act: still a long way to go
WEL was honoured to participate in celebrating the fifth anniversary of the 27 September 2019 passage of the NSW Abortion Law Reform Act. Alex Greenwich MP, member for Sydney hosted the event at the NSW parliament.
Wendy McCarthy AO, Chair of WEL’s Abortion Law Reform Round Table and the campaign management committee emphasized the collective sense of unfinished business and absolute necessity that drove the campaign and the singular commitment of Alex Greenwich and the cross party group of MPs who sponsored the Bill.
Cross Party MPs who were sponsors of the 2019 Abortion Law Reform Act
She also acknowledged the critical ‘behind the scenes’ role of the Health Minister Brad Hazard and the tactical skills deployed by Trevor Khan MLA and Penny Sharpe MLC in steering the Bill through the notoriously conservative Legislative Council.
Speaking for WEL, our Convener Jozefa Sobski spoke of her own experience in undergoing an illegal abortion in the late 1960’s and thanked all who had lent their resources, expertise and authority to the WEL campaign. In particular she thanked Ann Brassil, then CEO of Family Planning Australia, Denele Crozier of Women’s Health NSW, the Human Rights Law Centre and Sinead Canning, the paid campaign manager.
WEL’s Jozefa Sobski addresses the fifth anniversary event in the NSW Parliament
It fell to Sue Shilbury, the new CEO of Family Planning NSW, to warn that “while decriminalization was a necessary modernising reform, it is not a guarantee of improved access to services”.
She described slow and uneven progress in supporting equitable access to reproductive health services across NSW and indeed across Australia, especially in access to abortion services in public hospitals and the high cost of services, especially for women in rural and regional NSW. She noted that “while other States have made considerable progress in providing access to abortion services, specifically surgical abortion, NSW lags behind”.
WEL is standing with other feminist health advocates to call on the Federal Government to work with states and territories to ensure consistent access to free public, universal reproductive health services, including making these services a condition of funding in the next Commonwealth-State Hospital funding agreement.
Invitation to WEL AGM – 6 December 2024 at 10.30am
You are invited to attend WEL’s 2024 Annual General Meeting online via Zoom at 10:30am AEDT on Friday 6 December.
Only financial members can participate and vote at the AGM. If you are unsure of your membership status, you can email us and we can check on your current status.
Please visit the WEL website HERE for the AGM notice. RSVP is essential via the button on the page. Zoom meeting details, and links to the meeting documents will be sent to members who have RSVP'd.
If you want to actively contribute to WEL’s advocacy work, we encourage you to nominate for any position on the WEL National Coordinating Committee: Convenor, Treasurer, Secretary or committee member.
Please note that you will need to be nominated and your nomination seconded by a WEL member. If you do not have ready access to WEL members, your nomination can be formalised by the Convenor and/or members of the National Coordinating Committee. New nominees must accompany their signed nomination form with a recent brief CV including information on any other women's organisation of which you are a member.
The nomination form can be found via WEL’s website. Completed nomination forms should be submitted to [email protected] before 29 November 2024. If you would like to discuss your nomination, please contact Jozefa Sobski on M:0403 895 929 or [email protected].
We look forward to seeing you online on 6 December!