(Sydney) 22 June 2020 –
Women’s Electoral Lobby (WEL) calls on all governments to urgently re-calibrate pandemic recovery plans to include a gender lens, starting with reversing the shortsighted decision to scrap the supports for early childhood learning and care (ECL&C) temporarily installed during the pandemic. WEL today released the WEL view on Government’s Pandemic Response, joining social and economic experts to lobby governments to correct their course immediately.

WEL NSW executive member, Dr Mary O’Sullivan, urged the Australian Government to take a social infrastructure investment recovery position that prioritises social and economic investment that delivers benefits to the community as a whole and supports women’s employment.

Dr O’Sullivan said, “If we are facing a recession like no other, with women’s employment and financial security seriously hit, why wouldn’t you prioritise a social infrastructure recovery plan that supports women’s employment and carries multiple and proven long-term benefits for children and for women’s safety and security. Why would you willfully ignore an opportunity to reap the financial and social benefits of investing in children and in women’s participation in the workforce so that all Australians can equally participate in the road to economic recovery

“Many Australians were shocked by the Prime Minister and Education Minister’s June 8 announcement to cut support for the early childhood learning and care industry through JobKeeper and income subsidies allowing fee free services on July 12.” 

“The Prime Minister provided no convincing rationale for the decision to target childcare as the first industry to remove from JobKeeper. This time neither the Prime Minister nor the Minister for Education acknowledged - as they had when they announced ‘free’ childcare on April 2 - that early childhood learning and care workers were ‘essential’ and ‘vital’ to Australia’s COVID-19 effort.

“It beggars belief that the Government would knowingly take a decision to reverse the supports they have provided the early childhood learning and care industry during the COVID-19 response. Despite the transition arrangements put in place until September, ripping up these sensible and effective changes is likely to have an immediate impact on children –especially disadvantaged children and on women’s participation in the workforce.

“We have a moment in history to rebalance our social and economic objectives, with government playing a leading role through COVID-19 recovery led investments and reforms. Women are first serious casualties of the recession, along with young people and it is likely to have an inter-generational impact.”

A social infrastructure led recovery should:

1. Prioritise investment in employment incentives for the caring industries, most of whom have large numbers of women within the workforce
2. Commit to build a truly universal early childhood learning and care system for all Australians by maintaining the Jobkeeper supports for 12 months, permanently abolishing the activity test and beginning a transition through provisions in the 2020 and 2O21 budgets to subsiding up to 95% of childcare costs for parents.
3. Prioritise and build social housing for women

(Sydney) 28th May, 2020 – Women’s Electoral Lobby (WEL) while welcoming the additional funding to domestic violence services announced recently by NSW Attorney-General and Minister for the Prevention of Domestic Violence, asks, why is the amount so paltry when it is meant to be spread across 180 different women’s services, 84 of which are women’s refuges?

WEL NSW spokesperson, Jozefa Sobski, lamented the lateness of this additional funding and its tokenistic nature. Ms. Sobski said, “This allocation of $21.6 million will see some services receive as little as $3500, with no service receiving more than $150,000. A funding boost does not mean an increase in ongoing funding which is what is needed. All it will do is relieve a little of the tremendous burden that has been placed on already fully stretched services to address COVID 19 impacts. The Government cannot be serious in giving this additional amount so much fanfare.”

WEL has spoken with some of the recipients of this “boost” and they are adamant that funds can cover only the most urgent needs and not for very long. All services are experiencing increasing complexity working with women fleeing domestic violence.

A six month “pop-up” safe house in Manly is being created to give highly vulnerable women and their children temporary and emergency accommodation.

Ms Sobski comments, “Why Manly and why a “pop-up”? Is the Government taking the situation around the state in so many affected communities seriously, when one part of the funding is going to a “pop-up”? We need permanent facilities, like refuges to be adequately funded and staffed. We don’t need endless small funding packages which do not allow for adequate planning or appropriate recruitment of qualified and experienced staff. Services need to build their capacity. They need certainty. Is this “pop-up” a new model of delivering domestic violence support services? Where has this model been trialed? What is the evidence for its effectiveness?

There is nothing in the package for women on temporary visas. There is a token gesture to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, people with a disability, multicultural communities. LGBTIQ communities and women living in rural and remote communities.
Frontline support services and women’s refuges will be the major recipients of this additional money, but no details of the eventual proportions to be allocated to them were provided in the Minister’s announcement. WEL hopes that the additional money will be built into the State Budget for these essential domestic violence services on a continuing basis.

DOMESTIC VIOLENCE CRISIS RESPONSE AT RISK IF SOCIAL AND COMMUNITY WORKERS LOSE EQUAL PAY FUNDING

(Canberra – 05 March 2020) More than 200,000 social and community workers, are at serious risk of losing their jobs if the Australian Government cannot provide surety for the 2012 Fair Work Commission equal renumeration order, which is due to expire in 2021.  

In the lead up to International Women’s Day (8^th March) the Women’s Electoral Lobby Australia (WELA) joins a coalition of national organisations calling on the Australian Government to recognise and finalise its commitment to gender pay gap for these workers, most of whom are women. #trustthewomen #equalpay

“In 2012 the Fair Work Commission (FWC) made an equal remuneration order (ERO) for social and community workers, providing pay increases up to 45% over 8 years, to address the gender-related undervaluation,” said WELA National Convenor, Emma Davidson.

View the Media Release PDF here.

Sydney 10th February 2020 – Women’s Electoral Lobby Australia (WEL) is disappointed that the second exposure draft of the Federal Government’s Religious Discrimination Bill includes no substantial amendments in response to Australia’s subject experts, including submissions made by WEL and many expert legal, medical and community groups.

WEL spokesperson, Dr Mary O’Sullivan, stated, “WEL has a number of key concerns about the Attorney General’s second attempt at addressing religious discrimination. Central to these is that the draft Bill fundamentally undermines advances made by Australian women since the passage of the Sex Discrimination Act in 1984, together with the other Anti-Discrimination Acts at Commonwealth and state level.”

WEL’s submission on the second draft of the Bill highlights the grave risks for Australian women inherent in the Bill and calls for a significant review in consultation with subject experts.

“With the promise of preventing religious discrimination, this cruel piece of legislation will actually green light the opposite by:
• licensing and granting protection for public speech and written materials in workplaces and public life that can be denigrating, derogatory, humiliating and intimidating to women;
• permitting the introduction of faith tests and discriminatory conditions for employment in women dominated industries of education, health, aged care and religious charities. This will also further impact women in health services, as many have faith-based ownership or
management. (79% of the healthcare and social services industry workforce are women and the education and training industry has 63.4% women); and
• substantially interfering and further confusing state law on abortion, to the extent to which Australian women have a right to access reproductive health services, without any impediment,” said Dr O’Sullivan.

“Alarmingly, the Bill would allow people of one religious background to make derogatory statements about other faith communities in the name of their religious belief,”
“This also has serious implications for the very communities most in need of protection on the grounds of religion. Jewish and Muslim communities have suffered a rise in attacks in Australia,” said Dr O’Sullivan.

The WEL submission expresses strong concerns for Muslim women adopting religious and cultural dress, who already suffer disproportionate verbal and other attacks, and bear the brunt of racial and religious discrimination on top of sex discrimination.
“By imposing a new, unorthodox and intricate layer of complaints, defences and exemptions on existing Commonwealth, state and territory legislation, the Bill will further discourage women victims of discrimination from coming forward to seek justice,”’ said Dr O’Sullivan.

WEL urges the Australian Government to consider the Bill in the light of the good faith agreement with 12.9 million Australian women it is trying to advance across Government. We respectfully request that the Government rework the draft Bill to remove all of the significant impacts on
women. WEL will continue to work closely with Australia’s civil society leaders to collaborate and maintain its advocacy for all Australian women. WEL will seek a meeting with the Minister for Women, Marise Payne and the Attorney General Christian Porter address these concerns.
-ends-

Media Inquiries: contact Jenny Muir to arrange media comment or interviews with Dr Mary
O’Sullivan on 0415 401 200.

MEDIA RELEASE

WEL urges NSW MPs to pass the Reproductive Healthcare Reform Bill 2019

Sydney – 5 August 2019 − Women’s Electoral Lobby is delighted that the NSW Parliament will begin debate on the Reproductive Healthcare Reform Bill 2019 on Tuesday 6 August and urges MPs to support its passage.

MEDIA RELEASE

Homelessness has grown by 31% for older women aged 55 plus

Sydney – 5 August 2019 − Dr Jane Bullen from Women’s Electoral Lobby has called on Commonwealth and State governments to respond Australia’s homelessness crisis for women, who are often invisible and amongst the poorest and most vulnerable of those experiencing homelessness, as part of National Homelessness Week (4-10^th August).

MEDIA RELEASE

WEL NSW Regrets Budget of Bricks and Mortar with No Heart

(Sydney) 18 June 2019 - Women’s Electoral Lobby NSW expressed deep disappointment with the NSW State Budget, describing it as a triumph of steel and concrete over the needs of vulnerable members of the NSW community.

WEL Executive member and Violence Against Women Action Group leader, Jozefa Sobski AM, said there is little to write home about on the NSW Government’s investment levels in social services and support for struggling communities in NSW.

MEDIA STATEMENT

(Sydney) 14 June 2019 – Women’s Electoral Lobby (WEL) is very concerned about the findings of recent research for the Australian Housing and Research Institute [1] on Social housing legal responses to crime and anti-social behaviour: impacts on vulnerable families, launched today.