Hansard debates

Mrs McARTHUR (Western Victoria) (10:59): I rise to speak on the Gender Equality Bill 2019 today, and I do so at the outset by saying that I have always believed in the equality of opportunity for all, but this bill does not advance equality of opportunity; rather, it advances equality of outcome. This bill provides the state government with the ability to enact regulations that enforce gender quotas in the workplaces of public entities. Under ‘Prescribed gender equality targets and quotas’ it states:

(2) The regulations may prescribe—

(a) quotas relating to the workplace gender equality indicators …

Workplace gender equality indicators include ‘gender composition of all levels of the workforce’; hence regulations can be enacted that impose gender quotas on public entities.

The bill forces all public bodies, including departments, public entities, local councils, Court Services Victoria and universities, to undertake gender impact assessments:

… when developing or reviewing any policy of, or program or service provided by, the entity that has a direct and significant impact on the public.

Gender impact assessments must:

(a) assess the effects that the policy, program or service may have on persons of different genders; and

(b) state how the policy, program or service will be developed or varied in order to—

(i) meet the needs of persons of different genders; and

(ii) address gender inequality; and

(iii) promote gender equality …

It all sounds good, doesn’t it? All of these entities must undertake workplace gender audits and prepare gender equality action plans. Gender equality action plans must include:

(a) the results of the workplace gender audit;

(b) strategies and measures for promoting gender equality in the workplace of the defined entity, based on the results of the workplace gender audit …

Every four years the Minister for Women must table a state gender equality action plan which sets out:

… a framework for taking coordinated action in Victoria to build the attitudinal, behavioural, structural and normative change required to improve gender equality.

Now, this bill sets up a whole new bureaucracy—a new quango with a commissioner. This role should be a cabinet role. It should not be outsourced, delegated to a third party. The Minister for Women should report to cabinet. It is unnecessary. It can be done already under the minister’s guidance. You would wonder why in fact it is even necessary given the number of years this party have been in government. All these actions should have and perhaps could have taken place. What have they been doing?

Many of these responsibilities already are ministerial responsibilities. Public sector organisations already have gender equality plans. This is added expense and added bureaucracy; it is an extra layer of government. A new commissioner is a new bureaucracy, and the taxpayer foots the bill.

What will be the effect on business in this situation? Well, there is a potential danger for businesses and not-for-profit organisations applying for funding or responding to procurement tenders to get work with departments. We have anecdotal evidence of businesses already in difficulty—small businesses in this area that are unable to qualify for public sector contracts because of these sorts of discriminations in the procurement processes. Rural workforces are really limited in this area. There are simply not the people for companies to employ—there just are not. One person leaving a rural business can completely change the gender balance, and it could undermine faith in the idea of gender equality and even cause resentment.

In today’s debate Ms Stitt was completely clear. She spelt out that the key aim of this is to enable the government to influence the private sector through gender-ethical procurement and funding—that government will use its buying power to promote gender equality practices across the economy. Is that in the best interests of the economy?

The effect on local government is significant, especially small rural councils. I was in a council where five out of the seven members of council were women. We did not need a gender equality plan to get there. The best women rose to the top, clearly, and that happens a lot in local government. In many local governments now women are in the majority, and that is great. But they got there because of merit. I have a quote from the CEO of the local council that I was in:

… very small local government councils … will also find it quite difficult to meet some of those requirements. That is not through any reason of systemic sexism or gender bias; it is simply because it is extraordinarily difficult to recruit to some of these positions, particularly in rural and regional Victoria. If you get one applicant who has got all the skills and qualifications you need, you do not really care what gender they are or what colour they are or what their religious beliefs are or what their physical abilities or their mental abilities are; you just want somebody in the job.

It is extremely hard, I know, to recruit people in many areas of local government in the country. I am not sure how everybody feels about the city. I am sure there is a much bigger pool to choose from, but in the country it is difficult.

This is also another example of cost shifting of this government to local government. There are likely to be more costs, Andrew Mason said:

… preparation of a plan every 4 years … we can roll it into our workforce plan which will be a requirement of the new Local Government Act … and more red tape on reporting.

There is … uncertainty about the introduction of quotas and targets. These will be introduced by the Minister through regulation. These could create challenges in rural and regional areas with thin employment markets …

The bill is also at odds, obviously, with the Local Government Bill 2019, because in the Local Government Bill it is stated, on page 62, that:

(2) A Chief Executive Officer must adopt and maintain a recruitment policy that—

(a) ensures that recruitment decisions are based on merit …

So is this bill actually in conflict with the Local Government Bill?

There is much that is still unknown. It is not clear what targets, quotas and equality indicators will be met. The commissioner has the freedom to evolve these—it should be the job of the minister—and then to take enforcement action. Is it really necessary? Women are already two-thirds of the public sector workforce in Victoria. You could argue, and I suppose some will, that they only have junior jobs, but there is already 53 per cent female membership of government boards. This is at a senior level.

It seems extraordinary that you are going to have to detail data about Aboriginality, age, disability, ethnicity, gender identity, race, religion and sexual orientation. Surely that is an invasion of privacy, apart from anything else.

To recap, the areas of concern for me are the additional bureaucracy and the cost burden through the establishment of the public sector gender equality commissioner and the negative impact on the private and not-for-profit sectors through the creation of more red tape and greater costs for small businesses to tender for government contracts. This has the potential to discriminate against small businesses if they are involved in any way in trying to contract into the government sector for reasons outside of their control, such as not being large enough to absorb the additional administrative burden or the size of the workforce not being sufficient to achieve broad diversity in the workplace. Small businesses in regional Victoria often do not have access to workforce choice in terms of recruitment to a skilled position or governance role. There is a lack of government resourcing, both financial and administrative, to support organisations and small businesses to adapt to and adopt new processes through the expanded social procurement process.

Other areas of concern include the resource strain on the public sector and government bodies to conduct even more audits and reports rather than delivering services. Much of the time these days is taken up with reporting, and I do not know where the reports sit—there must be a whole area in the ether that holds them or copious cupboards where they never get looked at again. Another area is that disciplinary action and penalties for organisations that fail to comply are not clear, particularly in relation to financial penalties for public organisations which may reduce their ability to deliver services—hospitals, for example.

We would of course like the amendment to be passed that we do away with this commissioner and restore the responsibility of this role to the minister. Why does the minister need to create another bureaucracy? Why does the government need to create another? Can the minister not do the work themselves? And in any case this is involving at this stage—of course we are not sure what might happen in the future—public entities. Why has this government not been able to enforce their gender equality operations given that they are in charge of all these government entities themselves? With that I will conclude my remarks.