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Kim Beazley, Carmen Lawrence - Labor's Better Plan For Australian Women http://www.alp.org.au//media/1101/kbclmssw081101.html Monday, 19 November 2001

ALP News Statements

Labor's Better Plan For Australian Women Kim Beazley, Leader of the Opposition, and Carmen Lawrence, Shadow Minister for the Status of Women

Media Statement - 8 November 2001

Australian women have been hurt by the policies of the Howard Government. Women as workers, students, carers and parents are finding it harder to make ends meet. They have fewer dollars after paying the GST and fewer opportunities because the Howard Government has cut essential services in the areas of education and training, health, childcare and legal aid.

Employment opportunities are shrinking and employee entitlements are not secure. There are fewer full time jobs and corporate collapses are becoming commonplace. The often-precarious nature of women's work has left many struggling to meet financial commitments and to balance work and family life.

There are fewer opportunities for all women to gain a quality education. We are moving towards an American health system in which your credit card is more important than your Medicare card. Changes to the income estimation system for family payments have created a debt trap for thousands of Australian women whose hours and income vary week to week.

Labor has a long and proud history of supporting the aspirations of Australian women. We remain committed to removing the barriers that have prevented or discouraged women from realising their goals.

A Beazley Labor Government will repair the structures and institutions that support equality of opportunity.

Women are over-represented in precarious, casual and low-paid employment but under-represented in government decision-making. They provide the bulk of unpaid primary care for our children and frail aged but receive little recognition and support for this valuable contribution. In simple terms, Australian women deserve better.

As we work towards equal political representation, Australian women have the right to mechanisms that give them voice in the decision-making processes of government. The Howard Government has disregarded women's voices for more than five years and chipped away at women's rights. Labor will

take a very different approach.

Almost 40 per cent of the Beazley team are Labor women seeking to represent their local community in Australia's Federal Parliament. We are committed to building a better, more representative Government and delivering the jobs, opportunities and services that support the aspirations of Australian women and address their diverse needs and concerns.

Labor will:

prioritise those issues of greatest concern to Australian women; jobs, health and education; ● restore the Office of the Status of Women to a central and pro-active role in the development of public policy; ●

ensure that public policy is responsive to the reality of women's lives; ● drive cultural and attitudinal changes towards pregnant and breastfeeding women in the workplace; ● restore the Australian Industrial Relations Commission as a strong and independent industrial umpire to ensure that the workplace is fair for women; ●

ratify the Optional Protocol on CEDAW and rebuild our human rights and anti-discrimination framework. ●

Authorised by Geoff Walsh, 19 National Circuit, Barton ACT 2600.

  Australian Labor Party   National ALP   Back

Kim Beazley's Plan for Australian Women http://www.alp.org.au//policy/women/index.html Monday, 19 November 2001

Kim Beazley's Plan for Australian Women

Overview ● The Howard Government's Failures Not Listening ❍ Job Insecurity ❍

Increasing Financial Pressure ❍ Less Support ❍ Inequality before the Law ❍

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Kim Beazley's Plan for Australian Women Empowering Women Increased Political Participation ■ Office of the Status of Women ■

Ratifying the Optional Protocol to CEDAW ■ Women's Community Organisations ■ Consulting Women ■ Listening to Women ■

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Healthy Women Saving our Public Hospitals and Saving Medicare ■ Medicare After Hours ■ Healthy Rural Women ■

Better Access to Bulk Billing ■ Safe and Affordable Medicines ■ A New National Dental Health Scheme ■ Tax-free Sanitary Products ■

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A Decent Standard of Living for all Australian Women A Fairer GST ■ A Simpler GST ■

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Flexible Family Assistance ■ Superannuation ■ Women in The Knowledge Nation $2 Billion Investment in Education ■

Innovative Women ■ IT Kickstart ■

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Working Women Equal Pay ■ Sector-Specific Pay and Conditions ■ Nursing Workforce Package ■

Employment and Training Opportunities ■ Forward Thinking ■ An Independent Industrial Umpire ■ Paid Parental Leave ■

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Women as Parents and Carers Headstart ■ Improving Access to Quality Childcare ■ Recognising, Valuing and Supporting Carers ■

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Growing Older A Flexible Approach to Social Security ■ Better Community Care ■ Putting the 'Care' back into Aged Care ■

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Women and Justice Legal Aid and Family Law ■ Supporting Community Legal Centres ■ Taking Discrimination Against Women Seriously ■

Addressing Violence Against Women ■

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Indigenous Communities - Indigenous Women ❍ Women's Participation Women at the Grass Roots ■ Women and Sport ■

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Costing ●

Overview

Labor believes that equality of opportunity is a hallmark of a civilised society. It is an ethos that has underpinned the Australian identity. We call it 'a fair go'. After five and a half years under John Howard,

Australia is a lot less fair.

More than most in our community, Australian women have been hurt by the policies of the Howard Government. Women as workers, students, carers and parents are finding it harder to make ends meet. They have fewer dollars after paying the GST and fewer opportunities because the Howard Government has cut essential services in the areas of education and training, health, child care and legal aid.

Employment opportunities are shrinking and employee entitlements are not secure. There are fewer full time jobs and corporate collapses are becoming commonplace. The often precarious nature of women's work has left many struggling to meet financial commitments and to balance work and family life.

There are fewer opportunities for all women to gain a quality education. We are moving towards an American health system in which your credit card is more important than your Medicare card. Changes to the income estimation system for family payments have created a debt trap for thousands of Australian women whose hours and income vary week to week.

Labor has a long and proud history of supporting the aspirations of Australian women. We remain committed to removing the barriers that have prevented or discouraged women from realising their goals. A Beazley Labor Government will repair the structures and institutions that support equality of opportunity. These are the very structures that the Howard Government has damaged and dismantled.

Women are over-represented in precarious, casual and low-paid employment but under-represented in Government decision-making. They provide the bulk of unpaid primary care for our children and frail aged but receive little recognition and support for this valuable contribution. In simple terms, Australian women deserve better.

As we work towards equal political representation, Australian women have the right to mechanisms that give them a voice in the decision-making processes of Government. The Howard Government has disregarded women's voices for more than five years and chipped away at women's rights. Labor will take a very different approach.

Labor will ratify the Optional Protocol on Charter for the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) and rebuild our human rights framework. We will restore the Office of the Status of Women to a central and pro-active role in the development of public policy and ensure that public policy is responsive to the reality of women's lives. We will drive cultural and attitudinal changes towards pregnant and breastfeeding women in the workplace and will restore the Australian Industrial Relations Commission as a strong and independent industrial umpire.

Almost 40% of the Beazley Team are Labor women seeking to represent their local community in Australia's Federal Parliament. We are committed to building a better, more representative Government and delivering the jobs, opportunities and services that support the aspirations of Australian women and address their diverse needs and concerns.

The Howard Government's Failures

Five years under the Howard Government have left many Australian women feeling pressured and insecure. The combined impact of cuts to essential services and the imposition of the GST has made life tougher for women and their families. Since the Howard Government came to office, women have been

absent from the decision-making process and absent from the minds of the decision-makers.

Not Listening

The Howard Government is not listening to women. If they had listened to women's stories, they would know that women feel under much more pressure today than they did five years ago. They would know that women feel like their concerns have been trivialised and their choices diminished as funding to essential services has been stripped away and many women's advocacy groups have been stripped of funding altogether.

Job Insecurity

Earlier this year, the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) surveyed 1,100 working women throughout Australia. Nearly half of the respondents cited 'job security' as their primary concern. This should come as little surprise.

Assaults on working conditions under the guise of industrial relations 'reforms', and the job-destroying impact of the GST, have made working life more precarious and the gender wage gap is growing. Women are prominent in the ranks of the 650,000 Australians who are unemployed and the similar number who have part-time work but want, or need, more hours. Television has captured the impact of the collapse of Ansett, HIH and One.Tel on the thousands of women employees who have suddenly lost their jobs and, quite possibly, their entitlements.

Increasing Financial Pressure

We usually don't talk much about politics, we're all pretty busy, but we discussed the GST and we've definitely been affected by it, all of us feel worse off. Everything has gone up, insurance, phone, services, everything. (K. Bohne, Sunday Herald Sun Magazine: Meet Ms Average, 4/11/01 pg 19)

The GST combined with savage cuts to essential services have placed many Australian women under acute financial pressure.

Since the introduction of the GST, family budgets have been squeezed:

electricity is up 14.5%; ● gas is up 16.5%; ● food is up 7.4%; and ● insurance bills are up 12.5%. (Source: ABS 6401.0). ●

For many women, it is getting more and more difficult to make ends meet.

Less Support

Child Care

John Howard has made quality child care unaffordable for many Australian women. Child care today is 16 per cent more expensive than when John Howard came to Office.

In the first four years of the Howard Government, child care costs to families increased dramatically as the Government froze indexation of Child Care Assistance and slashed $850 million from the child care budget. Women who could not find an extra $30 a week for each child in care reduced their hours of work or cobbled together 'patchwork' arrangements. Many began to question the rhetoric of 'choice'.

Family Tax and the Child Care Benefit Debt Trap

Not content with making child care unaffordable, the Howard Government has built a debt trap into the family payments system by requiring families to estimate their annual income a year in advance. Women who rely on part-time and casual work - or whose hours vary week to week - are most at risk.

According to Government sources, at least 100,000 families were set to receive debt notices from 1 July this year. Under pressure from Labor, the Government announced that Family Tax Benefit and Child Care Benefit debts would be waived in 2001 to a maximum of $1,000 each. But rather than fix the system, John Howard has warned that families will be hit with debts next year and has delayed, until after the election, the issue of debt notices to families who have acquired debts of over $1,000 for each payment. It will be an unexpectedly tough Christmas for many Australian women.

Baby Bonus?

The Howard Government's announcement of a 'baby bonus' during the election campaign, highlights the remoteness of the Coalition from the reality of women's lives. John Howard has promised relief for families ranging from $500 to $2,500 per annum but, as always, the devil is in the detail.

Ninety per cent of all eligible families will get nothing in the first year. For the remaining ten percent, at least six in ten eligible families will receive $500 or less. For Australian women struggling to provide for their families, the suggestion that $10 a week will enlarge their choices about parenting is as ignorant as it is insulting.

Women and Care

Women who are carers, care workers, or in need of care, have had little respite from the Howard Government. Bronwyn Bishop's aged care crisis has created a national shortage of 12,000 nursing home beds. And it is most often wives, daughters and daughters-in-law who struggle to provide the specialist care needed while they wait for a nursing home bed for their partner or parent.

The nurses and care workers who care for our frail aged are under intolerable pressure as they try to deliver quality care in a system starved of adequate care funding, real beds and ministerial leadership.

Inequality Before The Law

Access to legal representation is essential to democracy. Savage funding cuts to legal aid have reduced women's access to legal representation, particularly in the area of family law. For women in regional centres, the Family Court Circuit Counselling program has been decimated.

If members of the Howard Government were listening, they would know that women throughout

Australia consider access to the law as fundamental to the security of women. If they had listened, they would know that the overwhelming majority of women's organisations in Australia - from the Young Women's Christian Association (YWCA) to Business and Professional Women (BPW) - want the Australian Government to sign the Optional Protocol to the United Nation's Charter on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). This collective voice has been unheard or unheeded.

Sadly, the Howard Government has shown little care for Australian women and little interest in their needs and concerns.

The election campaign has only confirmed that a third term for the Howard Government will deliver more of the same.

Kim Beazley's Plan for Australian Women

Empowering Women

Labor Governments have always acknowledged that discrimination against women continues to exist. Women do not participate equally in the economy, the workplace, in parliaments or other decision making bodies such as company boards.

Until women can participate equally in all these fields, Labor will continue to address discrimination by providing assistance and policies which work to reduce the discrimination and lack of full participation in all our democracy has to offer.

A Beazley Labor Government will place women's issues at the front and centre of its agenda by having:

more women in a Beazley Labor Cabinet; ● more women in the House of Representatives and the Senate; ● a properly resourced Office of the Status of Women to analyse and develop policies for all Australian women; and ●

mechanisms to include women and their representative organisations in decision making of the Federal Government. ●

The influence of women is reflected in the priorities of a Beazley Labor Government as outlined in the lead up to the election.

Jobs, health and education are the three priorities identified as the issues of greatest concern to women in an ACTU Survey on election issues conducted earlier this year.

Increased Political Participation

Since the 1980s, the Australian Labor Party has implemented measures that guarantee a minimum number of women participate in the internal decision making processes of the Party. National conference, State conferences, executive committees and policy committees have pursued outcomes that reflect the influence of a critical level - 30 per cent - of Labor women.

More than a decade on, this early and innovative policy commitment resulted in a national commitment

in 1994, by the Federal Labor Party, to set an Affirmative Action target of 35% representation of women in the seats required to form a Federal Labor Government by 2002.

This Affirmative Action target will be met at the 2001 election if a Beazley Labor Government is formed on the election of seven of the Labor women contesting the winnable seats needed to form Government.

A Beazley Labor Government will have more women amongst the Labor Caucus than any other Federal Labor Government.

The 1994 Affirmative Action target was established to ensure that Australia in the 21st century had made significant progress to ensuring that women had a greater influence in decisions that affect Australia. Kim Beazley and Labor have met this commitment and will continue to build on it in Government.

Office Of The Status Of Women

The role and influence of the Office for the Status of Women (OSW) has been diluted under the Howard Government. Labor will revitalise OSW and restore its important role in connecting Australian women to government and ensuring their views are represented in, and inform, the decision making of government.

A Beazley Labor Government will provide a Women's Budget Statement each year, concurrent with the federal budget, detailing the impact of budget decisions on women. Further, all Cabinet submissions will include an analysis by the Office for the Status of Women of the potential gender impact of policy decisions. Ministers in a Labor Government will know how their decisions will affect women's lives.

Ratifying The Optional Protocol To CEDAW

Unlike the Government's approach, a Labor Government would acknowledge Australia's responsibility as an international citizen and our willingness to subject ourselves to international observation and ensure that women's human rights are pursued throughout the world.

A Labor Government would sign the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Elimination on All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW).

Labor would then pursue ratification in accordance with Australia's treaty making processes including appropriate parliamentary scrutiny.

This move would recognise the competence of the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women to consider petitions from individuals or groups who have exhausted all national remedies. It is part of Australia's responsibilities as an international citizen.

Women's Community Organisations

A Labor Government would improve the financial support and methods of assisting women's non-government organisations.

At present, only three organisations have retained infrastructure funding and many other organisations have suffered by being forced to deal with bureaucratic and cumbersome methods of obtaining small amounts of project funding but cannot fund their day to day operations. Many worthy community organisations and their members have suffered as a result.

Under a Labor Government more women's non-government organisations will be funded on the basis of their ability to provide services and advocacy for their members.

Consulting Women

The most important part of getting Government decisions right will be the Government's ability to find out the needs and desires of Australia women. Ensuring they have input before decisions are made will be vital. Under the Howard Government, such processes have suffered.

A Labor Government will improve these consultation processes. This would require, for example, women's representative groups to:

Communicate with one another (supporting a web site and an email list as well as other measures for those not on email); ●

Provide feedback to government from their various constituencies; and ● Make recommendations on how women's NGO funding might be allocated. ●

Listening To Women

Over the last three years, members of the Federal Labor Party have travelled throughout Australia, listening to women. Our listening has informed and influenced every policy released by the Beazley Labor Team during the federal election campaign.

The stories and reflections of women resonate in Labor's commitment to rebuild a protective rights framework, to restore the independence of the industrial umpire and to invest in jobs. They resonate in Labor's dedicated plan to fix Australia's public hospitals, to rebuild Medicare and establish a new National Dental Health Scheme. The concerns of women have been addressed in our plan to make higher education more affordable for Australian women and to provide every child with a decent education regardless of how much income their parents earn. The anger of women has supported our decision to remove the GST from some essential household items and to remove the GST from women's sanitary products. Labor's Knowledge Nation will ensure that women in their many and varied roles as workers, parents, students and carers have choices, and opportunities available to them.

Kim Beazley and Labor have never stopped listening to Australian women. We won't stop listening in government.

Healthy Women

Over the last five years, the stress and strain on our public hospitals has grown steadily worse. In 1996, John Howard cut $800 million from public hospitals and he is now short-changing the States and Territories by refusing to meet the needs of a growing population and rising health costs.

Women are tired of the blame shifting and the excuses. Labor believes that access to decent public health and hospital care, regardless of where you live and what you earn, is essential.

At the heart of Labor's health policy is a commitment to rebuilding Medicare and our public hospital system. It will give women the security of knowing that quality, affordable health care will be available when they need it.

Saving Our Public Hospitals And Saving Medicare

Labor's Medicare Alliance - signed by Labor leaders in all States and Territories - will deliver real growth in hospital funding over the next ten years. For the first time, Australia will have a single health system where the States and Commonwealth work hand in hand to provide the best care for patients.

Labor's Medicare Bonus will increase funding to our public hospitals by $545 million over four years. This funding is over and above what our hospitals would get under John Howard. Women will benefit from the priority that will be given to reducing waiting times for elective surgery and delays in emergency departments, upgrading essential equipment in our hospitals and more resources for mental health.

Women who have been forced to wait for radiotherapy due to the huge backlog in cancer treatment, will have improved access to vital equipment like Linear Accelerators and our cancer treatment centres will have more staff. As part of Labor's Plan to Fight Cancer we will increase breast cancer screening rates, and establish a targeted cervical cancer screening program to reach women who do not currently have regular pap smears.

Labor understands that the first few weeks and months of a baby's life can be very stressful for new parents as they learn to respond to their baby's needs. Labor's Medicare Bonus has made new mothers and their babies a priority. We will provide $22 million over four years so that no matter where a child is born, they get the healthiest start in life. Labor is also committed to upgrading postnatal care services so that new mothers having difficulty are able to access the assistance that they need.

Medicare After Hours

Labor is committed to providing access to quality health care around the clock and our Medicare After Hours program will address the difficulty of accessing after hours care.

Labor will spend $186 million so that people who currently wait hours in emergency departments, (because GP services are either too expensive or too difficult to find) will be able to see a GP. We will also establish a 24-hour medical advice line staffed by nurses under the supervision of doctors so that, whatever time of the day or night, medical advice is only a phone call away.

Mothers know that simple, early medical advice and treatment after hours, is often all that's needed to help a sick child and save hours spent waiting in a hospital emergency room.

Healthy Rural Women

Women who live in rural areas are not getting their fair share of health services under the Howard Government. Labor will not treat the health needs of women in the country as an afterthought.

Labor will ensure country hospitals get their fair share of new funding under the Medicare Alliance. Our Medicare Bonus will provide $57 million over four years for regional and rural hospitals to invest in local priorities for replacement of equipment and upgrading of facilities.

Labor is also committed to increasing the number of doctors and other health professionals in the country. We will simplify schemes for recruitment and support of rural GPs and will establish a Health Workforce Agency to get nurses, pharmacists, dentists and other health professionals into rural areas.

Better Access To Bulk Billing

Women are finding it harder and harder to see a bulk-billing doctor, particularly if they live in rural areas or the outer suburbs. Under John Howard, three million fewer GP services are being bulk billed.

Labor will provide doctors with a direct incentive to stop the slide in bulk billing. We will negotiate ways to deliver better GP services in all areas and to maximise the availability of bulk billing under Medicare.

Safe And Affordable Medicines

Women are paying much more for their essential medicines under the Howard Government. Since 1996, the Government has removed 60 medicines from the Pharmaceutical Benefit Scheme including nasal sprays, anti-fungal creams and medicines to relieve pains and sprains. Under John Howard, we are heading down the American path where medicines are only affordable for the very well off.

Labor is committed to an independent and cost-effective Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme as a vital part of our universal healthcare system. We will ensure that decisions about which medicines will be provided through the PBS are truly independent by removing industry representatives from the Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee and capping the gifts and inducements that the pharmaceutical industry can provide to doctors and pharmacists.

Labor will instead provide consumers and their doctors with factual, evidence-based information to guide prescribing decisions in the best interests of patients.

Under Labor, the PBS will once again provide women with access to the medicines they need at a price they can afford.

A New National Dental Health Scheme

Kim Beazley has described the abolition of the Commonwealth Dental Health Program in 1996 as one of the Howard Government's "cruellest acts". For many women on low incomes, the lack of affordable, accessible dental care has meant that the simple act of chewing their dinner has become impossible. They are experiencing more pain, having more teeth extracted and can be forced to wait years to get dental treatment or new dentures.

For older women, poorly maintained teeth or poor fitting dentures cause pain and suffering, constrain dietary choices and lead to social isolation. Many 'hide away' if poor teeth or dentures make it difficult to speak or eat properly or if they feel embarrassed by their appearance.

For Labor, this is just not good enough.

Labor will allocate $100 million to a new National Dental Health Scheme for low income Australians. Our scheme will restore access to dental services to those most in need. It will reduce waiting times for emergency care, regular check ups and treatment services for women with a Health Care Card or a Pensioner Concession Card.

Tax Free Sanitary Products

"This is the first time I have ever written to a Member of Parliament but I must protest over the GST on tampons and other sanitary products. It affects mainly women but it also affects men who are their family's sole support and have wives and daughters. The shaving cream analogy has angered all and again an embarrassment to the government. I have also learnt that shaving cream has a tax on it at the moment and will be actually cheaper under the GST whilst tampons are tax-free and will be more expensive.

Every woman I have spoken to is so angry over this matter and they have said it will affect the way they vote at the next election. Please reconsider your position." (Email to Government and copied to Opposition)

John Howard promised that health would be GST free but both the Prime Minister and his retiring Health Minister, Michael Wooldridge, believe that sanitary products are optional extras for women and unrelated to women's health.

Women in their thousands made their anger known to the Howard Government and the Opposition began receiving e-mails from women protesting against the GST on tampons. On 15 February 2000, Senator Faulkner tabled a petition with 10,355 signatures calling on the Government to make tampons and sanitary pads GST-free. This is the largest electronic petition ever tabled in the Federal Parliament, and it demonstrates the depth of women's anger at the Howard Government's menstruation tax.

The Howard Government continues to apply the GST to women's sanitary products. Labor will remove it.

A Decent Standard Of Living For All Australian Women

The Howard Government's unfair and complex GST has increased the cost of living, worsened unemployment and placed Australian women under financial pressure. The GST is a regressive tax and few women received adequate compensation under the Howard Government's new tax system.

For John Howard, the GST is the best thing that has happened to education in this country. For women trying to balance the family budget, and to educate themselves or their children, the GST has only made life harder.

A Fairer GST

Labor fought hard to stop the GST. Now that it is a reality, we will do everything we can to make it simpler and fairer. Labor will take the GST off $1 billion worth of essential goods and services to ease the financial pressure on women. We will make the GST fairer, without making it more complex, and we won't increase the rate of the GST or put the GST on anything it is not on now.

Kim Beazley and Labor will make the GST fairer by taking it off:

Household electricity and gas supply. ● Long-term caravan park and boarding house rentals. ● Text books through an expanded subsidy. ●

Women's sanitary products. ● Cloth and disposable nappies. ● Funeral services and pre-paid funerals. ●

A Simpler GST

For the 35% of small business owners who are women, Labor will simplify the Business Activity Statement (BAS). We will reduce the compliance burden and the paperwork, and give women in business their weekends back.

Labor's Simpler BAS Option will allow small businesses to pay a simply calculated quarterly instalment on their quarterly turnover. Each registered business using the ratio method will be given a GST ratio based on its own trading circumstances.

Labor's BAS Option will be as simple as ABC. John Howard and Peter Costello remain wedded to the complexity of the GST.

Flexible Family Assistance

Families are doing it tough under John Howard and his 'baby bonus' and family payments debt trap do not provide a way forward.

Labor is committed to reforming family assistance, to provide greater choice and flexibility for families as their circumstances change. Labor's Family Accounts will allow families, where a parent has left the workforce to care for a newborn, to bring forward up to an additional $1,000 of family payments per year to help buffer the loss of an income. Families will be able to draw on increased family payments at the time when they need them most. The measure will boost family incomes by a minimum of $38.46 per fortnight.

The Family Account is designed to enable parents who want to stay at home to care for young children, the ability to do just that.

Superannuation

Labor is committed to ensuring all women have access to adequate retirement income. Superannuation is a Labor issue. It was Labor that introduced the Superannuation Guarantee and we will continue to build a better 'super' system.

Labor will conduct a comprehensive 'Retirement Incomes Review' to address concerns about the adequacy, complexity and security of current superannuation arrangements.

Unlike John Howard, Labor's Review will examine the needs and coverage of all Australians in determining directions for reform. In the course of the campaign, John Howard has promised to reduce his superannuation surcharge but this will only benefit the top 5% of taxpayers.

While the Coalition's announcement will deliver an average benefit of $812 for each of the top 5% of income earners, the average benefit provided to each of the 4.1 million low-income taxpayers, estimated to be eligible, is just $80. While John Howard is interested in the needs of the few, Labor's approach to superannuation reform will focus on the needs of the many.

Women In The Knowledge Nation

Kim Beazley's Plan for the Knowledge Nation will help Australian women realise their aspirations by improving access to quality education and training, and providing jobs for the future.

John Howard has wrought enormous damage on our education system in just five years. He has allocated an additional $150 million to wealthy Category 1 elite private schools but ignored public schools in need. The $5 billion slashed from universities and research and development has seen the first decrease in university enrolments since the 1950s and we are losing an unprecedented number of our highly qualified people to countries with the foresight to offer support for research and innovation.

Life is tougher for students then it was five years ago - absolutely!

The difference between when I did my first degree in the late '80s and my second in the late '90s is incredible. Then, I had the feeling and saw the evidence that funding quality education was a valued and important part of government policy.

Now, it's a different story. University budget cuts, especially in the creative disciplines, have trickled through all the nuances of student life. There are less staff with greater workloads, fewer material resources and support services have been diminished. The quality of education has consequently decreased. Up front fees, the reduction in the HECS repayment threshold and the increased cost of living under the GST have made it pretty difficult, particularly if you're a mature aged woman re-entering education. The irony is that students now pay for an inferior service. Quite frankly, I despair of a country governed by any political party that does not nourish its creativity, nor value the fundamental benefits of a well educated society. K.P. Neilson, President, VCA

$2 Billion Investment In Australian Education

Kim Beazley and Labor are committed to reversing the damage done by the Howard Government and building a Knowledge Nation.

Labor will invest over $2 billion in the next five years to ensure that quality education is the province of all Australians. We will invest in early learning, schools, apprenticeships, vocational education and training and our universities.

Our commitments include:

21st Century Schools - with qualified and specialist teachers, good learning environments, decent facilities and modern Internet capabilities and access; ●

Education Priority Zones - to help provide better access and opportunities for children in communities with economic and social disadvantage; ●

$493 million injection into Australian universities - to improve the quality of teaching and learning in all Australian universities; ●

A University of Australia Online - to harness new opportunities created in the age of information ●

technology and give women and mothers more opportunities to learn while raising children or caring for family members; Increasing the HECS repayment threshold and extending rental assistance to Austudy recipients over 25 - to make tertiary education more accessible, particularly for women; and ●

Creating Knowledge Nation Apprenticeships - to provide high quality training in areas of skill shortages such as aged care; computing and IT, systems administrators and programmers, health and related occupations and education and child care workers.

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Innovative Women

As more Australian women participate and excel in science and innovation, research and development activity has dramatically declined as the Howard Government savaged funding and incentives.

Labor believes government must facilitate and encourage closer links between public and private sector research institutions if Australia is to retain and develop innovative ideas at home and create the jobs of the future.

Labor will provide a premium tax concession of 200 per cent for additional private sector investment in facilities and projects in public research institutions such as the CSIRO, cooperative Research Centres and universities. This is a commitment to invest $179 million over five years, over and above existing R&D incentives. It is a commitment to invest in innovative women and secure jobs for the future.

IT Kickstart

Labor will invest $140 million over five years to create a large scale outreach program to provide basic IT & Internet training to adult Australians who have little experience or confidence with computers. This training will be provided at schools, universities and TAFEs, Adult and Community Education centres, workplaces, libraries and neighbourhood centres. This will provide many mature women with access to employment and training opportunities currently out of reach in Australia's underfunded education and training sectors.

Working Women

Equal Pay

Women are disproportionately reliant on awards for pay and conditions: 42.2% of female workers rely on awards against only 26.9% of males. But, the Government's award simplification legislation has limited allowable award conditions, the two major results being (a) that elimination of the gender pay gap has stalled and (b) that elimination of women-unfriendly working conditions is harder to achieve, especially in industries classified as highly feminised.

The elimination of the gender gap, which was begun in the equal pay cases of 1969 and 1970 and continued into the 90s, has stalled:

average weekly ordinary time earnings (AWOTE) for women have declined compared with those for men; ●

average annual wage increases (AAWIs) for women from enterprise bargaining have fallen; and ● women earn only 43.7% of the over award/agreement rates earned by men. ●

Labor will restore the power of the Commission to deal with all industrial matters and to restore award conditions, which have been stripped away by the Howard Government.

Sector-Specific Pay And Conditions

Labor will develop sector-specific strategies to improve the status, remuneration and working conditions in areas such as nursing and aged care where women comprise the majority of the workforce.

Labor understands that the crisis in the aged care workforce is being driven by a range of factors - poor wages, long hours, excessive paperwork, staff shortages, high rates of injury, limited opportunities to develop specialist skills and limited career paths. All of these must be addressed to enable the aged care sector to attract and retain the staff needed to deliver quality care. Labor has a comprehensive plan to do just that.

Labor will commit $109.2 million over four years to improve the pay and conditions of aged care workers. Particular attention will be given to closing the wages gap between the acute and aged care sectors. For nurses who are tired of double shifts and paperwork, the wages gap between the aged and acute sectors is often the final straw. Aged care nursing is physically and emotionally demanding and rhetoric about 'valuing staff' has little meaning if an aged care nurse can earn an extra $100 a week by moving to the public hospital down the road.

To improve working conditions Labor will introduce minimum staffing guidelines. Under Labor, nurses and care staff can report for work, secure in the knowledge that the roster will have the staff and skills to deliver care of the highest order.

Nurses will also take comfort from the fact that under Labor they will spend less time documenting care and more time delivering it. By simplifying and streamlining the Resident Classification Scale (RCS), Labor will ameliorate one of the factors driving aged care nurses away.

Nursing Workforce Package

Labor will make nursing a national priority through the appointment of a Chief Nursing Officer and development of a $52 million national nursing workforce plan. This includes $43 million to create more postgraduate HECS funded university places and pay the HECS contributions for those who work in areas of workforce shortage. We will also conduct a $9 million national campaign to promote nursing careers.

Employment And Training Opportunities

Access to education, training and secure employment is vital to women's independence, their standard of living, their life chances and self-esteem.

Labor is committed to tackling unemployment by investing in education, training and infrastructure and maintaining strong economic growth.

A Beazley Labor Government will:

Inject an additional $75 million over five years into the Jobs Pathways Program to assist school leavers going into the workforce without formal qualifications; ●

Invest a further $41 million over five years to bolster training and employment outcomes in the Work-for-the-Dole program; ●

Invest $60 million in a new wage subsidy program to help the long-term unemployed and carers seeking to return to work to find secure jobs; ●

Provide a more intensive and tailored level of support to the mature-age unemployed receiving assistance through the Job Network; and ●

Provide $10 million over two years to establish an innovative community jobs program aimed at employing 860 people in regions of high unemployment. ●

Forward Thinking

"Once Emily is settled at school I hope to do a course for women returning to the workforce, and get a job and contribute more…" (K. Bohne, Meet Ms Average: Sunday Herald Sun Magazine, 4/11/01 page 21)

Kim Beazley and Labor are committed not only to addressing unemployment, but preventing it from occurring in the first place. To this end, a Beazley Labor Government will develop a Workforce 2010 strategy to help identify those at risk before they become unemployed. We will plan our national skills effort and ensure that Australians can capture the jobs of the future.

For women returning to the workforce, and women in precarious employment, this dedicated, strategic approach will enhance employment opportunities in emerging sectors and areas where there are skill and staff shortages.

An Independent Industrial Umpire

A quick look at our labour force profile demonstrates why a strong and independent industrial umpire is so important to working women:

women are often paid less than their male counterparts; ● twice as many women as men in full time jobs earn less than $500 week; ● 42% of women workers rely on awards compared to 27% of male workers; ● 44% of women who regularly work overtime are not paid for those hours compared to 28% of

men; and ●

award conditions and allowances like maternity leave, study leave and carers leave effect more women than men. ●

For all these reasons, a Beazley Labor Government will restore the power of the Industrial Relations Commission to deal with all industrial matters and restore the award conditions so important to Australian women workers.

Paid Parental Leave

Labor recognises the desirability of paid parental leave being more widely available in Australia. Regrettably, less than one third of working women have access to this type of leave. Recognising many

women were not able to access such leave, the former Labor government established a means tested maternity allowance equal to six weeks of parenting allowance, currently $988.

A Labor Government will be committed to a range of measures to assist Australians with balancing their work and family lives, including adequate and affordable child care, a fairer industrial relations system and a National Early Assistance Strategy for families with young children.

Our aim as a nation must be to ensure that Australian parents at work have access to the minimum standards available in like nations. Accordingly, Labor will:

instruct the IRC as part of the Work and Life Study to investigate Australian and international models of paid parental leave; and ●

work with State and Territory governments, employers and unions to expand coverage of paid parental leave in Australia. ●

Women As Parents And Carers

There have been dramatic changes in family and community life over the last thirty years. Changing patterns of work, a growing number of single parent and blended families, the pace of work and life generally, and growing levels of stress and insecurity demand new approaches to helping parents balance work and family life.

Whether parents are caring for children at home or using child care services, Labor will support their needs and choices. Our starting point is that quality care is good for children, wherever it is provided. Our commitment is to provide Commonwealth leadership in supporting parents, and to foster safe and caring environments in which children can learn and grow. Our policies will ensure that the diverse support and advice that parents need is being delivered.

Headstart

Labor will invest $263 million to ensure that during the critical early years of children's lives, parents can access an integrated set of services spanning the health, education, child care and family support areas.

Labor's Headstart for Families program will dramatically upgrade services to families with young children.

Headstart for Families will include a set of national targets to improve key health, wellbeing and social indicators for families and their children.

At the front end, Labor will invest in comprehensive home visiting and education programs for new parents as well as specialist health services to address postnatal depression.

Young children and their parents will also benefit from a range of social and developmental programs funded under Headstart, with many of these provided in conjunction with existing childcare services.

Improving Access To Quality Childcare

Labor is committed to meeting the child care needs of women, and to supporting the participation of women in employment, education and training. We will ensure that all families have access to affordable, quality child care in their local community. We will deliver a range of services for school-aged and

younger children, targeted to areas which are currently missing out.

Kim Beazley's Plan for Child Care includes:

$23.4 million over three years to provide an additional 30,500 Outside School Hours Care (OSHC) places that cater for the care and development needs of school-aged children. ●

$42 million over three years for Supporting Families - a program to support the establishment of child care services in areas where child care is currently not provided, or where families have little choice about care arrangements.

●

Increasing the number of children with special needs who can participate in mainstream child care services through an injection of $9 million to the Special Needs Subsidy Scheme. ●

Guaranteed indexation of the Child Care Benefit (CCB) each year, every year, to ensure that child care remains affordable for families. ●

Providing Child Care Apprenticeships under the Knowledge Nation Apprenticeship Scheme. ● Developing a Child Care Workforce Strategy to address the serious shortage, and high turnover, of child care staff. ●

Recognising, Valuing And Supporting Carers

Of the 450,000 primary carers, 70 per cent are female and most are of working age. Caring is a physically, emotionally and financially demanding role. The contribution carers make to the lives of the people for whom they care, and to the health of our community, cannot be captured in the bottom line.

Carers have asked Labor for a new approach to public policy. An approach that provides structures through which their voices can be heard. An approach that addresses their needs in a systematic way rather than pushing them to the back of the queue. Labor agrees that we need to do things differently.

Labor will develop a National Strategy for Carers in consultation with carers and their representative organisations. The Strategy represents a new approach to developing carers' policy and a commitment to better support those caring for persons affected by frailty, disability, chronic conditions or mental illness.

The aim of the National Strategy for Carers is to enable carers to make more choices for themselves and to have more control over their own lives. It will be a vehicle through which we provide better information, more flexible support and genuine care for carers. It will be a means by which we make supporting carers an explicit goal of our aged and community care programs and broader government policy.

In addition, Labor will provide $37 million in capital funding to build long-stay respite facilities to give carers time for a break. Facilities will be built in partnership with other levels of government or organisations wishing to provide respite care. Based on capital-fund matching, this initiative will provide up to 1,000 new respite beds.

Growing Older

Labor will support women as they grow older by building better community and aged care services and a more flexible income support system.

A Flexible Approach To Social Security

Labor will significantly increase the level and flexibility of advances on the age pension and access to loans.

Many older women face unexpected expenses - a large bill, car repairs, or replacing a washing machine that has given up the ghost. To help them cope with these lumpy expenditures, Labor will allow advances on the age pension of up to $1,000 (in any combination) over any twelve-month period. Repayment will be via a small deduction from future pension entitlements. The measure will commence from January 2002 and cost $23.3 million over its first two years.

Labor will also allow older women to borrow up to $8,500 against their home without having to make regular repayments. For many older women their home is their only asset. Under Labor's Home Equity Conversion Loan Scheme, recipients will not have to repay capital or interest for the duration of the loan. The loan will only become repayable upon the death of the last borrower or when the home is sold.

Labor will also extend access to a work credit scheme to women receiving the age pension. Age pensioners will now be able to bank up to $1,000 of their unused income free area so that casual employment such as one-off Census or election work will not affect their pension entitlements.

Better Community Care

Labor is committed to supporting the health and care needs of older women who continue to live in the community. However, we also understand that our community care system is too complex and fragmented. It places enormous organisational strain on older people and their families at an already stressful time.

Labor's community care model will support the preference of older women to remain at home, and make life easier for those coordinating their care.

We will maintain the budgeted growth in community care funding of $215 million over the next four years and introduce a tiered Home and Community Care system. As an elderly woman moves from needing Meals on Wheels or help with the gardening, to needing a more comprehensive range of services, she will receive the additional organisational support she requires.

Putting The 'Care' Back Into Aged Care

Labor has made a $467 million commitment to address the current crisis in aged care. Older women are the majority of residents in our aged care facilities and Labor believes they have a right to be cared for with respect and dignity. We also believe that our aged care nurses and care workers deserve better pay and conditions and the opportunity to practice their vocation.

Labor argues that how we care for our elderly says much about the society we are. Sadly, the Howard's Government's aged care system has failed older Australians and placed families and public hospitals under immense pressure. Bronwyn Bishop's legacy is a national shortage of more than 12,000 aged care beds, longer waiting lists, fewer nurses and real cuts to care funding. Labor's Plan for Aged Care will tackle these problems head on.

Labor's first priority is to deliver the nursing home beds that the frail aged on waiting lists urgently need. Our Plan includes $200 million in interest free loans to get new beds built in areas where there is a bed

shortage. We will also increase care funding by $180 million over four years to guarantee high quality care for our frail aged and stop our nurses leaving. The majority of this additional care funding will be directed to better wages and conditions for aged care staff.

Understaffing in the Howard Government's aged care system has left residents waiting longer and longer to be toileted, bathed and fed. It has meant that nurses and care staff are forced to rush from person to person with no time for a chat or a cup of tea. Labor says this is not good enough. Labor's minimum staffing guidelines will ensure that on every shift, in every nursing home, there are enough qualified staff with the time to deliver the care our elderly need and deserve.

Women And Justice

Legal Aid And Family Law

Since taking Office, the Howard Government has slashed Commonwealth funding for legal aid and eroded the capacity of the Family Court to provide timely and efficient justice, counselling and dispute resolution services. As a result, fewer women are able to access legal aid than ever before - and it is increasingly difficult for women to access legal assistance for family law matters.

Labor will provide an additional $20 million for legal aid from 1 July 2004 - the first year of the new legal aid funding agreement. We will also provide $5.4 million to enhance legal outreach in outer metropolitan, regional, rural and remote areas.

At the same time, Labor will continue the task of progressive reform of family law to ensure that the system provides fair and equitable treatment for all. The best interests of the child will remain a primary consideration at all times.

Supporting Community Legal Centres

During the year, three community legal centres in South Australia were closed as a result of the Howard Government's decision to fund services elsewhere in the State. Most community legal centres have been built from the ground up by local communities who have identified the need for them. They rely on the support and goodwill of local legal practitioners, law students and others in the community who give of their time for free. That community support base is not transportable when a decision is made in Canberra that a legal centre is not ideally located.

Labor will support the independence of community legal services in identifying and meeting legal need and make community legal centres eligible for funding under our legal outreach program. Labor will also assist community legal centres in their core work by reducing the onerous administrative requirements currently imposed on centres by the Commonwealth.

Taking Discrimination Against Women Seriously

A Beazley Labor Government is committed to rebuilding our human rights framework. Labor will sign the Optional Protocol to the United Nations' Charter on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women. We will also amend the Sex Discrimination Act and the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Act to protect pregnant and breastfeeding mothers from discrimination and mistreatment in the workplace.

Addressing Violence Against Women

Labor will tackle the causes of violence against women by creating safer communities.

Labor will establish the Office of Community Safety within the new portfolio of Home Affairs and will implement Community Safety Zones to target crime prevention and policing initiatives to areas of greatest need. The Community Safety Zones initiative will receive a total of $93 million over four years.

Indigenous Communities - Indigenous Women

A Beazley Labor Government will formally apologise, on behalf of the Australian people, for past Government practices of stealing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families; from their mothers.

The priority issues for Indigenous women are the priority issues for Indigenous communities.

The 1999 Report by the Queensland Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islander Taskforce on Family Violence identified the inexorable and complex link between the status of Indigenous communities and the status of Indigenous women.

Substance abuse, child abuse, family violence, poor nutrition, land rights, overrepresentation in prisons, youth suicide, access to training, education and employment are all issues that affect whole communities and affect the health, safety and aspirations of Indigenous women.

A Beazley Labor Government will begin addressing the poor conditions in Indigenous communities by directing $23 million to support Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities' solutions to the problems associated with alcohol, illicit drugs and violence.

Labor will also undertake a national audit of programs and services addressing domestic and family violence in partnership with State and Territory Governments, ATSIC and Indigenous communities in an effort to find lasting, well-coordinated and practical responses to the problem.

Labor will make Indigenous health a National Health and Medical Research strategic research priority to generate research to improve Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health, as recommended by the Health is Life House of Representatives Indigenous Health Inquiry.

Labor will continue its commitment to the ongoing implementation of the recommendations of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody. We recognise that the recommendations provide a specific and targeted agenda for all Australian governments to address Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander disadvantage. Labor will seek implementation of these recommendations by all levels of government.

Labor maintains our opposition to the mandatory sentencing of young offenders.

Labor's Knowledge Nation will be relevant and accessible to Indigenous children. Education Priority Zones will provide huge funding injections into disadvantaged schools in order to provide these students with a better education and access to life opportunities available to other Australians. Labor will also provide enhanced university funding for special programs enhancing access for disadvantaged and underrepresented groups that will particularly benefit Indigenous students.

Women's Participation

Women At The Grass Roots

A vibrant and engaged community sector is an essential ingredient in healthy democracy.

"And let's not forget the Coalition's decision to stop funding and to silence the majority of women's organisations. These are the same organisations that previously existed on a small grant of $50,000 per year to give women a voice in politics. These organisations lobbied for better education, better health services better childcare, better sexual assault domestic violence services, and so on.

Not surprisingly, this voice was often critical of government policy. So, similar to what it has done to the voice of young people or people with disabilities, the Howard team silenced that voice and concentrated funding to three large women's organisations that it attempted to gag with a restricted funding agreement." (Sarah Maddison, Women's Electoral Lobby, The Australian 5/11/01 page 15)

A Beazley Labor Government will establish a funding program that will be accessible to all women's organisations. We will ensure that organisations can represent and provide services to women and make their voices heard. Women's organisations will always be important and welcome contributors to Labor's policies and programs through feedback and response structures facilitated through OSW.

Women And Sport

Raising the participation, status, profile and opportunities of Australia's female athletes and women of all ages involved in sport is a priority for Labor.

Labor will commit $2.4 million to restore and raise the role of Australian women involved in all aspects of physical activity. We will restore The Prime Minister's Women in Sport Award, which was scrapped by the Howard Government.

Labor will pursue the recommendations contained in An Illusory Image, A Report on the Media Coverage and Portrayal of Women's Sport in Australia. This is important to promoting women's sport in the media, and ensuring mainstream coverage, and to raising the national profile of Australian sportswomen.

Further, Labor will expand the role of the Australian Sports Commission's Women In Sport Unit to embrace program delivery and the provision of statistical data.

Costing (1)

  01-02 02-03 03-04 04-05 Total

Supporting Women's Non-Government Organisations 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0

Revitalising the Office of Status of Women 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0

Countering Violence Against Women 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0

Costing (1)

01-02 02-03 03-04 04-05 Total

Supporting Women's Non-Government Organisations 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0

Revitalising the Office of Status of Women 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0

Countering Violence Against Women 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0

Pregnant Workplace Campaign 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0

Ratifying Optional Protocol to CEDAW 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0

Consulting Women 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0

TOTAL ($ millions ) 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0

(1) Costings for Labor policies that will benefit women, but are not the province of the Status of Women portfolio, have been previously announced.