Women in South Australia:

Thinking about a Better Future

Report Back on Community Consultation

April2011

Overview

The Premier's Council for Women is a high level advisory body which advises the Premier of South Australia and the Minister for the Status of Women. Wegive quality, independent advice to the South Australian Government on issues relating to women to helpcreate a whole of government approach to meeting the needs of women.

Webelieve that we should offer opportunities on a regular basis for the women of South Australia to express their views and raise issues of concern to them. We last held public consultation in 2007, which led to our workplan for 2008 to 2010.

To assist us in developing a program of work for the next two years, we engaged in a round of consultations with women in South Australia. The consultation, which occurred between June and September 2010, was timed to provide information about women’s concerns and needs as part of the broader community consultations conducted for the Update of South Australia’s Strategic Plan.

This report contains information about our workplan for 2011-2012 and a summary of what we heard during the consultation. We have arranged this report in two parts:

  • Part One describes the Premier’s Council for Women workplan for 2011-2012;
  • Part Two describes the 2010 consultation process and gives a summary of the main issues that emerged from the consultation.

Part One:

Drawing on the information we heard during the consultation sessions, building on our previous work and taking into account the opportunities for us tomake an impact, we have developed a workplan for 2011-2012. The areas on which we will focus for the next two years are:

  • Women’s health and wellbeing;
  • Violence against women and safety;
  • Women’s employment and economic status, including training, workplace conditions, flexibility, work-life balance and child-care;
  • Women’s leadership in all sectors; and
  • Women and disabilities.

It was clear from the consultation that issues related to health, safety and economic status continue to be some of the highest priorities for South Australian women so we will continue with these areas from our previous workplan. Following this round of consultation, we have decided to include improving the representation of women in leadership positions as an additional focus area. We also heardabout the many complex issues facing women with disabilities and women as carers of people with disabilities so we will be turning our attention to women and disabilities for the next two years.

Part Two:

In Part Twowe describe why and how we conducted the consultation sessions. We thensummarise the issues we heard most frequently across all of the sessions. These views came from the women who attended the consultation sessions and do not necessarily reflect those of the Premier’s Council for Women nor the South Australian Government.

Part One: Premier's Council for Women Workplan 2011-2012

The Premier’s Council for Women, established in 2002, has been given certain roles and responsibilities and we have developed our workplan with these in mind. As an advisory body, we do not and cannot provide services or develop policies. Therefore, we have considered the actions that weare capable of taking within our terms of reference and resources. We can:

  • Advise the Premier and Ministerfor the Status of Women on women's issues;
  • Advocate on behalf of women;
  • Monitor how policies and programs impact on women's lives;
  • Partner withother bodies on specific initiatives; and
  • Use other means to exert influence, such as providing relevant, strategic information about the impact of gender, particularly to the South Australian government.

We have also developed our workplan with the aim of reducing inequalities not only between women and men but also between different categories of women. We value and respect the cultural diversity of South Australia and acknowledge that there are elements that produce differences between women and girls, such as age, ethnicity, income, education, location, ability, language and culture. We also recognise that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women, men and children continue to experience high levels of disadvantage. In the next two years, we will continue to advocate for consideration of the specific issues faced by women and girls from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander backgrounds and from culturally and linguistic diverse backgrounds across all our focus areas.

Following the consultations, we discussed the issues women had raisedover several of our monthly meetings. There was a lot of material to consider. We also considered the current environment in South Australia and other issues that are receiving public attention, such as ageing and disabilities. The aim of our discussions was to group and prioritize the issues we had heard about and brainstorm strategies we could undertake over the next two years.

Once we had grouped similar issues together and considered the areas where we could make a difference, we decided to focus on:

  • Women’s health and wellbeing;
  • Violence against women and safety;
  • Women’s employment and economic status, including training, workplace conditions, flexibility, work-life balance and child-care;
  • Women’s leadership in all sectors; and
  • Women and disabilities.

The first three focus areas are similar to the areas that the Council has focused on for the last three years, demonstrating that some of the issues most important to women have not changed since 2007. We have decided to include a concern about improving the representation of women in leadership positions in all sectors since women mentioned it frequently and leadership is closely related to our other focus areas. We also heard of the many complex issues facing women with disabilities and women as carers of people with disabilities, a subject that currently is attracting attention, so we are adding this to our list of areas of focus for the next two years.

We then decided on key strategies for each focus area. Below we describe the strategies for each of our focus areas. As opportunities arise, we will supplement these strategies with specific actions. Our first strategy across several focus areas is to invite speakers togive us briefings to inform us on current developments in speakers' areas of expertise.This will ensure we can lend support to successful existing initiatives and bring attention to less supported target areas.

We will review our workplan every six months at our regular meetings to assess our impact, celebrate achievements and develop additional actions as appropriate.

A. Women's Health and Well-Being

Mental health and its links to all aspects of women's well-being was a common topic in the consultation sessions. Therefore we will be speaking with experts in mental health in the next few months about women’s mental health and what is happening in South Australia.

We will continue to monitor the development and implementation of South Australia's Women's Health Action Plan. We also plan to speak to key officials in the Department for Health to continue to advocate for a gendered approach to policy development and service delivery in health.

B. Violence against Women and Safety

There have been many changes in South Australia over the last few years in both the legislationregarding violence against women and the structures to support women surviving domestic violence. We will monitor the implementation of these changes and their impact on women. We will also speak to experts in this field when needed.

C. Women's Employment and Economic Status

Employment and associated issues, including training, workplace conditions, flexibility, work-life balance and child-care, were mentioned frequently at all the consultation sessions. Over the next two years, we will raise awareness and monitor progress on the inequities that women face in employment. We will continue to engage with government agencies on this issue.

The fact that there continues to be a gap between women's and men’s average wages was a major concern to women we spoke to. We heard of the flow-on effects of gender pay inequity, such as women having less superannuation than men and more women than men living in poverty in old age. We will raise awareness about this issue and monitor progress over the next two years. We will also watch with keen interest when the findings of the national pay equity case currently being run by the Australian Services Unionare presented.

We also heard women say that there continue to be particular occupations and employment sectors where there is unequal representation of men and women. Over the next two years, we will raise awareness about this issue. The Office for Women, the Department of Educationand Children’s Services and the Department for Further Education, Employment, Science and Technology have recently commenced a project to increase the number of women in traditionally male jobs. We will monitor this project and other government actions to reduce the gender barriers in employment.

D. Leadership

The importance of women in leadership roles was frequently mentioned during the consultation sessions. The Council supports efforts to increase the numbers of women in leadership positions across all sectors, including government, business and community organisations. South Australia’s Strategic Plan includes targets to address this issue and the Council will continue to actively monitored these targets.

A lot of good workis underway in Australia to increase women’s confidence and leadership skills and we will be supporting these initiatives by partnering with other organisations and publicising mentoring and leadership opportunities in South Australia.

E. Women And Disabilities

We have given more weight to the topic area of disabilities than it received in our consultation because of the recent important work undertaken by the Social Inclusion Board and an anticipated government response.We will investigate ways of working with the Social Inclusion Board to improve the lives of women living with disabilities and women caring for people with disabilities. We will advocate for a gendered approach to policy development and service delivery in the disability sector. After our conversations with experts, we will further develop our action plan forthis area.

Part Two: Premier’s Council for Women Consultation

A. Consultation Process

History

The Premier's Council for Women believes that it should provide opportunities on a regular basis for the women of South Australia to express their views and raise issues of concern to them. We last held public consultations in 2007, when we consulted more than 220 women in Adelaide and Mount Gambier. From the information received during theseconsultation sessions, we decided to pursue in 2008-2010 issues related to two main areas: women’s economic status and employment; and women’s health, safety and wellbeing. Over the last three years, we have aligned many of our activities in these two areas with South Australia’s Strategic Plan.

South Australia’s Strategic Plan

South Australia’s Strategic Plan was launched in March 2004. The plan reflects South Australia's values and priorities and aims to make the state a better place. In 2006, South Australians from across the state were invited to ‘have their say’, leading to an updated version. The plan was revisited again in 2010. The Community Engagement Board was responsible for overseeing the community’s involvement in the update; the Board listened to South Australians through face-to-face consultation sessions,written submissions and online tools such as blogs and surveys.

The Premier’s Council for Women welcomed the opportunity to contribute to the 2010 South Australian Strategic Plan Update. The Co-Chairs of the Premier's Council for Women are members of the Community Engagement Board,which allowed us to take a direct role in the Community Engagement Board’s extensive consultation process. The Co-Chairs also participated in several of the Community Engagement Board consultation sessions in Adelaide and in regional areas.

To give us up-to-date information about women’s priorities, aspirations and concerns, we decided to conduct our own consultationsessions specifically for SouthAustralian women as part of this process. This information assisted us in preparing our submissionto the Community Engagement Board and in planning our program of activity for the next two years.

Format of 2010 Consultation Sessions

We commenced our consultation process in June and completed it in September 2010. The sessions were run in regional and metropolitan areas and were a mixture of general and targeted sessions. They were advertised through the press, through our networks and online. Submissions were also sought from the community via email, post and telephone.

The consultation attracted a diverse range of women who generously contributed a wide variety of issues and strategies for the future of women and families in South Australia. Weconsulted with a total of 251 women at 10 sessions across South Australia. We also received 16 written submissions. The following sessions were held:

  • Naracoorte/Mount Gambier (General)
  • Adelaide Metro (General)
  • Salisbury (General)
  • Noarlunga (General)
  • Adelaide Metropolitan (Older women)
  • Tailem Bend (General/Aboriginal women)
  • Port Augusta (General/Aboriginal women)
  • Adelaide Metropolitan(Aboriginal women)
  • Adelaide Metropolitan (Women from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds)
  • Adelaide Metropolitan (Young women)

At each three to four hour session, we posed two key questions. First, we asked participants to project forward five to ten years and think about what would be the issues affecting women. We then asked participants to consider what needs to be done to tackle these issues and to change things for the better. These questions were discussed in small groups who then shared their discussion with the larger group of all participants. We took detailed notes at each session as well as collected notes that participants wished to give us.

Actions after Sessions

We developed a list of the broad topics mentioned in consultation sessions, which was used in preparing reports for each session. We then sent participants a copy of the report relating to the session they attended. Each report used the same list of topics but included the particular issues raised at that session. Pages 8 – 13 of this report describe the major issues women raised most frequently during the consultation sessions. Participants were also asked if they wished to provide their contact details to the Community Engagement Board’s online database and contact details were forwarded if the participants agreed.

The Premier’s Council for Womenmade a formal submission to the Community Engagement Board in October 2010. In the submission, weargued for the importance of recognising that men and women may have different issues and concerns and that South Australia’s Strategic Plan needs to take into account genderdifferences. The submission summarised the priority issues impacting South Australian women as raised during the consultationand, where appropriate, relatedthese issues directly to the six objectives in South Australia’s Strategic Plan.

We then considered how to use the information received in the consultation to develop our own workplan for the next two years, which we describe in Part One of this report.

B. Summary of Issues Mentioned in the Consultation

A very wide range of topics and concerns were raised in the course of the consultation. We have highlighted those issues that were most frequently raised and seemed the most important. As women are, of course, a diverse group with many different experiences and viewpoints, the summary does not cover every issue that was raised during the consultation. Some issues that have not been included here maybe pursued as the opportunity arises.

The issues are grouped under broad topic area headings andare arranged below in alphabetical order. A clear message from the consultation was that no issueexists in isolation, that theissues women face are interconnected and require a holistic response. Therefore, we encourage you to make links between topics and to recognise that issues have different impacts on different groups of women and communities, for example, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women, women with disabilities, young and older women, women living in different regional areas, and women from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds.

The views in this section come from the women attending the consultation sessions and do not necessarily reflect those of the Premier’s Council for Women nor the South Australian Government.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Women’s Wellbeing

  • Continuing problems for Aboriginal women (and men) due to lack of cultural recognition, historical discrimination and racism
  • Exclusion of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women from engagement and consultation.
  • Difficulties for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women to access quality health and other community services, particularly in non-metropolitan locations.
  • Lack of pathways for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women to access employment and training services.
  • The importance of having Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in service sector jobs.
  • The need to acknowledge the key role played by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander mediators and counsellors in their own communities.
  • Inadequate access to age-related payments, like superannuation, for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people due to shorter life expectancy.

Other Issues