Showing posts with label equality. Show all posts
Showing posts with label equality. Show all posts

Wednesday 12 October 2016

Turnbull Government fails at full marriage equality


Set out below are certain proposed clauses in the same-sex marriage amendments to the Commonwealth Marriage Act 1961, as previously amended by the Howard Coalition Government in 2004.

As can plainly be seen this bill does not seek to establish full marriage equality, in that it allows widespread discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender citizens seeking to legally marry in this country.

Should this bill eventually be submitted to the Australian Parliament, the Turnbull Coalition Government proposes the establishment of a Joint Select Committee to review and report on the Exposure Draft.

Excerpt from the Marriage Amendment (Same-Sex Marriage) Bill 201X (Exposure Draft) released by Attorney-General George Brandis on 10 October 2016:

"47 Ministers of religion may refuse to solemnise marriages
Refusing to solemnise a marriage despite this Part
(1) A minister of religion may refuse to solemnise a marriage despite  anything in this Part.
(2) In particular, nothing in this Part prevents a minister of religion from:
(a) making it a condition of solemnising a marriage that:
(i) notice of the intended marriage is given to the minister earlier than this Act requires; or
(ii) additional requirements to those provided by this Act are complied with; and
(b) refusing to solemnise the marriage if the condition is not observed.
Refusing to solemnise a marriage that is not the union of a man and a woman
(3) A minister of religion may refuse to solemnise a marriage despite any law (including this Part) if:
(a) the refusal is because the marriage is not the union of a man and a woman; and
(b) any of the following applies:
(i) the refusal conforms to the doctrines, tenets or beliefs of the religion of the minister’s religious body or religious organisation;
(ii) the refusal is necessary to avoid injury to the religious susceptibilities of adherents of that religion;
(iii) the minister’s conscientious or religious beliefs do not allow the minister to solemnise the marriage.
Grounds for refusal not limited by this section
(4) This section does not limit the grounds on which a minister of 16 religion may refuse to solemnise a marriage.
6 Before section 48
Insert:
47A Marriage celebrants may refuse to solemnise marriages
(1) A marriage celebrant (not being a minister of religion) may refuse to solemnise a marriage despite any law (including this Part) if:
(a) the refusal is because the marriage is not the union of a man and a woman; and
(b) the marriage celebrant’s conscientious or religious beliefs do not allow the marriage celebrant to solemnise the marriage.
Grounds for refusal not limited by this section
(2) This section does not limit the grounds on which a marriage celebrant (not being a minister of religion) may refuse to solemnise a marriage.
47B Religious bodies and organisations may refuse to make facilities available or provide goods or services
(1) A religious body or a religious organisation may, despite any law (including this Part), refuse to make a facility available, or to provide goods or services, for the purposes of the solemnisation of  a marriage, or for purposes reasonably incidental to the solemnisation of a marriage, if:
(a) the refusal is because the marriage is not the union of a man and a woman; and
(b) the refusal:
(i) conforms to the doctrines, tenets or beliefs of the religion of the religious body or religious organisation; or
(ii) is necessary to avoid injury to the religious susceptibilities of adherents of that religion.
(2) Subsection (1) applies to facilities made available, and goods and services provided, whether for payment or not.
(3) This section does not limit the grounds on which a religious body or a religious organisation may refuse to make a facility available, or to provide goods or services, for the purposes of the solemnisation of a marriage, or for purposes reasonably incidental to the solemnisation of a marriage."

It is noted that under this bill it appears as though discrimination may be practiced against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender citizens seeking to legally marry, as a matter of conscience alone. Therefore a minister of religion whose own peak religious governing body accepts same-sex marriage may still practice discrimination himself/herself and, a civil marriage celebrant does not have to hold religious beliefs in order to discriminate.

This appears to run counter to international human rights law which does not support discrimination based on a general exemption for conscience. As an example see Article 18 Clause 3 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights ratified by Australia on 13 August 1980.

It should be further noted that neither the amendment bill nor the Marriage Act itself appear to contain a legal definition of the term "religious organisation".

For the purposes of any newly amended marriage act, is a religious organisation a not-for-profit institution for the advancement and promotion of religious purposes, such as churches, convents, faith-based schools or bible colleges, or is it capable of a broader definition?

Will any bigot or homophobe be able to prominently display a religious icon in their place of business and thereby gain a right to deny goods and services to same-sex couples seeking to organise a wedding?

The road to parliamentary approval of the unfair Marriage Amendment (Same-Sex Marriage) Bill became a little more difficult to traverse yesterday......

ABC News, 11 October 2016:

A meeting at Parliament House this morning saw Labor MPs and senators vote unanimously to block the bill establishing the plebiscite.

"The experts have unequivocally explained to Labor that the plebiscite would cause harm to gay and lesbian people — particularly, but not exclusively, young people," Mr Shorten said.

"Having met these families, having listened to their stories, I could not in good conscience recommend to the Labor Party that we support the plebiscite about marriage equality.

"The Labor Party, therefore, will in Parliament oppose Malcolm Turnbull's expensive, divisive plebiscite."

The Greens and a number of balance-of-power Senate crossbenchers have also pledged to block the enabling legislation, meaning it will not pass Parliament.

The compulsory Australia-wide ballot on whether to allow same-sex couples to marry was set to happen in February next year.

The Opposition criticised the plebiscite for months and its decision today was widely expected.

Labor is expected to keep pressing for a free vote in Parliament on whether to legalise same-sex marriage.

But a number of senior Government ministers have made it clear that will not happen.

Note: The results of the proposed precuser national plebiscite will be non-binding on MPs and senators and a number of government members have stated that they will not vote for same-sex marriage under any circumstances.

Tuesday 10 September 2013

Equal pay is still a dream for most Australian women


The Sydney Morning Herald 3 September 2013:

The pay gap in favour of men has widened in two of Australia's most female-dominated industries.
The health care and social assistance sector has the biggest gender pay gap in the country even though women outnumber men by four to one. Full-time men in that sector are paid 32.3 per cent more on average than full-time women, up 1 percentage point in the past year. Two other sectors - finance and insurance and professional, scientific and technical services - also have an average pay gap in favour of men of more than 30 per cent.
In retail trade, where 56 per cent of the workers are women, the gender pay gap widened by 3.4 per cent in the past year, second to construction where the average gender pay discrepancy increased by 4.9 per cent.
The Workplace Gender Equality Agency says the gender pay gap across all sectors of the Australian economy stands at 17.5 per cent. That's 2.6 percentage points higher than it was in 2004 and one percentage point higher than it was in 1995. The average full-time woman now earns $266.20 less each week than the average full-time working man, an annual difference of $13,842.....
Average super payments for women ($63,412) are 42 per cent less than men's ($109,609), the ACTU report says.

Thursday 2 May 2013

Abbott and Hockey condemn National Disability Insurance Scheme to limbo if Coalition wins government


This was Australian Federal Opposition Shadow Treasurer Joe Hockey writing to concerned citizens in June 2013:

Federal Opposition Leader Tony Abbott at a press conference on 30 March 2013:


It would appear that neither of these Coalition politicians want to see the National Disability Insurance Scheme launch in 2013-14 or become fully realized by 2018, as planned by the Gillard Government, if they place so many pre-conditions on its implementation.

UPDATE 2 May 2013:

The Opposition Leader has still not given his unconditional support to the levy and continues to misrepresent known details of the National Disability Insurance Scheme.

UPDATE 3 May 2013:

Abbott & Co continue to lay the ground work to roll back NDIS funding if they gain government; 

deep misgivings within the Coalition about the potential for its cost to explode in the next decade.

Monday 15 April 2013

In 2013 Australian universities are still predominately the professional training ground of the middle and upper classes while government schools remain the main education providers. So which level of education is most in need of increased government funding?


Once the Gillard Government had announced funding measures to underpin its policy response to the Review of Funding for Schooling Final Report December 2011 (Gonski Report) there was an immediate and predictable outcry regarding the government’s intention to remove $2.3 billion from direct/indirect tertiary education funding commencing in 2014.

Leaving aside the obvious wealth of some of the older universities, is this outcry justified? Should Australian taxpayer dollars continue to be spent at record levels on higher education or should these be spent in a more immediately equitable manner with the eventual aim of increasing the education standard of the population?

Australian Society

According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics in 2009–10 twenty-three per cent of the Australian population lived in low income-low wealth households. With sixty-one per cent of female single parents and forty-nine per cent of single male parents living in low economic resource households.

The Universities

The Higher Education Base Funding Review Final Report (O c t o b e r  2 0 11) states that: In 2007, total government funding to the higher education sector was $8 billion, of which base funding was $6.4 billion. In 2011, total government funding had reached close to $12 billion, of which $8.5 billion is base funding. It is estimated that in 2013, total government funding will be $13.6 billion and total base funding will be $10 billion.
A further $500 million will come from the Education Investment Fund for the tertiary sector over the next five years, although it is not yet known what proportion of these funds will be allocated to universities.

According to the Department of Industry, Innovation, Research and Tertiary Education: From 2012 to 2015 the Gillard Government will invest $58.9 billion in higher education and that funding for university student places in 2013 was 10.1 per cent higher.

The majority of students enrolled at Australian universities still come from middle or high socio-economic status backgrounds.

The Australian Council for Education Research media release indicates that in 2013 an estimated 14.3 per cent to 18.5 per cent of domestic university undergraduates in Australian universities in 2013 come from a low socioeconomic background.

Primary and Secondary Schools

Between 2011 and 2012, the apparent retention rate for Indigenous males rose by 3.1 percentage points to 49.2%, and for Indigenous females rose by 1.6 percentage points to 52.9%. The apparent retention rates from Year 7/8 to Year 10 for these students were significantly higher at 96.9% for males and 100.0% for females.

Tuesday 2 April 2013

Women In Politics: Let's reach another milestone in the September 2013 Australian Federal Election



Australian Bureau of Statistics, Measures of Australia's Progress, 2010 

The proportion of federal parliamentarians who are women has risen markedly over the past 20 years. On 1 January 1986, one in twenty members of the House of Representatives were women (5%) rising to more than one in four (27%) by the beginning of 2008. Similarly, close to one in five senators were women in 1986 (18%) rising to more than one in three in 2010 (36%) (AEC 2009; Parliament of Australia 2010b).

In the federal government ministry, as at the end of June 2010, there were nine female ministers and parliamentary secretaries (representing 23% of ministers and parliamentary secretaries), including the Prime Minister The Hon Julia Gillard MP and a further three who were Cabinet members. Around 17% of shadow ministerial and parliamentary secretary positions were held by women (Parliament of Australia 2010b).  


When she announced her new ministry last Monday, Julia Gillard made history. For the first time, women make up one-third of the Australian government. Although the cabinet remains unchanged, the promotion of three women into the ministry has radically altered the gender balance of the government.
There are four women, including Gillard, in the 20-member cabinet which in itself is a record (and the numbers were even better before the resignation of Nicola Roxon as attorney-general this year).
But it is the outer ministry where the radical change has occurred. Gillard promoted three women: Sharon Bird, Catherine King and Jan McLucas. This means that six of the 10 members of the ministry are women. That's 60 per cent. That's unprecedented in Australia.

L–R: Penny Wong, Tanya Plibersek, Jenny Macklin, Julia Gillard, Kate Lundy, Kate Ellis, Julie Collins
Australian Prime Minister with some of the federal ministers