Jill Hall (Shortland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

by leave—In continuing my remarks on the Age Discrimination Amendment Bill 2006, I want to start by saying that, unfortunately, I feel that the member for McMillan has actually supported age discrimination. I am very disappointed in some of the statements that he made at the beginning of his contribution—statements directed to the shadow Attorney-General.

We on this side of the House appreciate the fine work done in most aged care facilities throughout the country. But that does not mean that we should ever accept any type or form of discrimination against older people—be it in the aged care sector, where people may not be treated with the dignity they deserve, or somewhere else—or against younger people, who can be bullied, as the shadow Attorney-General identified, and as many of us mentioned in the debate on the Age Discrimination Bill 2003. Those sorts of behaviours are unacceptable. Discrimination of any form is unacceptable. To put a lesser standard on age discrimination, which I believe the member for McMillan was doing, is unacceptable; discrimination should not be tolerated within our community.

When I made my contribution two years ago I emphasised the importance of not discriminating on the grounds of age. At the same time I highlighted the fact that age discrimination does exist within our community and within our society. The government’s action in introducing the Age Discrimination Bill at that time was very late because other states had had it in place for some time and other areas of antidiscrimination had previously been enacted. But the action of finally getting around to introducing that bill was very important. It sent out an important message to the community as a whole that you cannot discriminate against a person on any grounds. Any type of discrimination does not benefit our nation. It leads to loss of opportunity and creates division, negative feelings and actions and marginalisation of people who are discriminated against. There is no basis for discrimination of any form and particularly, as we are discussing now, age discrimination. Discrimination is based on negative stereotypes rather than facts.

I do not think there is any greater area where you can see those negative stereotypes at work than job applications. If you pan through the papers, you will see that certain age groups are more favourably valued by employers. I am sure most members of this House have had people visit them in their electorate office complaining about the fact that when they apply for a job they are either too old or too young. One of the problems with the original piece of legislation was the fact that age had to be the dominant reason. Nowhere is discrimination more obvious than in the area of employment. It can be argued, say: ‘We wanted a qualification in the area of accounting that was obtained within the last 12 months. We wanted somebody who had expertise and knowledge in a particular theory that had just been introduced. We wanted somebody who could perform some other task that was totally unrelated to the job.’

It is important to note here that in New South Wales there were more complaints related to age discrimination made to the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission than there were related to any other form of discrimination. More than 200 people phoned in complaints—I am using figures that are a couple of years old, taken in 1999-2000. Again, in the following year, there were many complaints in that area. People were ringing in and lodging complaints that they had been discriminated against because they had applied for jobs and been advised that they were too old for those positions. When the government is focusing on encouraging employers to employ older workers, when there is an active campaign to encourage employers to take on workers that are older, it seems to me that the fact that it needs to be a dominant reason works against that.

The other area that I would just like to touch on quickly is that I believe, particularly in the area of mature age employment, there is subtle discrimination against particularly blue-collar workers who are over 45. There seems to be a feeling—and once again it is subtle; it is a stereotype; the types of things that lead to discrimination—that if you are a blue-collar worker and you are over 45 then you are unemployable. These are the types of issues that need to be addressed.

I have no problems with the specific exemptions that will be enacted with this legislation. The government has taken two years to complete its audit, and it looks at issues like scholarships, competition prizes, superannuation, the service of documents—I do not think anyone could argue about the requirement that documents should be served on somebody that is reasonably believed to be over the age of 16—pensions, allowances and benefits. Once again, I think that these areas should be exempt, and many of the areas of exemption are actually forms of positive discrimination. Commonwealth employment programs is an area where the government can act to work against some of this stereotyping and age discrimination, and I would like to think that it may become a little more active in doing that. These areas are to be welcomed, to be embraced, as are areas like civil aviation. Also, under the maritime act it is illegal to employ someone that is not 16 years of age. Areas like passports, medical indemnity and private health insurance are all reasonable and should be embraced.

The message that I would like to leave today for the government is that it is very important that we have age discrimination legislation. It is great that we had the legislation introduced in 2003. The exemptions that are included in this legislation are more than acceptable, but I am still not happy with the fact that age discrimination can only be a dominant reason. I believe that is very easy to get around. I think that the government really needs to revisit the original piece of legislation, remove that requirement that it be the dominant reason and treat it in the same way that it treats every other piece of legislation that relates to discrimination.

It is no more acceptable to discriminate against a person on the grounds of age, be they young or old, than it is to discriminate against a person on racial grounds or because they have a disability. In a community where we have an ageing population, in a community where we should be valuing our older people and our younger people, I think it is imperative that ‘dominant reason’ be removed from the legislation. We should get the message out to the Australian community that discrimination on the grounds of age is totally unacceptable.

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