Janelle Saffin (Page, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Sometimes we have to look back at some of the history—where we have been and where we are—to remind ourselves that we still have some work to do. If we do not, we can often take those things and those battles for granted. We all know the saying 'two-thirds of a man'. It comes from a book of that title by Edna Ryan. We have not got there yet but we are getting there—and we are getting there because of things like the Fair Work Act and the pay equity decision. Beyond the pay equity decision, there is the fact that we are putting money in. Some governments are anyway—I am not sure the one in New South Wales is going to.

When I think back on some of that history—the legal history mainly, because that is largely what I have been involved in—around women, I go back as far as the 'rule of thumb' that came from an ancient code. You know the one I mean: the one that said a man could beat his wife so long as the thickness of the rod did not surpass the thickness of his thumb. It was from the Code of Hammurabi. I am not here to give a history lesson on women's—

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