Brian Mitchell (Lyons, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Goldstein for her fine speech. I'm proud to have the opportunity to speak on this bill, the Fair Work Amendment (Paid Family and Domestic Violence Leave) Bill 2022. And I'm proud to be a member of a government that cares about workers, about women and about the right of every worker to a safe home, community and workplace. The bill before us delivers on one of the key commitments Labor made at the federal election—to legislate for 10 days of paid family and domestic violence leave for full-time, part-time and casual employees. We will get straight to the job of fixing the failures of the previous government and delivering on the commitments we made during the 2022 federal election.

All workers in Australia have the right to be safe at work and safe at home. No worker should ever have to choose between their safety and their income. It is unacceptable that millions of workers in Australia still face this impossible choice. We know that family and domestic violence is ubiquitous and disproportionately affects women, who are more likely to be casual or part-time. We also know that leaving an abuser is the most dangerous time for a victim of domestic violence. Maintaining financial security is critical, as is providing adequate time for victims to deal with the many matters that need to be dealt with for them to take the steps to leave a situation of abuse. It's time-consuming and it's emotionally draining, and those matters need to be taken into consideration. In leaving abuse or violence, women incur significant time and financial costs, including finding a new place to live, seeking legal support, receiving medical treatment, and enrolling their children in a new school, for example.

The facts set out by the Fair Work Commission in its recent review are harrowing. Since the age of 15, approximately one in four women—as well as one in 13 men—have experienced at least one incidence of violence by an intimate partner. Indigenous women are 35 times as likely to be hospitalised due to family and domestic violence than non-Indigenous women. On average, one woman is killed by her current or former partner every 10

days in Australia. This is just an absolutely devastating state of affairs.

In Tasmania, calls to police regarding family violence have steadily increased each year since 2014. It's getting worse, not better. Currently, on average, police receive up to nine calls related to domestic violence every single day. Last month during state budget estimates, Tasmania Police advised that, as of 31 March, there had been 3,077 family violence incidents reported to police. Unfortunately, the prevalence of family and domestic violence has increased during the COVID-19 pandemic. The Commissioner for Children and Young People in Tasmania has reported that some perpetrators exploited the restrictions on movement and stay-at-home orders imposed during the early stages of the pandemic in Tasmania to intensify their family violence, especially through further isolating women from friends, family or colleagues—or, indeed, workmates. Indeed, a Queensland study showed 67 per cent of family and domestic violence services reported new clients seeking their help for the first time during the COVID-19 crisis.

As well as the personal and social cost of family and domestic violence, there is also a financial impact and a cost to business. Of people experiencing family and domestic violence, 68 per cent are in paid work. Women who are experiencing family and domestic violence earn 35 per cent less than those who are not. The impact of FDV costs employers up to $2 billion a year. This legislation before us today will help reduce these costs by reducing absenteeism, reducing turnover of employees and improving the understanding and management of family and domestic violence by employers. That shouldn't be understated. If managers and employers can learn more about the impacts of this on their employees and confront this as a workplace issue, I think that will help things and help them be more empathetic to the workers who are going through this.

Looking more broadly, KPMG estimates that the total cost to the Australian economy of violence against women and their children sits at around $22 billion a year. In his testimony to the Fair Work Commission on this matter, Dr Jim Stanford, Director of the Centre for Future Work, estimated the ultimate impact of 10 days paid family and domestic violence leave on total labour costs in the Australian economy. He found that the final impact of this provision on total labour costs was almost too small to measure, equivalent to an increase of labour costs of one-sixtieth of one per cent, not even enough to be visible in aggregate economic data. These costs are easily outweighed by the economic benefits of reducing the incidence of FDV, let alone the social benefits. So the economic costs are negligible, too small even to contemplate, but the benefits are manifest.

Our legislation extends the Fair Work Commission's recent preliminary view by introducing a right to 10 days paid leave for all eligible employees covered by the National Employment Standards, including rostered casuals. Leave is particularly necessary for casual employees, who are already dealing with the consequences of being in insecure work and are unable to access other paid leave. Excluding casuals altogether would leave 2.6 million employees—more than 20 per cent of all employees—without this protection and provide further incentive for employers to prefer casuals over permanent job holders.

The other key difference between our proposal and the commission's preliminary view is that payment for leave will be at the employee's full rate of pay as opposed to the bare rate minimum that applies under the NES for other paid leave entitlements. This departure is also critical to meet our policy objective of minimising, to the greatest extent possible, the damage and disruption to a person's life and economic security caused by family and domestic violence. We have also extended the definition of family and domestic violence to include conduct of a member of an employee's household, to recognise that Australians are living in more diverse and different arrangements.

The new entitlement will take effect on 1 February 2023 for businesses other than small business—fewer than 15 employees—and on 1 August 2023 for small business, in recognition that they have limited human resources and payroll capabilities.

I'll spend the last couple of minutes talking about the economics of this, but, to me, that's not the main game. The main game is the social and human impact of this change, which recognises that women in workplaces need this support. It's been too long in coming. It would have been great to have it come in sooner than it is, but at least we're making headway now. This also goes to the women's safety issues that the Labor Party articulated at the last election. We're going to establish a new Family, Domestic and Sexual Violence Commissioner. We're going to fund 500 new community sector workers. We're going to invest $77 million to help make sure all Australian school students are able to access high-quality, age-appropriate consent and respectful relationships education. We will work with the states and territories to strengthen and harmonise laws relating to sexual assault and consent. We will deliver a separate national plan for First Nations people, to end violence against women and family violence, because of those horrendous rates among Indigenous woman. We will support justice reinvestment in First Nations communities, with a $79 million investment to reduce incarceration rates, including early intervention to reduce family violence. We will deliver more safe and affordable housing, helping women and children fleeing violence. There is $1.6 million to be spent on building 4,000 new social housing properties specifically allocated to women and children fleeing domestic and family violence. And there is $100 million allocated for crisis and transitional housing options for women and children fleeing domestic and family violence, and for older women on low incomes who are at risk of homelessness.

Violence against women and their children is a crime and a fundamental breach of human rights. Every Australian deserves to live free from violence. The Albanese Labor government is providing the leadership and investment needed to help end family, domestic and sexual violence, and it starts with this bill. I commend the bill to the House.

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