The impact of John Howard’s policies on working women

By Siobhan Callan

Over the past eight years, the Howard Government has been responsible for many policies that have been detrimental to working women.

One of the most telling of these has been a refusal to introduce a universal paid maternity leave scheme. This has meant that Australia continues to be one of only two OECD countries (including the United States) without such basic entitlements. Instead, Prime Minister John Howard offered Australian women a "Baby Bonus" and then "Baby Payment" which do not correspond with the realities of working families and the need for dual incomes in order to pay for the ordinary costs of living.

Working women need a guarantee of continued income while caring for a baby. This is especially necessary because of the increase of one parent (and thus one income) families in Australia. In refusing to support paid maternity leave for all women workers, John Howard made an incomprehensible statement, saying that such a scheme would not increase the fertility rate or guarantee job security for women.

Under the Howard Government, childcare costs and the lack of availability of childcare places has also had the effect of making it very difficult for Australian workers to balance work and family.

Since 1996, Australian Bureau of Statistics data shows that overall childcare costs to parents have risen 50 per cent, with a 30 per cent increase just in the past two years. The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare claims about 175,000 childcare places are needed across Australia. Yet the Howard Government took $850 million from childcare schemes between 1996 and 2000, and the Childcare Rebate was significantly cut from 30 percent to 20 percent. Obviously such a shortage and lack of funding for childcare means that working women, especially those on lower incomes, find it harder to engage in full-time work, or even have greater difficulty making arrangements for part-time work.

Changes to the tax system have also penalised families with two partners who both work. The establishment of "income splitting" has resulted in such families being financially disadvantaged in comparison to families where there is only one income earner. As Australian Education Union (South Australia) Women's Officer Dr Tahnya Doherty points out: "This is bringing us back to the time of a single breadwinner."

In addition to this, the Howard Government has established tax incentives (the Baby Bonus) which provide financial incentives for women to stay at home and out of the workforce for five years. There has been no additional funding, however, set aside to assist women in retraining or to prepare to re-enter the workforce.

The issues of lack of paid maternity leave, limited access to affordable childcare and unsympathetic tax policies have all combined to result in Australia having a very low participation rate of women in the workforce compared to other industrialised countries. Although, in principle, women have "equal pay" when compared with men in the same occupations, in actual fact average female wages are only 82.7 per cent of average male wages.

Women are also most likely to be workers in casual positions. Australian Education Union Federal Women's Officer Catherine Davis said: "Lack of security of employment ... should not come as a surprise to working women in John Howard's Australia, as the deregulation of the workforce has seen casualisation rise to 28 per cent of the workforce, and guess which gender is over-represented in this form of employment? Most jobs created in the '90s were part-time and casual."

The Howard Government has also been responsible for waging an attack on the "feminised" nature of the teaching profession (over 90 per cent of the teachers in public schools are women). The Howard Government contributes to the debate that connects falling boys' literacy rates with the absence of fathers and male role models in our schools, indirectly pushing blame onto our female teachers. It was back in the early 1970s that the process whereby male university students could enter teaching courses with a lower final year mark than their female counterparts was abolished.

The Howard Government is supporting proposed changes to anti discrimination legislation so that male teacher scholarships can be offered to men to address the "male teacher shortage".

The notion of such a scheme ignores important issues. It is important that our students have good teachers -- teachers that are enthusiastic and knowledgeable, skilled and patient (often in very trying circumstances). Students need teachers who cater for a variety of students with a variety of different learning styles (and such a variety exists amongst boys as well as amongst girls). What John Howard refuses to acknowledge is that being a good teacher is all about these things and not about the gender of the teachers. It is important that both males and females are teaching in our schools.

At a time when 25 per cent of our teachers are leaving in their first five years of teaching, even if a scholarship did attract them into the teaching profession, such a scheme would not be successful unless means are also put in place to retain teachers. What needs to be addressed are significant issues such as the status of public education and public sector teachers. The Howard Government certainly does nothing to improve the status of our teachers by making comments about a lack of public school values and by chronically under-funding public schools, TAFE and universities alike.

There are many other ways in which the Howard Government has failed to support Australian women. One of the most stunning examples was in 2003 when $7.5 million was taken away from the Partnership Against Domestic Violence Program. In addition a further $2.5 million was taken from the National Initiative to Combat Sexual Assault to pay for the controversial anti-terror fridge magnet. (Victims of domestic violence would surely have more urgent and immediate problems than the threat of terrorism!) At the same time a media campaign designed to help victims of domestic violence and highlight this issue in the community was originally delayed by the Howard Government because it was too "anti-male".

Working women, under the Howard Government, are not adequately supported. It can surely be argued that such a situation is a reflection of the Prime Minister's own views on the ideal family, which seems to be a 1950s male single breadwinner with a mother at home caring for partner and children.

In conclusion, Howard's conservative policies have not led to improvements in the lives and working conditions of Australian women workers. In fact, many of his Government's policies have been detrimental, for women workers and for women teachers.

Siobhan Callan is Women's Coordinator.

Award for sexism goes to John Howard

Federal election: our votes count

For further information

September 2004 contents