2024-10-04
By Larissa Waters
Senator for Queensland & Leader in the Senate
Yet another massive year in Parliament and in beautiful Queensland! It’s been a privilege to work alongside my Federal Greens team and especially four other Queenslanders.
With more Greens in Parliament than ever before, we’ve used our voices to raise the profile of important issues that the Labor Government would have liked to sweep under the carpet - including the genocide in Gaza - and worked with the expanded crossbench to push for important reforms.
Where is the funding to end violence against women and children?
Since my last report we have seen tens of thousands of people take to the streets to demand action from the government to stop women from being killed by violence. Already this year, at least 45 women have been killed by violence.
I had hoped that the Labor Government’s snap National Cabinet meeting in May would be a turning point, however the Government once again ignored the calls from frontline support services for adequate funding. Instead, the National Cabinet only announced an extension and slight expansion of the existing escaping violence payment - a program that has been plagued with delay and admin issues and no support for the frontline services the new program will refer to.
Unfortunately, the 24-25 federal Budget was also deeply underwhelming for women’s safety, and I am outraged to see that once again there was not a single cent of new money for frontline support services.
For the National Plan to End Violence Against Women and Children to succeed it needs to be properly funded. The women’s safety sector has said for a decade that they need $1 billion each year to be able to help everyone who reaches out, rather than having to turn people away back to violence. Labor has so far only committed less than two thirds of this amount.
The Greens have long supported calls for a clear set of actions and targets to end gender based violence, but funding remains a key issue, and more women will die without adequate funding for frontline services and prevention work.
Menopause inquiry
The Greens-initiated senate inquiry into perimenopause and menopause has sparked national conversations about the impact of menopause on women’s workforce participation, gaps in knowledge about this transition and what’s needed to make treatments more accessible and affordable.
The committee reports on 17 September and we will push the Government to make life easier for women in the health and work spaces.
Closing the gender pay gap
The release of employer-level gender pay gap data by the Workplace Gender Equality Agency was something the Greens have long called for and we were pleased to see the Government take our suggestion to require businesses to meet gender equality targets before receiving government grants.
Women are still paid a lot less than men, do more unpaid family work, and retire with a lot less superannuation. The Greens will keep pushing for reforms to the superannuation system including increasing the low income super tax offset and topping up super for carers to stop women retiring in poverty.
In good news, Labor finally got on board with the Greens’ policy to pay superannuation on paid parental leave - although, unfortunately this won’t be enacted until July 2025.
The Greens will continue to call for the duration and amount of PPL to be increased, and urge the government to review the options for a PPL payment rate that will incentivise parents to take their leave entitlements.
Setting the Standard
In August we welcomed the belated introduction of legislation to establish an Independent Parliamentary Standards Commission, which will hold parliamentarians to account for bad behaviour and enforce the Codes of Conduct.
Both houses of parliament have endorsed Codes of Conduct for behaviour, but without an independent body to investigate breaches, those Codes have been unenforceable.
The Greens pushed for stronger sanctions, including higher fines for MPs and more consequences for Ministers when there is an adverse finding. It shouldn’t be up to the Prime Minister to determine what happens to Ministers who misbehave.
It is time Parliament set the standard for other workplaces around the country instead of being a national shame. The progress towards establishing an Independent Parliamentary Standards Commission would not have happened without all the brave staff who have spoken out including Brittany Higgins, Dhanya Mani, Chelsey Potter, Rachelle Miller, Tessa Sullivan and Josie Coles.
Strengthening democracy
Political donations data published by the Australian Electoral Commission in February confirmed that while the government may have changed at the last election, donor influence and our dodgy donation laws remain the same.
Fossil fuel companies and their lobbyists are still donating to both big parties, and in return the Albanese government continues the bipartisan tradition of giving $10 billion of public money every year in fossil fuel subsidies, turbo charging climate destruction.
Big money from property developers, the banks, the big four consultants and grocery giants might explain why there is so little reform to help ordinary people with the cost of living crisis.
Labor made big promises about transparency and accountability at the last election. Over two years later we are yet to see any electoral reform legislation from this government.
Earlier this year, I joined with crossbench colleagues to introduce an electoral reform bill that would improve transparency, introduce truth in political advertising, reduce the influence of lobbyists, ban donations from fossil fuel companies, level the playing field and increase territory representation.
The Greens will continue our work to ensure the best outcomes for our democracy, and not a dodgy deal to shore up the flailing two party system.
Thank you
Thank you to all the staff and volunteers across the country for all the work that you’ve put in this year. Behind all of our MPs and Senators is an incredibly hard working team of staff, party members and volunteers. We couldn’t do it without you!!
- Larissa