Media Release
March 7 2007
HREOC report confirms we can do better to support
Australian working families: expert says
University of South Australia
Professor Barbara Pocock says the report from the
Human Rights and Equal Opportunity
Commission, It’s About Time, released today, makes a welcome
contribution to the debate about work and family.
Director of the Centre for Work + Life, at UniSA’s Hawke Institute, Professor Pocock says the report highlights the fact that people from all across the community are feeling the pressures of balancing a demanding work environment with the caring responsibilities of family.
“A rich country like Australia, experiencing one of the longest economic boom periods in our history, can afford to do better in supporting workers and their families,” Professor Pocock says.
“We can afford to put in place policies that will see us catch up with the rest of the industrialised world – much of which already has extensive experience and success with measures like those suggested in this report.”
Professor Pocock says the HREOC report clearly shows that Australians from all walks of life and from all kinds of households are feeling the effects of jobs that ask more of them and their households, in an environment where there is not enough support for working carers.
“This report adds to the growing evidence that Australia is falling behind in the race to create a sustainable workforce,” she says.
“Working hours are too long for many and workplaces need to be more flexible.
“It also rightly draws attention to the role of men and fathers. Work life balance is not just a women’s issue – though on the ground in the main, it is still women who practically have to deal with it. We do know that many men want to have a life as well as a job, but their hours work against it.”
Australian workers need to be able to be both workers and carers over
their life-cycle. The report’s recommendations are very welcome and long
overdue, especially the proposals for:
• more support for employers to adapt;
• a new law protecting workers with families and carer responsibilities
from discrimination;
• more say for workers over working time;
• paid paternity and maternity leave;
• better early childhood education and care arrangements.
Contact for interview
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Professor Barbara Pocock office (08) 8302 4194 email barbara.pocock@unisa.edu.au
Media contact
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Michèle Nardelli office (08) 8302 0966 mobile 041 8823673
email michele.nardelli@unisa.edu.au