You will recall that after the last election John Howard announced that the Office of the Status of Women (OSW) was to be downgraded and moved from the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet to the Department of Family and Community Services. Not only has this happened, but the name of the office has been changed, it has been shunted from its previous office in the Parliamentary Triangle to Tuggeranong on the outskirts of Canberra and, worst of all, its functions have been totally changed. The Office for Women, as it is now called, says “our work is founded on the goal of mainstreaming women’s issues”. You will remember the last time the government “mainstreamed” a women’s function was when it abolished the Women’s Bureau back in 1997. Since then, there has been total silence on women’s work issues from the Howard government: no reports, no stats and no action to prevent the ever increasing decline in women’s full-time participation rate. To see what passes for women’s policy under the federal government, go to the OFW web site.click here
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RIP OSW1 comment to RIP OSW |
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This is sad sad news. And yet it would seem many women are too busy, too tired, too overworked to have time to realise what’s happening and work on raising the issues. I recently wrote to Peter Dutton (as Minister) about child care being a reason women aren’t reentering the workforce and asked what he would do about that. His reply was pathetic – a list of all the govt had spent on child care in the past wiith no attempt to answer my questions on the future. And that’s it in a nutshell isn’t it – a govt focussed on the past, not the future. More fool us if we keep voting for them.