Time to fight again, says Susan Ryan.

Universities in 2005

Are we opening doors for women, or slamming them shut, asks Susan Ryan.

Just a few weeks ago, along with quite a few of you here today, and many other survivors of 1975, I attended an event in Canberra. It was held, nostalgically, in the old Parliament House, in the House of Representatives chamber.

The occasion was a double commemoration. We were marking 60 years since the Curtin government appointed Jesse Street to represent Australia at the conference held in San Francisco in 1945 to found the United Nations. We were also marking thirty years since Australia took part in the first ever United Nations International Women's Year, and took a leading role at the first UN conference for women, held in Mexico City in 1975.

These events, 1945 and 1975 were both extraordinarily important for Australia and for Australians, especially Australian women.

Sixty years ago, at the end of the Second World War, the Australian government was committed to active participation in a co-operative world body. Our leaders at the time saw such a forum of the nations of the world as the best, the most effective way in which the world could pursue peace, development and human rights.

In 1975 Prime Minister Gough Whitlam and his government funded a national program for International Women's Year, sent an official delegation to the world conference in Mexico, and supported the attendance of several community women at the Tribune, a women's meeting for NGO's that was held along side of the official UN meeting.

The memorial event in Canberra a few weeks ago was more than just a happy reunion of 70s feminists, though it we did have a wonderful time getting together again.

In commemorating Australia's active involvement, first in establishing the United Nations in 1945, and then in the UN's program for International Women's Year 1975, we were giving ourselves and our community a powerful reminder of the constructive role Australia and Australian governments once played in international forums.In both cases Australia was at the fore front of human rights and women's rights.

What a sad contrast with today's official position.

In 1975 at the world forum in Mexico, Australia seemed to be a leader in the great social revolution leading to equality for women. Australian feminists inspired women from all round the world, because of our apparent success in finding ways to change many of the circumstances that oppressed women, and persuading government to take effective legislative and policy action to advance opportunities for women.

Thirty years ago, in Australia and in the UN's official programs, the pursuit of equality for women was accepted as an essential element of the world's efforts to improve the conditions of all humanity.

In 1975 the UN conference themes stated three objectives, Peace, Development and Equality. For the first time, the world's most important forum recognised equality of the sexes as one of its three objectives.

This historic recognition of women echoed Australia's involvement in the world forum in San Francisco in 1945.

At the end of the Second World War, it seemed almost impossible, considering the horrors that conflict had inflicted on Europe, and close to home here in the Pacific, that the world community could find the optimism to try again. After all the evil and catastrophic events, how would they find the energy and belief in humanity to establish a forum where problems and conflicts would be resolved by cooperation and development, instead of violence and war? But it happened and Australia was a part of it. Jesse Street was a part of it.

In 1945 the world's leaders, despite all the physical, social and moral destruction of the preceding few years, set about establishing the United Nations. The Australian government at the time, the Curtin government, sent a delegation to San Francisco to be part of this idealistic plan.

Jesse Street was the only woman on the Australian delegation. Just as well for all of us that she was there. Partly as a result of her fearless and resolute feminism, when the UN was formed it established a Human Rights Commission and the Commission on the Status of Women. Later Prime Minister Chifley appointed Jesse Street to membership of the Status of Women Commission.

In 1945 Jesse Street was not only an Australian leader but a world leader in progress for women.

In 1975, the Australian delegation to Mexico, headed by Elizabeth Reid and Margaret Whitlam, included a number of feminists and we represented the dynamic, effective and ever-growing (it seemed) Australian women's movement. Much of the energy and lobbying of women in 1975 led to significant legal and policy reforms for women in the following years.

It was another defining period for Australia. Sixty years later, commemorations aside, where does Australia stand?

Last week Prime Minister Howard went to New York take part in a meeting at the UN of 170 world leaders. The main topic for this year's General Assembly of the UN, far from the idealistic days of 1945 and 1975 was whether the UN could even continue to exist, and how its bureaucracy might be reformed. Little or no progress was made on questions of world poverty and human rights, no progress at all on non proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

Far from being at the forefront of progress, Australia now seems to adopt a minimalist position. Indeed, in recent years Australia has been found by UN committees to be in breach of a number of human rights, especially indigenous rights. In sad contrast to the enlightened and energetic leadership of 1945 and 1975, Prime Minister Howard's attitude to the UN was described by Tony Walker in the Australian Financial Review on 14 September 2005 as 'lukewarm at best".

At the same time as this weak international stance is revealed, at home the government has announced a series of new laws allowing police and intelligence agencies unprecedented powers of search, arrest and detention of citizens, without any corresponding strengthening of human rights protections against the possible abuse of these extraordinary new powers.

In contemplating these unwelcome and alarming changes, perhaps we should ask ourselves what would Jesse Street have done? I think the answer is that she would have pointed to the UN conventions on human rights, signed by successive Australian governments, and demanded to know why our laws did not protect our rights, as required by those conventions.

If you agree that that would have been Jesse's approach, and want it to be yours, you may like to support our forthcoming campaign for a Human Rights Act for Australia.

More than ever before, Australians need a law that safeguards their rights, especially against abuse by these new powers of arresting and detaining citizens on mere suspicion of dangerous activity.

If world terrorism requires unprecedented powers to investigate and hold individuals, then we need more than ever, legislated protections of our rights, and legislated powers of scrutiny of the use of such powers.

A group of us committed to protecting Human Rights and implementing the UN conventions that safeguard these rights, have prepared such a bill.

On 5 October, 6.30 pm in the Sydney Town hall, we will launch this bill for discussion and consideration by the community. After extensive community debate, we will take it to parliament and press for its introduction.

Please consider yourself invited to the launch of this campaign on 5 October. If you want to find out more about it, go to the New Matilda website, new matilda.com, or pick up one of the postcards at the table.

Well my advertised topic for you today was universities and women. I have not really been off the track in my comments so far because this topic is closely connected with global issues surrounding opportunities for women and human rights.

It was at the famous Mexico conference in 1975 that I first came across the research that showed this:

in any country, in any society, the main measure of advancement, the measure that correlates most strongly with economic and social well being of that country, is ... the level of education of women.

I was deeply struck by this finding, and affected by it ever since, particularly in the years I served as Commonwealth Education Minister.

When governments are trying to work out the best way to create opportunities for citizens, the most effective way to overcome discrimination and disadvantage, and even the best way to grow the economy, the answer is always the provision of high quality, accessible education. This includes access to university.

I would state baldly here today that there is no more effective way in which government can spend taxpayers money than to fund high quality education at all levels, available on the basis of merit, not the capacity to pay. Individual opportunities, economic growth, and society's wellbeing can be transformed by this kind of public funding, of schools and of universities.

Think of Australia's experience over the last couple of generations. When I left school in 1959, most girls, no matter how clever or motivated, were denied the opportunity to finish high school. Only a tiny percentage got to university. Women could get only low level jobs, in offices, shops and factories. A few were able to get in to the approved professions of teaching and nursing. That was about it. The whole society, the economy, families and the community were denied the benefits that the higher education of women could bring.

As a part of opening up Australia, Prime Minster Gough Whitlam, in the mid seventies, abolished university tuition fees. Following this decision many thousands of women were able to get university qualifications. They were thus qualified for senior jobs in all sectors and professions, where you see them today.

Within universities, which had been almost male only bastions, we started to see female researchers, professors, deans and vice chancellors. For a couple of decades it seemed Australia was well down the track of developing the talents of all its citizens, including women. The flow on to the economy was huge.

It is heartening to look at current statistics showing that over 55 per cent of students in higher education are women, so a kind of equality has been achieved here, mainly resulting from past years of public investment in education.

When I was an undergraduate at Sydney University in the early sixties, there was hardly a female academic to be seen. Latest stats show that now, 46 per cent of academics are female. While this is a huge improvement, before we get too excited I should point out that most of those women are in junior positions. The percentage of women above senior lecturer level is 9.8 per cent (ABS, Year Book, Australia 2003).

There has been progress. But right now, it is important to realise that a lot of that progress is under threat. The imposition of tuition fees, first through HECS, and now more and more though full fees, amounting to over $100.000 for some degrees, has started to turn back the clock, for all except rich students, and especially for women.

When HECS first came in, in 1989, it amounted to a modest debt to be repaid by students when they were earning a reasonable wage. But in recent years, as government support for universities has been cut, budget after budget, HECS charges have increased. Currently students owe well over $10 billion in HECS debt. While they don't have to start paying it until they earn over $36,000 per year, imagine the situation of a young woman supporting children on her own, having to pay childcare, and then pay rent and live, and make HECS debt repayments out of $36.000 per year. She may find she is better to stay out of work, or stick to very low paid jobs. Seeing that outcome, some young women may decide that a university education is too big a debt to take on, and give up that life changing opportunity. So as a society we start moving backwards.

Why do I say that these changes affect women even more than men? Women still earn less than men, and have a harder time advancing in their careers. They spend more time out of the paid workforce on family duties. For these reasons the ever increasing HECS debt is more of a problem for them. They earn less, so repayment is harder. For some periods they earn nothing at all, but still have the HECS debt hanging over them.

The other disincentive for female students and young female academics comes down to the old question, who is going to look after the children?

Again, for a while we saw good progress in the public funding of childcare centres, including the development of subsidised campus childcare. But in the current user pays culture childcare grows more expensive each year. Community centres are replaced by childcare businesses, listed on the stock exchange, operating for profit, and charging so much that students and young academics simply can't afford them.

The soon to be legislated Voluntary Student Union measures will mean amongst other things, the withdrawal of collective student union funds from campus childcare. Affordable childcare is an essential element of female access to university, for students, for post grads and researchers and young female academics trying to get a foothold on the academic ladder. Even with affordable childcare, young women struggle to carry out their teaching and research, and perform the myriad of extra tasks demanded of all academics in the present under funded situation. If affordable childcare disappears, so will the career opportunities of many brilliant young women.

A little while ago, the Howard government spent $15 million on fridge magnets, distributed to all Australian households. Remember: "be alert but not alarmed"? The magnets were, it seems, meant to help us come to terms with the apparent increase in the dangers of terrorism in Australia. I don't think the fridge magnets made a lot of difference. But if we had to have fridge magnets, I can think of better messages for them.

Instead of terrorism, they could have warned us of the dangers of starving our universities of public funds. "Be alarmed, our universities are slamming the doors" they could have read. Starved of public funds, forced to raise fees and cut childcare, our universities are being forced to slam the door on more and more students, and sadly, many of those are women.

Thinking of Jesse Street's great life of activism, we need to take inspiration from her and actively oppose the slamming of these doors.

Education is the most important vehicle for equal opportunity for women. This is as true now as it was in 1975. It is time to fight for it again.

Also on the Evatt site:

• So much for all that, by Meg Smith
• Where have all the women gone? The end of equality, by Anne Summers
• The work/life collision, by Barbara Pocock

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