Advancing the Human Rights of Women & Girls
The Federal Court has discharged an injunction preventing national firm Piper Alderman from expelling partner Lexia Wilson, holding it was “not satisfied” the convening of such a meeting would be unlawful or in breach of her rights.
(Ed: so much for victimisation provisions . . .)
Source: Why Pipers can now move to expel partner suing for sex discrimination – Lawyers Weekly
The Federal Court of Australia has discharged an injunction preventing national firm Piper Alderman from convening a meeting to consider expelling Lexia Wilson from the partnership.
Speaking following the judgment, Ms Wilson’s counsel – Mills Oakley partner Malcolm Davis – told Lawyers Weekly that “Lexia has had an injunction from the Court for more than three months and today’s decision does not impact her ongoing complaints in the Australian Human Rights Commission or her intended claims against the partners for damages for breach of fiduciary duty, breach of contract and defamation.”
The news follows this morning’s report from Lawyers Weekly that international plaintiff firm Slater & Gordon is being sued for unfair dismissal in the Federal Court of Australia.
Earlier this week, it was reported that national firm Hicksons Lawyers would “vigorously” defend a human rights application, pertaining to sex, brought against it by a former partner, and a sex discrimination suit was brought against the principal of Parramatta-based firm Dehsabzi Lawyers.
New findings show that bullying and sexual harassment is “rife” in the Australian legal profession, with our rates “significantly higher than global averages”.
Source: Bullying, sexual harassment ‘significantly higher’ in Aus legal circles – Lawyers Weekly
“Don’t let anything defeat you.”
These were words of advice Her Excellency Governor of NSW Margaret Beazley AO QC shared earlier this month in an inspiring speech to an audience of students, parents and the broader Rosewood school community including principal Ms Elizabeth Stone & Governor Lucy Brogden.
Leading by example, with a distinguished legal career, including as the first woman to be appointed as the President of the NSW Court of Appeal, Her Excellency Margaret Beazley spoke eloquently and modestly.
Source: Margaret Beazley, NSW Governor: Don’t let anything defeat you:
If young girls can be what they see in the world, then prepare for a new generation of female scientists. The visibility of women in science today is increasing thanks to the work of, yes, female scientists who grew tired of watching “manels” (male-only panels) at conferences and seeing only male scientists
Source: Female scientists start a database to showcase their work. Over 9,000 women join them
The Child Support Agency was established in 1988 in the wake of Bob Hawke’s declaration that “no child shall live in poverty”. Initially the Australian Tax Office collected and enforced payments, before the scheme was handed over to the Department of Social Services and the Department of Human Services – which complainants can find themselves bouncing between.
Kay Cook, associate professor in the Department of Social Sciences at Swinburne University, says: “The tax office never wanted to deal with child support. It viewed its role as collecting income, not dispersing private income. That’s sort of the problem that child support has always had, that it’s private money being transferred, rather than public money.”
Cook’s research includes analysis of child support systems in Australia, New Zealand, the UK and the US. “In Australia we’re really cheeky in that single parents’ family tax benefits are typically calculated on how much child support they expect a parent to receive, not so much on how much they actually receive,” she says. “The government gets the savings of reducing family tax benefits so there is no incentive to the government to collect child support because if anything it costs them money.”
There’s also little or no will, she says, to solve the problem generally.
“It feels as though Australians are encouraged to look at me as somehow defective and deserving of suffering because I don’t have a male patron,” Amanda says. “And it’s at my former patron’s discretion as to whether or not me and his child are worthy of being supported.”
Source: Child support: ‘When we interview women, they cry and cry and cry’ | Australia news | The Guardian
Labor’s childcare policy would do more for the economy than either side’s proposed tax cuts.
Source: Why Labor’s childcare policy is the biggest economic news of the election campaign
It has long been suspected that female athletes are subjected to more vitriol on social media than their male counterparts – now a new study has confirmed It has long been suspected that female athletes are subjected to more vitriol on social media than their male counterparts – now a new study has confirmed it.
Source: Study finds female athletes cop brunt of online abuse | The New Daily
Women doing 72% of unpaid work has egregious outcomes that are totally gendered; Australian males lives ride on the exploitation of women’s work.
“Men won’t easily give up a system in which half the world’s population works for next to nothing,” New Zealand feminist economist and former politician Professor Marilyn Waring CNZM said.
“I’m not talking about repaying this time. It’s about the redistribution of government resources. It’s a productivity and choice issue. Why should women spend all their time in unpaid work on a road to poverty. The poorer I am, the longer it takes me to do the things I need to do.
“In 2017, Price Waterhouse Cooper research concluded women undertook 72 per cent of all unpaid work in Australia. The bulk of this unpaid work is childcare. It is Australia’s largest industry – three times the financial and insurance services industry, the largest industry in the formal economy. The rest of unpaid work combined is the second largest sector in the Australian economy.
“This has egregious outcomes that are totally gendered; childcare, superannuation, equal pay and pay equity, the right to leisure – Australian males lives ride on the exploitation of women’s work,” said Waring.
New figures show primary carers will gain little to overcome entrenched tax disadvantages in this year’s election
Source: Ninety per cent tax for a day’s work: The battle facing Aussie mums
