by Margaret Hartley, ACT Convenor, WlSENET
Senator Jocelyn Newman, the Minister Assisting the Prime Minister on the Status of Women, chaired the 5th Round Table Conference of Women's NGOs which 49 national women's organisations (including WISENET) attended on 12 June 1996 in Canberra. This was Senator Newman's first Round Table Conference since the Coalition Government came into office.
Senator Newman discussed her priorities, which included providing women with realistic choices about workforce participation, income security for women and security for women in retirement, increasing women's participation in Parliament and at all levels of government, increasing women's participation at all levels of the workforce and promoting a non-violent environment.
Whilst she was unable to provide details on the issue of funding for women's organisations until after the budget, Senator Newman did confirm a 6-month continuance of the OSW grants program. She then detailed future directions for consultative mechanisms, including a possible annual 2-day conference and a possible women parliamentarian advisory group to the Prime Minister.
Of concern was Senator Newman's position on the existence and funding for networking arrangements such as CAPOW, and a possible Women's Peak Body. She was of the view that if women's organisations found network structures, such as CAPOW, to be of value, then women's organisations should fund such networks. Such a view fails to appreciate the plight of small national organisations such as WISENET which receives no outside funding and relies on modest subscriptions and voluntary labour to operate. To date, CAPOW has provided an administrative support and open mechanism for women's organisations to work together co-operatively on issues of mutual concern with minimal cost.
The agenda covered a range of topics, including women and unpaid work, women and the Constitutional Convention, women's access to new technologies and the future of further education programs. However, a large part of the meeting was taken up with consideration of a paper from the National Council of Women of Australia (NCWA) on violence in the media. While supported in principle, the meeting felt that the narrow focus of the NCWA paper failed to provide a broader statement against violence and finally issued its own communiqué. The text was initially drafted by WISENET, Guides Australia, WILPF and NFAW and presented by Guides Australia.
The communiqué, later issued as a media statement, commended the Government on its initiatives against violence and its progressive stance on gun control. It expressed 'concern over portrayal of violence on the Internet and in recognising that violence is a complex issue which impacts strongly on the lives of women and children, urged the Government to work at all levels to ensure flexible and comprehensive solutions are implemented federally and expeditiously'.