Senate Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Legislation Committee, , 2:05:43 to 2:22:10
Review of Australian financial contributions to UN Women and international gender equality programs.
Topics: Government spending, Human rights
Speakers: Malcolm Roberts, Hon Penny Wong, Jamie Isbister, Raff Ciccone, Unknown Speaker
>> thank you, Chair. And my questions go mainly to payments to international organizations. My first uh bracket of questions come largely from a constituent uh a leading therapist, female therapist, advocate for men's health with a masters in criminal psychology who's worked with my my staff. The Australian government through the department of foreign affairs is a major donor to the global UN women organization. Australia provides a significant significant contributions which appear to be about $31.2 million for 2022.
Uh, Senator Jamie Spitz, the deputy secretary of development more central Europe group. Um, yes, Australia has provided funding to UN women.
>> Thank you. UN Women, the group UN Women is often criticized for its public communications which reflect ideological bias against men and boys. Independent analysis by Dr. James Nuzo, a Perth men's health researcher, found that public communications by UN women to be quote inaccurate, biased, contradictory, unprofessional, overly emotional, and lacking in common decency and empathy for boys and men. End of quote. One example was a UN women treat tweet commenting on journalists killed in 2020, showing 11% were women. And that's sad, but the UN women tweeted, "Stop targeting women journalists." What steps, if any, has Australia taken to ensure that UN women's public communications do not systemic systematically exclude or marginalize
Um, Senator, what I'd say is UN Women is a an important organization not only in terms of what they do obviously in terms of advancing the issue of gender equality globally, but a lot of the programs that they deliver including in our region. um UN women uh is a partner we work with in funding small medium enterprise enterprises. Uh we know that empowering um women in providing um um economic opportunities for women is a key driver to prosperity. It's a a key driver to um broader community development and the flow on benefits that come to households including to education, health. Um, UN women also is a is an organization that's involved in responding in humanitarian crisis. We know that uh women are disproportionately impacted in global humanitarian crisis. uh they're 14 more 14 times more likely to be impacted um and targeted in conflict situations and ensuring that the protection of women, how we work with our humanitarian partners including UN women um has been a key driver to ensuring that we reduce and prevent um uh the disproportionate um attacks particularly in terms of uh sexual assault, gender-based violence where women are often targeted in in in those terrible conflict situations.
>> Thank you. Um you didn't answer my question because I asked what steps, if any, has Australia taken to ensure that UN women's public communications do not systematically exclude or marginalize boys and men. And I point out that we have three women with you and we have the the government leader of the government in the Senate and the uh president of Senate females. You've got wonderful talent around you. So,
>> Senator, and and and as you pointed out to me, you have a woman leading your party, but I think that is not the test. The test for is is to look at um what [clears throat] we can do in a world where we know uh that in too many parts of the world, women and girls do not have the opportunities that we have in Australia. uh and I can tell you there are many times that where our delegation uh is uh has more women than the delegation with whom we are meeting as we go around the world. Uh and the the the you know UN women's communications is a matter for them. I can tell you why we invest in UN women and in gender equality internationally. I'll just again go through some statistics. Women are more 14 times more likely to die in a natural disaster globally, four times more likely to be displaced. One in three women experience physical or sexual violence in their lifetime globally. In our region, that figure is closer to 2 in three. Uh the World Bank estimates that the economic cost of sexual and gender-based violence is 1.5 trillion a year globally and more than 380 million women and girls worldwide are living in extreme poverty. 2.4 billion women of working age do not have econ equal economic opportunities. 2.4 billion uh and 1 billion women remain excluded from formal financial services. So uh and the point I have made uh including to counterparts and to leaders is that gender equality in a uh uh aids development contributes to be stronger development outcomes. If you are if you are not fully harnessing or enabling the opportunities of half your population. uh if you have systemic um reasons why girls can't go to school uh or can't go into form further formal education or excluded from the workforce that affects everybody. So our position is and I know there's a you know I've I've I've heard your views on this in terms of Australia so let's just leave that aside for a moment but in terms of development I think it is a pretty strong argument that gender equality benefits development that is all peoples and so that is why we seek to try and uh ensure that when we provide assistance and it's not only through UN women but when we provide assistance um uh it seeks to try and improve some of those yeah statistics some of those outcomes that women and girls experience around the world.
>> Thank you, Minister. I agree with you and my mother taught me
>> both of us. Senator Roberts, >> sorry, >> probably bad for both of us. [laughter]
>> We've said that same thing in the past, Senator Wong. [snorts] Um my mother taught me that uh and showed me that women have superior qualities in many aspects and men have superior qualities in others and we need both. We need both. My question is not whether women deserve this funding, women deserve the treatment. Women deserve the communication. That's not it at all. My question is why and what steps have Australia taken to ensure that UN women's public communications do not systematically exclude or marginalize boys and men? When I was growing up in the in the 60s, men had it easier in many ways. Now the the the foot the boot is on the other foot. Um I'm not calling for any one to be superior to the other. I'm calling for equality and I want to know why the communications are systematically from UN women systematically exclude or marginalized boys and men. So let me continue with the next question.
>> Well, can I just respond? Sure. >> We we don't I mean we do provide funding to UN women. It is not the only funding we provide for gender equality. What we've set to do is integrate that into our development program. So you get outcomes that that that try and address some of the inequality that I've described uh because you get better development outcomes. And Mr. Espista >> uh or ML can probably speak more eloquently to that than I. But in terms of UN women, I can't I'm not I I don't vet their communications. But what I would say it would be unsurprising if they spoke more about women because that is their mandate.
>> Oh no, I agree that that's not surprising at all. What happens is we're systematically being excluded or marginalizing men and boys and our funding I believe should not go to that. But thank you for your answer. The United Nations proclaim proclaims quote leave no one behind as a principle and as a central promise of the sustainable development goals framework. Dr. Nezo analyzed 499 posts from UN women showing that approximately 94% referred only to women and girls, less than 1% referred only to boys and men, and just 1.6% referred to both sexes. That is a startling dichotomy. The UN the the vast majority of UN resources and effort go towards females even though boys routinely lag behind in education. Males make up the majority of homeless and victims of violent crime. While seven countries have a life expectancy gap of more than 10 years that favors women. How does the Australian government reconcile continued and this has come to us from a leading female. How does the Australian government reconcile continued funding with the UN's leave no one behind commitment and with Australia's obl obligations to non-discrimination?
Um Senator what I say I mean you and women when it was established its mandate was specifically to be looking at acknowledging from the UN from state parties uh across the globe that there was a need to put a particular focus on addressing um the economic the security um uh uh political um disadvantage that women faced globally. uh and that mandate is something that UN women has but UN women is one of many many UN agencies that we work with with other civil society and other organizations. Um I don't necessarily accept that the the uh the systemic exclusion of men is part of the UN women's mandate. I think there's a very strong acknowledgement that uh particularly in single female headed households the investment and support uh um an investment in opportunities for women flows through to broader family and community benefits including boys uh in terms of their participation in society their education opportunities that come and so I think you know the UN women yes it was established to particularly deal with an an element of the time but it's part of a much broader mandate that the United Nations has which is Australian government and many other governments contribute and fund to as part of the development programs. Um and our investment and work on this is driven by gender equality. the needs of of men and boys, of women and men. And uh our investments is when the government launched the uh the the the policy its new policy on on on gender equality uh was very much focused on addressing the issues that the foreign minister's raised uh about um the disadvantage and exclusion um the economic opportunities and prosperity that comes for a whole society when there's greater investment made uh and particularly in our region particularly in Melanesia particularly in in in the Indoacific where we know that the issues of sexual gender based violence, the impacts that has on households is higher than in many other
International Council for Men and Boys has identified and documented 12 significant areas where males suffer from disparities and disadvantages which apply around the world as well as here in Australia. UN women is the official international entity responsible for pursuing gender equality which you've just commented on which encompasses support for boys and men where they suffer from significant disparities in education, health, longevity, well-being. What steps, if any, has Australia taken to ensure that UN women's activities do not systematically exclude or marginalize boys and men, particularly where males experience worse outcomes in education, health, suicide, workplace deaths, and life expectancy. Have you done anything on
that? Um well I'd say that we are um obviously we engage uh regularly with UN women um not not just in in in New York but obviously in our region um collectively we um involve them and and consulted them and continue to outline what Australia's uh approach is on international gender equality and our expectations that all parties and all organizations that we fund are aligning and advancing those um and our polic policy. The government's policy is very clear about our focus on on equality for all and what that means about elevating
>> What evidence-based standards are applied to ensure Australian taxpayer funds are not used to disseminate misleading or deceptive claims such as the UN women campaign that focuses on online abuse where females are claimed to be the only victims. particularly when the messaging from UN women omits and contradicts large-scale survey evidence showing that men are equally or more likely to experience online harassment including findings from Australian parliamentary research, peer research and European surveys.
>> Well, s I wouldn't necessarily accept what you've um outlined on it. If we are given reports or evidence or issues uh that um make claims or there's evidence that doesn't comply with uh our policies or positions, we will absolutely uh consider them, investigate them and and engage in discussions with part parties. But I wouldn't necessarily say the way you've outlined articulated necessarily the message you women is is is how we've currently seen or had issues raised with us.
>> Okay. So that's what you're seeing, Minister. Um the fundamentals in this country are going to hell. People sleeping under bridges. We've got families in Queensland at least and I think elsewhere around the country going home to their kids in the car and sleeping in the car. Cost of living living is skyrocketing. Energy prices are trebling over the last few decades. Standard of living deteriorating. We're focused on this. >> It's not just labor. We've had decades of this focus that that is now entrenching a division between the
Senator, uh I think the government's focus is on the first priority is to keeping is is to keep Australians safe and secure. Uh and then uh it has been cost of living and so I I I disagree with your assertion. Uh I think the government has demonstrated um that it um uh has made uh dealing with cost of living, providing some cost of living um relief to families has been uh uh our priority. uh whether that has been uh through tax cuts uh the investment in Medicare, the investment in urgent care clinics uh and the investment in bulk billing to try to uh expand the number of bulk billing, bulk build consultations, uh important, you know, it's a health initiative. It's also a cost of living initiative. uh child care uh rent assistance the investment in housing these are all about uh seeking to address the problems some of the problems you identify so I I don't agree uh that that has not been a [clears throat] focus my our argument for development assistance and I appreciate one nation has a different view is that we live in a very difficult world and that our security is connected to the region in which we live and the world in which we live. And one of the ways in which we can contribute to stability because we know that development uh improves the stability of a of a country is to work with our neighbors to improve their development outcomes. You know that economic prosperity, economic opportunity uh is integral to stability. So that is
move the call along. Um, now I'm also just mindful we have an early lunch break given um the closing the gap statement in the House. So, uh, I hand the call to Senator Cash will take us to the break and then when we come back after lunch, um, I'll rotate the call to other senators. But Senator Cash, uh,