Nin Hao, than chao chi and Good evening.

In the early 1800’s my great great great great Grandmother Isabella McPhee, a draper, migrated from Scotland to Australia. She, like many of the migrants that have arrived since, from around the world came with members of her family to start a better life.

Isabella’s McPhees have gone on to contribute to Australian society as doctors, lawyers, teachers, soldiers, architects, small business owners and mothers, to name just a few.

Thanks to the great Australian migrant tradition, with nearly one third of the population born overseas, we now have a strong fabric of society. You could say that the Scottish tartan an ancient fabric perhaps aptly represents the diversity of our society with its varied colours. Together the many colours of our people in Australia now form the warp and weft of our own fabric which communicates our multicultural identity.

I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate Fair Wear and the Federal Government’s Office for Women, for holding this dinner to recognise migrant outworkers in the textile, clothing and footwear industry and the issues they face.

The Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Agency works with over 3,000 businesses to help them provide supportive, flexible and fair work places for women. This is with the aim of enabling all women in the workplace, including career women, apprentices straight from school, Indigenous women, migrant women, women working from home, women managing work and a family, mature women returning to the workforce and women not quite ready to retire, to achieve their greatest potential.

For many migrant women the challenges of a new country and a new language means that employment can be difficult to find, particularly finding a job which enables them to be close to home. Like most women they take primary responsibility for the care of the family and extended families and this brings with it special needs.

I would like to recognise the organisation Asian Women at Work, which is focused on helping outworkers get education and training which will expand their employment opportunities.

As head of the Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Agency, I, like my Federal colleagues here this evening Pru Goward, the Sex Discrimination Commissioner, and Kerry Flanagan, see daily that women face discrimination and disadvantage. For migrant women however this can be magnified, due to the often vulnerable position they find themselves.

Taking in work for the textile, clothing and footwear manufacturers enables many migrant women to earn a wage and support their families. Working in their kitchens, a room, a garage or near the home, enables these women to be at home when their children come home from school, a priority for many.

Working from home is a flexibility that many women in the workforce seek, however unfortunately, given the nature of the industry, the many players involved in the supply chain and in some cases unscrupulous operators, working from home in the case of outworkers brings further disadvantage upon a group already vulnerable.

Many outworkers are left working very long hours, with little protection from payment defaults or workplace safety and all this for very few dollars.

The glossy pages of the fashion magazines read by millions of women in Australia every day don’t reveal this story. The photographs of expensive clothes project an image that if you purchase the latest dress in this season’s colour, hemline and neckline, you too can be care free, sexy and clear skinned as the model wearing them.

The care free and glamorous image in the glossy’s is very different to the reality of the women who may have stitched the clothes. At the very bottom of the supply chain, these women often don’t get their fair share.

Women’s consumer dollars go to the retail outlet, then the fashion house, then the supplier, the sub-contractor or middle man, before finally to the outworker. It leaves very little at the end of the day.

So from the glossy magazine, to the store, how is the Australian awoman to know whether what she is buying is a product of exploitation?

What to wear? It is a question many women ask every single day.

The answer is often hard enough, but for those women concerned about the exploitation of migrant women outworkers the question is even harder, because the answer is not easy to find.

Tonight I am particularly thankful that in my grandmother’s kitchen I and my three sisters spent many hours learning to sew. The dress I am wearing tonight was made by my eldest sister Donna on her own dining room table.

I am wearing it because when I woke up this morning I realised that while I knew I shopped at many of the retailers like Country Road, Events, Jigsaw and Target who have signed the Homeworkers Code of Practice, none of the clothes use the ‘no sweat shop’ label.

The Homeworkers Code of Practice, in short, upholds the standard conditions for a minimum wage, superannuation and workers compensation as set out by law. Signatories to the code undertake a series of checks right through to the bottom of their supply chain and are required to address any situation where exploitation may be occurring. Either by changing supplier or using their own buying power to enforce minimum standards.

Fair Wear does have on their website the complete list of companies which have signed the Code. You can log on and use your consumer power accordingly.

Unlike me, millions of Australian every day have the luxury of not having to ask the question what should I wear, instead donning a corporate uniform.

It is big business and Fair Wear’s Designer and Corporate Wear Strategy, funded by the Federal Government’s Office for Women, is aimed at building awareness amongst women and organisation’s to ensure that their corporate wear suppliers are accredited under the Homeworkers Code of Practice.

It is a particular pleasure this evening to have here with us an old friend of mine Camilla Done, from Ken Done Designs who are a signatory to Part 3 of the Code, the Sports and Corporate Wear Ethical Clothing Deed. Thank you to your family business for taking a leading position on ending the exploitation of outworkers in the Australian clothing industry.

It is encouraging to see so many women here this evening who are concerned about this issue and who can play a part in ensuring that the outworkers here this evening and the many others probably working over their sewing machines as we speak, can access employment without exploitation.

I encourage you to take home with you the Designer and Corporate Wear Strategy Kit that has been prepared by Fair Wear and is here for you this evening.

The kit clearly sets out different steps you can take to play a part in achieving the project’s goal to deliver higher rates of pay, and therefore economic security, to migrant women outworkers in the clothing industry.

The next time someone compliments you on what you are wearing you might say, Thank you I purchased it from a signatory to the Homeworkers Code of Practice.

Thank you.
 

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