In news out of America that is deeply unsettling, an Alaskan man who committed sexual assault and kidnapping will not serve any jail time after taking a plea deal.

Justin Schneider was arrested in August of 2017 after offering a woman a ride home from a service station. Mr Schneider then stopped off his SUV on the side of the road where he then asked the victim to get out of the vehicle to assist him in moving some items. Once she approached the read of the SUV, Mr Schneider tackled his victim to the ground and then choked her until she passed out. She told the court that during this time, her attacker told her that he was going to kill her and that despite her best efforts she could not fight him off and soon lost consciousness.

Mr Schneider masturbated and then ejaculated on his victim, offering her a tissue when she regained consciousness to clean herself up which was later recovered by police as evidence.

A grand jury indicted Mr Schneider on four felony counts but prosecutors offered him a chance to plead guilty to just one count of second-degree felony assault. This earned him a meagre two year incarceration sentence with one year suspended. Superior Court Judge Michael Corey who heard this case however allowed him credit for time served in home detention, which he served living with his family and instead will only serve three years’ probation.

Not only will Mr Schneider not serve any time in prison, but he will not be made to register as a sex offender either.

Alaskan Assistant District Attorney, Andrew Grannik, told the court and the media that he actively pushed for this plea deal as he believed that Mr Schneider had an otherwise clean slate and that he was a great candidate for positive rehabilitation over a term of incarceration. He also said that Mr Schneider had only just plead guilty to assaulting a woman on the side of the road, but that he was a gentleman who was being given “a pass”.

Mr Schneider told the court that he was grateful for the plea deal which “allowed him to really work on himself and become a better person, and a better husband and a better father..” The judge, on accepting this plea deal, told Mr Schneider that “this can never happen again”.

At Fractured Ceilings, we are absolutely horrified and left completely stunned. In the 12 months that followed the “Me Too” movement where we gave credence to victims, where we finally listened and believed survivors of sexual assault, to have such a decision where the perpetrator of a heinous sexual assault was allowed a pass, to get on with his life without consequence while the life of his victim is forever destroyed, this is unacceptable.

We take some solace that there is a movement to have Judge Corey removed from the bench much like there was to unseat the judge that delivered the decision in the notorious Brock Turner case.

This is not reflective of what is happening with society, this is not what we have all worked hard for and marched for and protested for. We demand better and we will keep using our voices to ensure that this assault, this contemptable plea deal and weak sentencing remarks from both the judge and the prosecutor never happens again. We say, not on our watch.

We recently wrote a piece about retirement savings for women and the devastating effects that a lack of equity is having. Retired women are Australia’s fastest growing poverty class. Women are typically the ones who move in and out of employment and part time work so that they can be the carers for children and sometimes even elderly family members. But the truth is that we are seeing a long-term effect now where women who have sacrificed their careers to be the nurturers are finding themselves a statistic when they get divorced later in life and are left with nothing.

The statistics again are truly frightening.

·       On average, women retire with about half as much superannuation as men.

·       70% of all single retired women live on the pension.

·       40% of single retired women live below the poverty line.

The crisis has been looked at by senate enquiry, the Australian Human Rights Commission, Industry Super Funds and the Australian Tax Office. There is an absolute wealth of comprehensive reports that have been released over the last 10 years about this problem of women who “accumulate poverty”.

However, one of Australia’s major political parties has decided to put this issue front and centre of the next election campaign with an announcement this week.

The Australian Labor Party plans to boost the retirement savings of women whose working life has been disrupted by caring for family has left them with barely enough retirement savings to live off and a reliance on the pension to get by.

The idea behind this scheme is for a $400m injection in to women’s superannuation accounts and keep their contributions active when they are off work for paid parental leave. There is also a plan to introduce a lower threshold for their employers to begin making compulsory superannuation contributions in to their accounts.

The statement from Federal Opposition Leader Mr Bill Shorten said that if elected his government would “help women plan for a secure financial future” with this new scheme in place and that he “believed that no Australian should be penalised for taking time out of paid work to have children”.  The plan is for his government to ensure that recipients of “Commonwealth paid parental leave and dad and partner payments continue to receive super contributions”.

Australia is fortunate to have a solid foundation for retirement planning and savings in our superannuation system but there has been this unaddressed inequality for years. As a consequence of this, we are seeing an epidemic of women being left with nothing when they retire, especially if they are divorced.

We remain optimistic that if this plan is introduced and of course further built upon, we will have a dramatic reduction in the amount of our retired women who are forced to live in spartan conditions and rely on the pension supplement in order to just get by.

I was recently having a conversation with a dear friend about the #metoo movement and I was asking about her experiences to help me better understand the issues that we’ve hopefully begun to shine a better light on.

During our chat, she mentioned something which really stuck with me as I don’t know that as a male I have ever truly understood this concept, as I have never really had to. This being the unwelcome advance and the perils of just wanting to be left alone.

In the last 15 years where books like “The Game” have been released, and the rise of professional dating coaches to help men successfully lure a woman to a one-night stand have entered popular culture, we have a far more pervasive mindset where many seem to think a woman saying no is simply her playing ‘hard to get’ and that if they persevere, they will succeed.

In researching this article, I dutifully hopped on to google and started to search for results about women receiving unwelcome advances. The results pages were littered with articles from self-proclaimed dating coaches on how to get women to submit and how to persist until you get that all important physical contact. Google it – actually, don’t, the results are far too depressing.

We have heard the all too common stories of women saying men have “slid in to their DM’s” (‘Direct Messages’ for those like me who tend not to rely on social media messaging), or sent repeated requests via social media platforms (even LinkedIn of all places) where by simply being a woman (not  being single doesn’t appear to be a disqualifying factor), they have invited the attention of men who want to date them or enter in to a sexual relationship and that somehow they should just be grateful for the attention. If they are not, then they are the ones with something wrong with them, not the men who consistently pester them everywhere they turn.

Even the simple and mundane acts of buying a coffee before work, having a drink with colleagues on a Friday, or lining up to buy lunch can be seen by too many men as a challenge to get a woman’s number, take her home, or to any place of convenience to initiate a sexual encounter.

I’m no psychologist so I am unable to speak to any predispositions or hardwired hunter-gatherer-procreating alpha-male-in-chief instincts that may exist in the brain. What I will attempt to do here instead is simply tell the stories that are all too common, that women for the most part feel ashamed to tell because they take the blame on to themselves for being a victim. In this day and the age of #metoo, it seems like something that really shouldn’t exist anymore.

You really don’t have to look very far to find stories of women who have been on the receiving end of such an advance that went from unwelcomed to threatening very quickly. In fact, just ask any woman you know and I can guarantee you that every one of them will have such a story. It may be something seemingly innocuous to others, but women have spent their lives living with these conditions and so much so that it barely seems worth mentioning to most of them.

In Australia, we have had this issue brought to light all too often. You need to look no further than the murders of Eurydice Dixon, Qi Yu, and Jill Meagher to highlight the horrifying reality of unwelcomed advances. Women who by all accounts were carrying on the business of just trying to get home and refusing an advance. Their refusals ended with their deaths in all three cases.

We tuned in to media reports of the murders and the usual talking heads saying that women should have more situational awareness and be more careful when out walking. This is quite possibly the most preposterous and unhelpful commentary I have ever heard. Why should a woman simply walking along trying to get to her destination need to be more aware of underdeveloped troglodytes who will murder them if they refuse to submit? It is victim blaming and completely unacceptable for anyone to suggest that these women were just not wary enough to avoid being murdered.

One in three women have experienced physical violence since the age of 15, one in five have been the victim of sexual violence. There is a better than average chance that a woman you know and hold dear has been a victim and simply not discussed it or reported it. Intimate partner violence actually contributes to the death and risk rates for women 18-44 (women classed as being “of reproductive age”) far more than tobacco, illicit drugs or cholesterol.

In America, we have the recent case of Mollie Tibbets. A woman who went out for a run and was murdered. Police reports state that her attacker started to follow her and that she became frightened for her safety and she told him that she would notify the police. By the attacker’s own admission, this threat made him angry and he “blacked out” and woke up with Mollie’s dead body in the boot of his car.

In fact, I could probably write an article 10 times as long as this one, focusing solely on the stories of women who have rejected an unwelcome advance and become the victim of violence, threats or rape because of it. These are just the small percentage that are reported.

Of course, violence is a significantly male problem. No matter how many times you see someone pithily commenting or hashtagging about it being “not all men”. We routinely look to place blame in these situations and overcomplicate it. But the statistics do not lie. Almost 95% of survivors of violence reported experiencing threats, physical or sexual assault from a male.

We can trace a lot of this back to attitudes towards gender inequality. Research from the World Health Organisation[1] demonstrated that people who believe that generally speaking, men and women have distinct characteristics are more likely to condone or even excuse violence against women. Just as men who hold traditional and somewhat hierarchical views about gender are far more likely to be the perpetrators of these threats and acts of violence against women.

Reports published by Vic Health[2] and ANROWS (Australian National Research Organisation for Women’s Safety)[3] have shown quite clearly that 20% of Australians believe that men should take control in a relationship and be the “head of the house” and that 25% said that they prefer the man to be the one in charge. Moreover, 20% again responded to these surveys that they believed that domestic violence and intimate partner violence are matters that should be handled privately by family and that women should not be seeking external help from counsellors, health professionals or law enforcement.

This is where it gets really mind numbingly horrifying, but a similar number of respondents to these surveys believed that if a woman is intoxicated or under the influence of a substance then she should be held at least partly responsible.

So, the question then is, as men, what can we do? Well known thespian Sir Patrick Stewart is one such man taking a stand. He tells stories about how his own mother was a victim of domestic violence and I’d like to share two of his quotes on the subject.

“As a child, I heard in my home doctors and ambulance men say, ‘Mrs Stewart, you must’ve done something to provoke him, it takes two to make an argument’. WRONG! My mother did nothing to provoke that, and even if she had, violence is NEVER EVER a choice that a man should make. Ever.”

“People won’t listen to you or take you seriously unless you’re an old white man, and since I’m an old white man I’m going to use that to help the people who need it”.

Now, if these attitudes are good enough for the Captain of The Enterprise, the surely we can follow his example. Being a defender of rights for women and girls is the entire reason I decided to begin this website and hope to tell the stories of women from every walk of life to bring light to the issues.

As men we should be absolutely refusing to validate this kind of behaviour. We can unequivocally repudiate contests of sexual conquest. We can without approval from peers who show demeaning attitudes. These are not harmless jokes. It is not made in jest or just for fun. It most certainly is NOT just “locker talk”.

If boys will be boys then isn’t it incumbent upon us as men, leaders, husbands, brothers and fathers to insist on better? We must absolutely insist on better treatment of women, we must demand that the men in our circles behave better. We must no longer tolerate or excuse. Wearing a ribbon once a year simply will not do. This sort of behaviour of privilege, of insistence and of “right to conquest” is the logic of an underdeveloped mind that we should have long since evolved past.

Women are NOT at fault for simply wanting to do the same things that we do. Things we take for granted like walking home alone or any other daily activity for that matter. We can refuse to accept “being under the influence” as a factor or any other quite frankly weak excuse to mitigate the damage done. Stress levels, substance consumption or mental health must no longer be used. We must repudiate court room defences of now being deeply remorseful after the fact. The damage is already done. Being sorry doesn’t undo the harm you cause or the lives that you ruin.

Only with a holistic approach where we stand together can we ever expect true meaningful change to occur.

[1] http://www.who.int/reproductivehealth/publications/violence/9789241564007/en/

[2] https://www.vichealth.vic.gov.au/media-and-resources/publications/2013-national-community-attitudes-towards-violence-against-women-survey

[3] https://www.anrows.org.au/publications/horizons-0/PSS

I’d like to share something today from one of my closest friends and now my co-conspirator in bringing you this website. Isabelle Chassain is a mother of two wonderful young women, who it is my hope that one day will look upon everything we are trying to achieve here with pride in our efforts to make a genuine difference for women.

Recently, while out shopping, Isabelle experienced a torrent of abuse at the hands of an older man who told her that he found her disgusting and offensive for the simple act of feeding her child.

I am absolutely horrified that this still occurs and there are people today who feel it is their place to publicly humiliate a hungry child and attentive mother.

With that said, here is the post from Isabelle, her words unedited along with a picture of exactly how she was dressed and what you could see while she tended to her infant daughter.

For my next profile of a strong inspirational woman, it turns out I didn’t have to look very far.

I went to high school with Najwa Khoury and she was always that person who just never had a bad word to say about anyone and I guarantee you that nobody ever had a bad word to say about her.

Najwa is the definition of “ray of sunshine”. She comes in to your day with boundless enthusiasm and no matter how you are feeling or what has been happening to you, she manages to lift your mood and help you see the positives again.

I was lucky to be surrounded by yet another strong positive female role model when I was growing up and as I got older, I found that Najwa just inspired me to just treat the world and the people around me with a kinder attitude and see the bright side. It’s a powerful thing to find in a friend.

When I asked Najwa to participate in this interview, she was still working for an Australian corporation but is now leaving us to take up a position in American with the worlds largest building and construction materials company for their North American operations to continue to spread her positivity on a global scale.

Believe me when I say that her story is one that you will take inspiration from as I have. She is a beacon of hope and reminds me frequently that what some people call “the odds against you”, Najwa takes as mere suggestions and does her own thing anyway. If you’re feeling at a crossroads, then her story is one that you will walk away from very much changed for the better.

There is a great deal for anyone and everyone to take from her inspiring story, and I won’t be doing any sub-editing of our interview together as her story in her own beautiful words needs to be read as it was told to me. 

Without further ado, I am very pleased to present to you, Ms Najwa Khoury.

Since first writing this, I have taken the bold move to America as I was approached to take on a role as Vice President of Marketing based in Pennsylvania for one of the worlds largest building and construction materials companies.

While moving to another country is daunting at this stage, I know it is the right time of life for me to do this … I’m excited about making a difference in what is the worlds largest plasterboard market and for the life experiences it will bring. As someone said during the farewells from my precious role – fortune favours the brave .. so I enter my new work and personal stage with this in mind.

My parents got married in Lebanon in the 70’s and came to Australia (where my dad was living before he married my mum). They wanted to come to Australia, earn money and ultimately finalise things and with a hope to return to Lebanon for good. The war started in Lebanon and their dreams of returning for good diminished as the war progressed, and we got older and moved through different stages of our lives. 5 children later, my parents now proud Australians hold onto their Lebanese heritage and travel to the country they call home, yearly to visit family and friends.

We grew up in an area called Kemps Creek in Sydney’s West and back then, it was all farm land with dirt roads and limited interactions with people. I grew up on a 50-acre farm, my parents were garden farmers – cucumbers and tomatoes. They worked very hard on the farm and did the best they could t0 support us, I think that is where we all developed strong work ethics as we had to help my parents on the farm before and after school. At school coming from a non-English speaking background, I had to attend ‘ESL” – English as a second language’ class on a weekly basis, which I think made me even more determined to succeed as I felt singled out by going to those classes.

After high school (Emmaus Catholic College) I graduated from University of Western Sydney in an undergraduate course Bachelor of Commerce (marketing) with credit and later completed my Masters from Sydney University in Masters of Commerce – sub majors in Strategic Planning and Business and Society. Graduated with distinction. Very proud day when my parents were at the Great Hall in Sydney University watching me get my Masters.

Started with Boral on their Graduate program in 1999 as a marketing analyst with their Blue Circle Southern Cement division. After 8 years, I left after gaining experience in their bricks and roof tiles business and the construction materials side of the business which encompassed Asphalt, quarries, concrete and transport. I had both a great professional and personal experience at Boral. I got to do so many things that I would not ever had the opportunity to do such as ride an asphalt laying machine in regional NSW, go on development courses where you abseiled and got to witness first hand a quarry explosion and major projects being built. From there recognising the need to continue to develop my career and be seen outside of being a graduate, I went to a similar business in a managerial role where I had people report to me. Now part of the Dulux Group, Alesco offered me the opportunity to get involved in business acquisitions and rolling out of trade retail concepts. Building on my experience in 2009 I took on a role with CSR in their Gyprock business looking after a market segment. Within 6 months of being at the job, there was a restructure and I was made marketing manager for Gyprock – the first female in the role. As I gained more experience, my role expanded, my team grew and knowledge of the business transferred into gaining greater responsibilities.

My current role is general manager of Marketing which encompasses, technical / R&D / product development and the communications and brand management of Gyprock – the leading brand of plasterboard in Australia. I also represent CSR on the executive of the AWCI (our industry association). While on the industry body I started the BASE (business and social exchange) network for women in our industry. We have not embedded this into our annual conference with the sessions well attended. It was important that there was not only recognition of women in small to medium sized family businesses as most of the time, they run the back-end office; we also wanted to create a sense of networking amongst the women in the industry. This has led to great sharing of information / experiences and development of informal networks where the women have gotten together on a social basis which is very pleasing to see. I also provide mentoring to other women in the industry, I find this is crucial as females need to navigate their way through their industry as it can be quite male dominated so their confidence can be challenged regularly.

Last year I was nominated and was a finalist in the Women in Industry awards – Industry advocacy which I was exceptionally proud of.

 1)  How long have you been in your profession?

Started out of university on the graduate program with Boral in 1999 – so coming onto 20 years now.

2) What made you choose a career in your profession?

Out of university I made a conscious decision to start with the building and construction industry. I saw a variety of ads for graduate roles, but when I saw Boral’s they were promoting a ‘hands on’ experience and an ability to learn through a variety of experiences which interested me more than an office role. I was also interested in the ‘realness’ of the industry as to me it represented a sense of reality and you could learn / develop and make a change in. when I reflect…. I think there was about 1000 applicants for the graduate program, they then selected 300 to go to the next level and then so on…I believe I was the first marketing degree person they had employed through their graduate program.

3)  Who has been your biggest inspiration and why?

No one person specifically, I always held in high regard teachers and mentors that tried to support and assist my learning and push me forward. I have a lot of respect for people who have been trail blazers in their field as they are the ones who create change. People that defy the odds and push through boundaries that once prevented progress-  they are the real heroes.

4)  Has there been any incidents in your professional life where you couldn’t believe what had been said or done to either yourself or a colleague?

I remember one trip to northern NSW –the local manager picked me up from the regional airport…we exchange greetings and then says to me….you know what Naj….we don’t get many people like you up here….I paused for a moment and thought…surely there are women here… there was another time when I was introduced as the token ethnic….and I recall also a time when a mayor of a city said to my manager at the time…oh is this your secretary. My manager was very embarrassed and answered quite calmly and poised …no…she is the head of marketing and makes all those decisions not me.

5)  In your experience has the discrimination against women been overt and/or commonplace?

The building and construction industry has one of the lowest rates of females as a percentage of total employees in any industry – I think it averages around 14-17%. The challenge is that people often comment that they can understand why given the nature of products / industry but it’s very unfortunate as it is such a great industry for women to be in. they can contribute so much to it and add a lot of value. I have probably seen a lot of unconscious bias occur around perceived capabilities and knowledge of the industry. For me being a female. If you’re going to get upset at every comment, then I don’t think you can ever learn from it and you can never instigate change. 

6)  Have you ever felt that there was a pressure to behave more “like a man” in your professional life? For example, turning off your emotions or any other qualities that might be perceived as “too feminine” to lead or perform your role.

No I have not felt pressured, I have had managers who have really stressed the importance of being yourself. I think the female qualities add to the decision-making process which ultimately means better business outcomes. 

7)  What drives you every day?

Change drives me … this can be in business / society / cultural but without change nothing moves forward. We are living in a period where both individuals and companies need to progress at a pace that they would not be used to. On a personal side, new experiences, learning and people drive me every day. 

8)  How important do you feel proper work/life balance is and do you feel women who want to reach leadership positions are asked to sacrifice too much?

Critical. Making time for yourself is often hard given busy work schedules. I am a firm believer that for women who have a family, then an organisation has a responsibility to manage their career in that period to ensure their pace of progression is not hampered as they build their family.

9)  To date, what has been the point or event in your career that you are most proud of?

I’m most proud that I have persisted and have become much more resilient through my experiences to make a change not only in a business sense but for me personally, I am a stronger person and am in a position where I can help others. I initiated

10)  What advice would you give to women who aspire to be in leadership positions?

Persistence, don’t let barriers get in your way…find likeminded people to connect with and push on.

Aspire away…and do it…. nothing is stopping you. This makes me feel so old saying this but times have changed, however barriers still exist. It’s not a question of aspiration – it’s a question of process. Look at your career as one, step by step you will get there….no doubt about it. Collect your learnings and experiences and continue to move up…. nothing is stopping you…but on the journey, don’t forget who you are…and have a laugh every now and then…at yourself and the situations you will get yourself into.

It is an unsettling prospect to realise that women face a significant risk of experiencing poverty in their retirement years. Older single women are one of the fastest growing groups of Australians living in poverty, and this is but the tip of a much bigger problem with no easy solution.

The report “Accumulating poverty”^[1] released by the Australian Human Rights Commission (‘AHRC’) states that as things presently stand, superannuation payouts for women are around half that for men^[2]. More troubling, is that in the current system, this difference in superannuation payouts will only get worse for the next generations of women^[3]. This imbalance, through the various factors of income inequality, will hit hardest those women who will seek to rely on the means tested aged pension system as their primary source of income and support in their retirement years.

The simple cornerstone of this issue is that women have longer life expectancies than men, so from a practical perspective really require higher superannuation balances to provide for their needs, and care, for the remainder of their lives. More young females invest in their own futures by undertaking tertiary education, but they don’t see the same return on investment as their male counterparts. 

A well documented factor in the shortcomings of retirement savings for women in Australia is of course the gender pay gap. Historically, we know that female dominated industries seem to attract lower wages than that of male dominated industries.

(Source: The United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women)

Let’s look at our own profession. A February 2018 Grad Stats report released by GraduateOpportunities.com reveals that of law graduates aged under 25, females are being paid an average of 8% less than their male counterparts. The median average in male and female graduate salaries showed a 1.5% disparity. For young women in the legal profession, the numbers show that they are 5.3 times worse off than the average.

As the Australian Human Rights Commission in their submission to the Senate Committee discovered the following statistics:

“In 2011, women comprised 56.5 per cent of the 2.23 million recipients of the age pension. Just over half (53.6 percent) of female age pension recipients were single and 71.8 percent of single age pension recipients are women. Sixty-one percent of female age pensioners received the maximum rate, and 27.3 percent were not home owners”^[4]

The disparity continues through career progression.  The right to access flexible working arrangements is currently a hot research topic within professional bodies, looking into how women in the workforce are treated when seeking a more adaptable employment agreement.

A report released by the Law Institute of Victoria^[5] on discrimination faced by women in the legal profession looked specifically at this question at length.  Of the 421 female practitioners who responded to the survey, 149 (35.4%) had made a request for their employers to allow them a flexible working agreement so that they could meet their responsibilities as a parent or carer. 79% of respondents had their request approved in full, 16% had their request partially approved and 5% reported having their request refused.

The Australian Work and Life Index released a report^[6] in 2014 that discussed the impact of flexible working arrangements on the employment cycle. In addition to the length of a working day, another crucial dimension of working time in relation to health and wellbeing is the extent to which the length and scheduling fit with a worker’s needs, preferences and circumstances. Employee-centred flexibility, in which workers have some input and control over the scheduling and length of their work hours and location of work is an important resource for employee wellbeing.

The Fair Work Amendment Bill 2013 extends the right to request a flexible work arrangement to all workers with care responsibilities (and workers in certain other circumstances such as those with a disability or aged 55 years or older). Whilst extended inclusion criteria are an important step in supporting all workers with care responsibilities for children or adults, it remains a relatively fragile entitlement as the right to request does not have any instrument of appeal in order to contest an employer’s refusal if it should be unreasonable.

There is good evidence that flexible work practices would benefit the health and safety of all workers, whether they have care responsibilities or not. There is a case for extending the right to request flexible work arrangements to include all workers regardless of their circumstances. However, such an extension will only be meaningful if workers who have their requests refused or do not make such requests because they lack workplace power, are backed up with a meaningful appeal mechanism.

In 2016, The Association of Corporate Counsel, a global bar association, published a report called “Cause and Effect: Why Women Leave The Legal Profession”^[7] which showed, quite conclusively, that women in leadership positions is quite simply good business. Female stewardship is shown to have a positive impact on both innovation and revenue.  A direct quote from this paper stated that “both Fortune Magazine and The Wall Street Journal reported that women do indeed contribute to positive business outcomes, offering a wider variety of critical skills to their company boards in important areas, such as governance and risk management“

Another area ripe for reform is the way that superannuation is handled in divorces. At present the Family Court of Australia is quite limited in the way they can deal with the splitting of superannuation entitlements in a divorce settlement. The Family Court is only imbued with the legislative power to deal with property that is owned by the parties as at the date of the hearing^[8]. As superannuation is payable only on retirement, or some other qualifying event, it is not considered as ‘property’ for these purposes, unless benefits have been paid^[9].

The Family Court has tried to escape these limits on their legislative powers in two unique ways^[10]. The first, sometimes called offsetting, is an ‘adjustment of non-superannuation assets’. This entails increasing the dependent spouse’s share of presently existing property in order to compensate for the loss of future superannuation rights of the other party.

The second entails adjourning part of the property proceedings until the superannuation benefits become payable, and then making an order with respect to those benefits once they become payable.

Neither approach seems entirely satisfactory, fair or equitable. Offsetting assumes that the liable spouse has sufficient assets to make good the other’s loss of superannuation rights, and it is not a guarantee of an adequate retirement income for the recipient. Adjournment means that these particular monetary issues between spouses remain unresolved, often for many years after their divorce is finalised. Moreover, the payment of any benefits is entirely dependent on events outside the control of the liable spouse.  For example, under the terms of some schemes, a wife would lose entitlement altogether if the husband dies before he becomes entitled to the benefits, since earmarking does not give her a share of his superannuation in her own right.

There are a litany of reasons behind why, what is prima facie an equitable system, actually creates disadvantages and discriminatory rules that do not fully account for the working cycle of a woman, taking into account the varying stages that women will oft be forced to or choose to go through. The Senate Economics References Report^[11] makes 19 recommendations to the Australian Government to make the system more reasonable in meeting the needs of Australian women, taking in to account their work/life patterns.

The first recommendation that was made by the Senate Committee is one that bears examining as a way to introduce changes to the current system.

The committee recommends that the Australian Government review the Fair Work Act 2009 to determine the effectiveness of Equal Remuneration Orders in addressing gender pay equity, and consequently in closing the gender pay gap. The review should consider alternative mechanisms to allow for a less adversarial consideration of the undervaluing of women’s work. 

The Senate Committee came to the conclusion on this recommendation that over the last two decades the gender pay gap has been unchanged but to effect change will require a sincere and ongoing effort. Many Australian organisations are becoming quite proactive in instituting measures to address the gender pay gap and setting targets for women in leadership roles. However, only 20% of Australian business reported to the Workplace Gender Equality Agency that they had introduced strategies to address the gender pay gap.  There is perhaps a need for more government funded resources and analysis mechanisms to reach the other 80%.

It is telling that the Committee (which Committee?  The AoCC? The Senate Committee?) reported that many of the submissions they received asserted that the current legislative superannuation tax concessions are not only poorly targeted but further serve to reinforce the gender retirement savings gap. Current tax concessions were perceived as being disproportionately targeted to disadvantage women and only serve the interests of high income households.

The current concessions only make the superannuation savings gap worse rather than effect any meaningful change to the gap and do not centre enough on facilitating better outcomes for women in retirement. The Committee took the view that the superannuation tax concessions should be reviewed in order to be more fair, efficient and equitable.

There are many ideas for reform to the system, from achievable to the somewhat idealistic and unsustainable.  Over the last decade, many organisations have lobbied the Government in an attempt to bring the system to some harmonious balance, to preempt the situation where more than half our population are left in near or total poverty in their retirement, unable to afford the most basic care and expenses that our retirement income savings system was designed to address.

The issue of disparity of outcomes between men and women when it comes to retirement savings is far from a small problem, nor is there a tidy solution that encompasses the issues only touched on above.  The one consensus is that reform is desperately required. We find ourselves with a rapidly ageing baby boom population in Australia, many of whom did not adequately plan for their retirement.  We are at risk of the levels of poverty among older single female retirees reaching epidemic proportions.

^[1] Australian Human Rights Commission, 2009 Accumulating poverty? Women’s experiences of inequality over the lifecycle: An issue paper examining the gender gap in retirement savings

^[2] Ross Clare, Retirement Savings Update (2008)  p3.  At http://www.superannuation.asn.au/Reports/default.aspx

^[3] Rebecca Cassells, Riyana Miranti, Binod Nepal and Robert Tanton, She works hard for the money: Australian women and the gender divide, AMP.NATSEM Income and Wealth Report issue 22 (2009).  At http://phx.corporate-ir.net/External.File?item=UGFyZW50SUQ9MjA5fENoaWxkSUQ9LTF8VHlwZT0z&t=1

^[4] Australian Human Rights Commission, Submission 36, pp. 1–2

^[5] Victorian Equal Opportunity & Human Rights Commission, “Changing the rules: The experiences of female lawyers in Victoria”, (2012) at https://www.humanrightscommission.vic.gov.au/index.php/our-resources-and-publications/reports/item/487-changing-the-rules-–-the-experiences-of-female-lawyers-in-victoria

^[6] The Persistent Challenge. Living, Working and Caring in Australia in 2014, Skinner, S and Pocock, B. Centre for Work and Life, University of South Australia

^[7] Richardson, V and Myers, M. “Cause and Effect: Why Women Leave the Legal Profession” 2016 http://www.acc-foundation.com/foundation/loader.cfm?csModule=security/getfile&pageid=1440081&recorded=1

^[8] (Family Law Act 1975, s.4(1)).

^[9] (In the marriage of Crapp (12979) 5 Fam LR 47).

^[10] (Harrison and Harrison (1996) 20 Fam LR 322; Finlay et al. 1995:295-299)

^[11] The Senate Economic References Committee, ‘A husband is not a retirement plan’: Achieving economic security for women in retirement. April 2016