SMH: Youth issues drowned amid sound bites

Just after the Australian election, my  first 'real-life' paper opinion piece appeared in the Sun-Herald paper, the Sunday edition of the Sydney Morning Herald. Icing on the cake? Malcolm Fraser himself retweeted it!

In case you missed it, check it out below...

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It has been a long five weeks. It would be fair to say it has been a long seven months; since the first election announcement on January 30, the political onslaught has been relentless.

The cycle of topical and divisive issues such as asylum seekers, the economy, the national broadband network and the paid parental leave scheme have dominated. Tiringly, these issues are only ever discussed in sound bites.

The debates made conspicuous by their absence however, were those about the policies that directly address issues of importance to young people and the longer-term future of our nation.

Climate change has been spoken about only in so far as to scrap the carbon tax. It would seem Maslow's hierarchy of needs is at work, with parties playing on voters' survival instinct rather than longer-term attitudes towards morality. In an environment where the fear of the "budget emergency" and the "rise in the cost of living" are touted as immediate crises, the apparent "ethical luxury" of a shift to sustainable development is no longer part of the debate.

The fear-mongering flies in the face of data from the National Electricity Market, which indicates a 7 per cent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from 2011-12 to 2012-13. Naturally, the entire reduction cannot be attributed simply to the tax and it alone is not the whole answer. Nonetheless, the objective remains: to reduce our society's impact on the environment by whichever means are most effective.

Young people have been left behind at both ends of Maslow's hierarchy. Not only has the issue of climate change been removed from consideration, but the physiological and safety needs in employment and housing have been underplayed.

The unemployment rate for people aged 15 to 24 is 11.5 per cent, double the general number and up from 8.8 per cent in 2008. For those between 15 and 19, it is 27.3 per cent, up from 15.5 per cent in 2008. The Foundation for Young Australians' How Young People Are Faring 2012 report shows opportunities for them to take up full-time work have declined over the past 25 years.

Furthermore, the demographics of our workforce are changing. Job vacancies are low, with one in five unemployed for every vacancy in some states. Even for the 73.4 per cent of young people engaged in full-time education or training, their prospects once their training is over have been diminished.

The difficulties are further compounded for the vulnerable. Students from low socio-economic backgrounds (13.8 per cent) are twice as likely as their wealthier counterparts (5.2 per cent) to be out of employment, education or training. For indigenous youth and those with a disability, the rate is three times as high.

Housing is another sleeper issue largely ignored by public debate, with numbers showing a continuing decline in the value of loans taken out by first home buyers. Young people are also over-represented among the homeless.

The solutions provided by each side of the house are insufficient. The structures within the labour force, entry to employment and the effectiveness of traditional pathways need to be reassessed. To do that, however, these issues need to be on the table.

Perhaps the voting power of young people is not enough to set the agenda yet, but climate change during the 2010 election implied the opposite. The short-sightedness of our leading parties, however, means the burgeoning issues of our time are left aside for emotive discussions that play on voters' fears.

We can only hope that now that the decision has been settled, we will see some long-term visionary thinking. Optimistic perhaps, but isn't that the blessing of youth.

Read the original on the Sydney Morning Herald Website here. 

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So what do you think? What issues are now missing from the agenda?

Daily Life: What it's like to work on an all-male oil rig

This piece originally appeared on Fairfax's Daily Life.

My first posting on the oil and gas rigs happened shortly after graduating from mechanical engineering.  My mother was quite proud; my father on the other hand took a while to come around.  He couldn't understand why his Muslim daughter wouldn't accept a solid, stable job offer in the city.

“What are you doing out here?” my friends would ask, “Is it just for the money?”, “What is it like working with blokes all the time?” or, more often than not: “Are you insane?”

I remember walking into a meeting in the early days as one of the guys was taking a sip of his instant coffee.  "Tastes like date rape", he said.

I froze, looking at my fellow rig worker.  I wasn’t quite sure what to say.  If I overreacted he would badge me as being ‘over sensitive’ and avoid me for the rest of the job, but my inner feminist nonetheless cringed at the idea of letting such language slide. Sensing my unease, he finally said, "I guess we can’t say that sort of thing anymore now that you are here."

Working on oil and gas rigs isn't the first career path that typically comes to mind for many women. By and large, it's seen as a rough, tough, blokey world that is does not welcome female employees.   Notwithstanding this, I was attracted to the adventure, the practical aspect of the operation and the challenge of working in such an unusual environment.  It seemed like the ideal first job for an engineering experience junkie like me.

Given the fact that I have met around six women working in the field in the entire time I have been employed, one can say there is truth in the 'boys club' perception. But working in this masculine, testosterone-drenched environment has also been an interesting exercise in backyard sociology.

Here are some of the things I’ve learnt in the time I spent at the oil rigs:

Firstly, there is a significant generational difference in the male workers' attitudes towards women.

An older colleague once said, "Girly, when I started drinking, women weren't even allowed in bars." Men of his age share an antiquated view of women, but they are products of their time.

Then there are those who feel the need to be protective. “My mother, my father, my grandparents, my aunties...they'd not just roll in their graves, they'd right come out of their graves to give me a de-nozo slap if they heard me using any sort of language in front of a lady!”

Young guys, on the other hand, are often more 'gender blind'. Women being denied access or opportunities simply due to their gender is seen as old-fashioned.  They are also keenly aware of the legislation that protects that equality and will err on the side of caution so as not to put their foot in it.

They tend to test the waters and gauge what they can and can’t say around their female colleagues before they are rebuked.  It does give us a modicum of power, as they follow our cue.

However, 'formal' equality does not necessarily reflect a true change in their social attitudes and underlying expectations.  And the biggest giveaway is in the way the workers speak.

The language used by men on the rig is indescribable - and that is what they choose to say in front of me.  It’s relatively easy to complain about offensive or derogatory language in a modern mix-gender workplace.  However, when operating as the sole female in a male dominated environment, there are some awkward challenges.

Yes, we can go in, guns blazing, demanding things happen on our terms. The legislative framework exists, and is there for anyone to use if they feel discriminated against in any manner.

The protection we have as women in these environments is unprecedented when compared to attitudes two short years ago.  Legal change is the first, extremely important step.  However, forcing change in that manner inevitably fosters dissent and confusion in some cases.

In other words, the rules are changing for these men, but they don't quite know how to deal with it yet.  It is this behavioural change that we must now strive and push for, and it will be an uphill struggle.

In the end these are people I work with, live with, laugh with and rely on to keep me alive around pretty heavy machinery.  Most of them have fallen over themselves to help me and make sure that I am protected and looked after.  Although they can be painted as uneducated chauvinists, many of them are also a product of their society and what is expected of them to be ‘men’.

As my rig manager said, “This is a completely different world to [the one] out there... There is no way I would speak the same way I do on the rig in the street, that wouldn't be right.  It's just a way of keeping yourself a little sane'.”

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I enjoy what I do and the company of the people I work with.  I don't envy the difficulty they have though, in dealing with the changes in societal expectations.  We live in unprecedented and interesting times...

What do you think?  

Brisbane Times: Is our Aussie Banter Bullying?

So I ask the question...do we just need to harden up ? A rework of a piece I recently wrote for the opinion pages on the Brisbane Times.  Read the comments! They are always my favourite part of the piece...

SBS Online: Getting to know our neighbours

Defining ‘Australia in the Asian Century’ has been the subject of some debate since the release of the Federal Government’s White Paper in October last year. But how much do we know about the neighbourhood we are calling our own?

Last month I found myself in the hot and humid Malaysian city of Kuala Lumpur with five other ‘cultural exchange’ participants and a diplomatic entourage. I was a guest of the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, and our mission was to learn as much as we could about this nation’s rich tapestry in one week.

Malaysia is often seen as an exemplary model for Muslim countries around the world; a country with a Muslim government where halal food is abundant and hijab fashion shops sit comfortably next to Chanel and Hermes.

For me, the opportunity to delve beneath the surface was an experience that offered much to reflect on, particularly for a migrant Muslim who calls multicultural Australia home.

Read on...and check out my first piece as a blogger on the SBS Online website! 

I will hopefully now be a regular contributor on a whole random range of issues so watch this space!

Brisbane Times: Women taking the lower paid jobs?

 

Here is an article I recently published as an opinion piece for the Brisbane Times.  Check it out here…or comment below!

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Are women really getting paid less?

When I first came across the article on the apparent "gender pay gap doubling in a year", I couldn't believe my eyes.

However, when I stopped to think about it, the concept didn't make sense to me, particularly from a graduate point of view.  In my field of engineering, salaries for graduates are set for everyone, regardless of gender.  In fact, I was sure that the females in my graduate class were getting the higher salaries!  Where then was this information coming from?

A quick investigation showed there was a misinterpretation of the Australian government's Workplace Gender Equality Agency's report.  There was, in fact, no actual change in percentage of difference since last year which remained at 3 per cent (WEGA, 2012).

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However, a difference of 3 per cent is still a discernible inequality.  Why does this gap exist? It cannot be that employers are actively paying women less. We are in the 21st century, after all.

It would seem that the view that the WEGA report is taking is a macro view, one of graduates generally, as opposed to the micro perspectives of men and women in particular fields.  For example, males are clearly overrepresented in fields such as construction (88 per cent), mining (85 per cent), and manufacturing (75 per cent), according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

Females on the other hand, are overrepresented in the social services; Health care and social assistance employs 78 per cent females, education and training 70 per cent, and 56 per cent in retail trade. Furthermore, ABS data shows 76 per cent of those in clerical and administration are females.  It is no secret that the fields of mining and construction pay more than health care and education.

So it isn't that employers are paying women differently, it is that there are more females in the lower paying roles and industries.

Is this something that needs to be changed?  Perhaps, and it raises questions about social bias, work-life balance, gendered roles in society and possible disadvantages within the workforce.

Personally, I don't think there is a systemic disadvantage to women, especially not at the graduate level.  There are plenty of equality acts and antidiscrimination laws to protect the rights of almost any group in the workforce, particularly women.  However, there are definitely social biases that play a part.

Engineering, for example, still has extremely low rates of female participation; not because women are less capable, but because girls don't always see it as a natural option (I am still approached by high school girls who say "I'm considering engineering, but isn't that a guy's job?").

Compounding this, the social industries (that have an overrepresentation of women) have lower income levels than technical roles.  Does society undervalue our 'caring' roles, or is it just a case of different jobs deserve different pay levels?

From a long term career perspective, there are numerous studies that indicate women don't find themselves in the pipeline to leadership due to a variety of reasons.  For instance, men hold 2148 crucial line positions in the ASX 500; women hold 141 similar positions. (Australian Census of Women in Leadership, 2012).

So not only does a gap exist at the graduate level, it compounds exponentially throughout the progression of a career.

The question of the pay gap or women's participation and influence in the workforce isn't going to be solved overnight.  It is clear that although there have been great inroads made into women's equality of opportunity in the workforce; a discrepancy still exists at a macro level.

If we want to achieve true equality of outcome, as a society we need to think of more effective ways of unlocking the potential in half our population.

Read the original.

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So what do you think?

Brisbane Times: How Racist Are We?

I wrote this piece for the Brisbane Times... check the full article (and comments!!) out here. ***

In 2005, when news of the Cronulla riots spread, my family was inundated by calls from friends and family overseas asking if we were okay.

"We're fine!" we would say. "Queensland's different".

That's how I'd always seen it. Growing up in Brisbane in the 90s and 00s, I remember associating racially motivated violence with Sydney and Melbourne.

Although there were incidents in Queensland, it was never as common or visible. Even after 9/11, although our mosque was burnt down and there were incidents of racism, the community didn't experience the widespread and intense incidents of racial hatred as exhibited at the Cronulla riots or more recently, the attacks against Indian international students.

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So why is Queensland different? Do the numbers support my anecdotal evidence? Are we more cohesive, or is it a case of luck and "it just hasn't happened yet"?

According to census data, New South Wales and Victoria have an over-representation of LOTE (Language Other Than English Spoken at Home) population, with Sydney and Melbourne's LOTE population at 37.8% and 33.7%, compared to Brisbane's 17.9% (ABS, 2011).

It is quite clear then, that the ethnic population density in Queensland is significantly less than those in the southern states, perhaps a reason for less racial violence.

Furthermore, the southern capital cities have more densely populated areas with particular groups of migrants that have been settled for longer, whereas Brisbane and Queensland's migrant populations are younger and less dense.  In 1996, Queensland had 29.7 % fewer LOTE speakers compared to NSW (ABS, 1996).

On the other hand, the Scanlon Foundation's "Mapping Social Cohesion" (2012) report states that Queenslanders are particularly likely to hold negative views on cultural diversity.

Numbers may not always tell the whole story.  As a lifetime Brisbanite, I don't think we have a widespread issue with racial violence as we are a little different to our southern neighbours.

Firstly, the settlement of racially diverse populations hasn't been in the dense concentrations of lengthy settlement as seen down south.  This has allowed ethnically diverse populations to better embed themselves into the fabric of the mainstream community.

With that familiarity comes understanding and the reduction of the likelihood of racial violence.

Secondly, as a society, we are now much more aware the needs of migrants and LOTE populations having learned from Sydney and Melbourne. As populations now settle in Queensland, the many support mechanisms available from government and organisations help alleviate many of the issues based around settlement that may provoke violence.

When my family moved to Australia almost 20 years ago, the level of support was essentially non-existent.  Now, there are extensive networks to help, and the positive impact this has cannot be understated.

However, it cannot be denied that there are negative - dare I say racist - views around the state. We've been lucky so far. I feel safe, accepted and don't find my race a major inhibitor in my ability to participate.

We shouldn't be complacent however, and as we become more racially diverse we must work together to ensure that our community isn't marred by the manifestation of negative views and the racially motivated violence that can truly damage the fabric of our society.

Read more here!

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Thanks to the Brisbane Times for giving me the opportunity to contribute...

So what are your thoughts? I only had 500 words, there is plenty more to the discussion!