Fair Agenda

It's been two years since the Fair Agenda community came together to take action in our very first campaign. And looking back at what we've achieved in that time, I couldn't be prouder to be part of this community. 

In just two years we've not only grown from a community of a few hundred, to 35,000 -- and shown that, together, we have the ability to influence national policies and narratives on issues affecting women.

We’ve become a powerful force for change. Together we’ve shaped the national media agenda on key issues and helping change national policy outcomes.

But seriously limited resourcing is holding back our community's ability to drive change on a larger scale. So far, all of Fair Agenda’s impact has been delivered on a shoestring budget - a fraction of that relied on by similar national campaigning organisations. Our community of 35,000 has been supported by just one full time staff member, and a handful of generous and talented volunteers. 

To keep winning the change we need, we need to grow Fair Agenda’s power. That means doubling our resources. Can you chip in to help take our community’s campaigns to the next level?

Over the past two years I’ve been in awe of what we’ve been able to achieve together...

Together, we kept a national spotlight on the dangerous under-funding of family violence services, and helped win $4 million for 1800 RESPECT

Since former Australian of the Year Rosie Batty drew attention to the federal funding cuts stripping funds from vital family violence services last year, Fair Agenda members have been working to pressure the federal government to not only reverse those cuts, but to fully fund the services that support women to live free from violence.

On budget night Fair Agenda ensured that funding for family violence services was front and centre of media analysis, working with The Project to launch our report into the federal funding needed to help women escape their abusers. The segment went viral, and the accompanying call to #Showmethemoney trended nationally. 

The massive national coverage our report prompted ensured that the government faced widespread scrutiny for their failure to announce any new additional funding for services on budget night. In fact - then Treasurer Joe Hockey didn't even mention the domestic violence crisis in his budget speech.

In the days of national media coverage that followed the launch of Fair Agenda’s report, senior government ministers (including now Prime Minister Turnbull) were publicly questioned about the lack of funding for vital services, including for 1800 RESPECT - the national counselling hotline which at the time was unable to answer 18,631 calls every year because of inadequate funding.

After days of this national pressure, the federal government announced $4 million of additional funding for 1800 RESPECT.

It was a vital win, and one that means thousands more women will be able to access 1800 RESPECT, a critical first point of support for many women affected by violence.

But 1800 RESPECT isn't the only service without the funding it needs to help women live free from danger. So our community has continued to build pressure in the lead up to this year’s federal budget and election, to make sure full funding of family violence services stays on the national agenda.

In September, within minutes of Prime Minister Turnbull’s takeover as Prime Minister, Fair Agenda members flooded his email inbox with messages urging him to urgently commit full funding for services. Then, days later when he announced his Women’s Safety Package (a good step forward, but nowhere near enough to address the crisis) - Fair Agenda was there to make sure the government weren’t left off the media hook - ensuring national media coverage of the announcement recognised the significant funding gaps still leaving thousands of women in danger.

Since then we’ve been working to keep this issue on the agenda in new and creative ways - including flooding the Treasurer’s mailbox with season’s greetings urging him not to make funding decisions that would leave women in danger in his next budget.

Since then we’ve been working to keep this issue on the agenda in new and creative ways - including flooding the Treasurer’s mailbox with dozens of Christmas cards urging him not to make funding decisions that would leave women in danger in his next budget.

And this month, as pre-budget discussions reached fever pitch at parliament house, we stood with family violence experts and survivors to deliver a press conference calling for the government to stop leaving thousands of women without access to family violence services. This message made headlines across the Fairfax papers, SBS World News, NITV, Huffington Post and Mamamia - and featured on Sky News. We also took family violence experts to meet with key politicians from across the political spectrum and brief them on the urgent need for full funding of the services women rely on to escape family violence. Together we put family violence funding remains in the pre-budget media agenda.

We helped protect new parents’ paid time at home with their newborns

When former Treasurer Joe Hockey announced (on Mother’s Day, of all days) that the government planned to cut paid parental leave, your reaction was swift and fierce. Within 72 hours more than 14,000 people had joined the campaign opposing the cuts.

Over the months that followed the government’s announcement, Fair Agenda members emailed, called and met with key crossbench Senators to urge them to use their deciding votes to block any proposed cuts to parental leave.

We kept up the pressure over months and ensured that the government couldn’t negotiate their brutal cuts through the Senate.

Then, when the Turnbull government were forced to abandon the original cuts; and tried to launch a new form of cuts in the lead up to Christmas, Fair Agenda members led a strategic rapid response. Members donated to commission research from experts at the Women and Work Group at the University of Sydney, showing the public and key crossbench Senators the devastating impact the Turnbull government’s new cuts would have on working families. That report made headlines...

… and prompted key crossbench Senator John Madigan to tell media the plan was "mean and stupid" and tell Fair Agenda members he was committed to voting against the cuts.

Then, last month Fair Agenda member Heather and her son Luca joined Executive Director Renee and our friends at The Parenthood at parliament for a press conference where Senators Jacqui Lambie and Glenn Lazarus stood with us and committed to block cuts to paid parental leave!

The commitments from Senators Lambie, Lazarus, Madigan and Senator Xenophon to vote against the cuts to parental leave; in combination with existing opposition from Labor and The Greens means that new parents’ paid time at home is safe under this parliament! 

We defended reproductive rights

When reports broke that a young woman being detained on Nauru for seeking asylum was having to plead with the Australian government to be able to access a termination procedure, Fair Agenda members helped build pressure on the government to ensure she was able to access health services.

In 2014, off the back of months of speculation about former Victorian MP Geoff Shaw’s attempts to use his balance of power position to attack Victoria's abortion related legislation, Fair Agenda went to work. Together we got more than 100 candidates to publicly disclose their personal voting intention on issues related to reproductive rights, to make sure voters would know where they stood on this issue should the parliament be asked to vote.

We called out victim blaming

Last year when Albury Mayor Kevin Mack took a line out of the Victim-Blaming 101 textbook, and said "I always have encouraged women not to walk alone, to have someone with them at all times, because that in itself is an invitation for someone to take advantage of you.”.⁴

Hundreds of Fair Agenda members immediately spoke out, signing a petition calling for him to apologise for his victim-blaming. Together with our allies, we publicly called on Cnr Mack to retract his unacceptable comments, and saw him quickly issue this an apology for his comments, without reservation.⁵

We held a major company to account

After Fair Agenda member Mark came across a doll promoting dangerously unhealthy body image in his local Myer store, he and thousands of Fair Agenda members called on Myer to take the doll off its shelves. Local Members helped Mark deliver their concerns to Myer’s flagship store - attracting major national news coverage, and prompting Myer to tell Channel 10 news they wouldn’t be ordering any more of the dolls. 

We put gender on the agenda

After the Prime Minister announced a Cabinet with just one woman, Fair Agenda worked creatively to counter the toxic narrative that there simply weren’t any “women of merit” available. Fair Agenda worked with online media outlet Women’s Agenda to profile some of the more than capable women serving in the Government’s ranks, helping draw early media attention to the qualifications of a number of senior women who now have a seat at the table.

When Just for Laughs Sydney announced their pre-sale line-up in 2014, there wasn’t a woman in sight. When comedian Maeve Marsden called them out on it, 1,052 Fair Agenda rallied behind her - calling on Just for Laughs to address their gender problem. Together, Fair Agenda members made sure this issue dominated Just for Laugh's social media in the first weeks of their promotions. When the festival announced their full line up months later, there were 8 women in the show; and one woman included in every group event at the festival.

And back in 2014, in our very first cut-through campaign - when the Sports Party (who at the time were battling to retain their Senate spot in the federal Senate) used an image of a woman wearing no top to promote their election campaign, Fair Agenda members called it out, drawing much needed media attention to the party’s (lack of) policies related to women.

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Want to help make more campaigns like this possible? It will only be possible with your support.

-References-

1. Gender pay gap statistics, Workplace Gender Equality Agency, 1 March 2016.

2. There are more men called Peter leading ASX 200 companies than women, Women’s Agenda, 6 March 2015.

3. NSW Labor MP Linda Burney hopes to become first Indigenous woman in House of Representatives, ABC news, 1 March 2016.

4 & 5. Albury Mayor Kevin Mack sorry for 'victim blaming' rape comments on women walking alone, ABC News, 1 May 2015.