TRANSCRIPT
Doctor Anna Cody:
There's some really fantastic work happening in the area of gender equality in LGBTIQ plus communities, and that I've got lots more to learn as well. The part of the work that's very exciting is the Respect at Work programme of work that my predecessor Kate Jenkins commenced. And we've got a big change coming in December around positive duty. So it's been a steep learning curve to get across all of the work that's already happened in this space and start to think about ways in which I can contribute and lead some change.
Rashida Yosufzai:
What are your main priorities and what do you want to focus on?
Doctor Anna Cody:
So, it's a five-year term, and I don't have clear priorities yet. I want to listen to some of those communities and find out what are the pressing issues for them. So I will be going and speaking and hearing from culturally diverse women and girls, First Nations women and girls, as well as girls and women with a disability, and really keen to hear about some of those issues. I'm obviously very concerned to ensure that violence against women is a top priority and making sure that our Australian society can stop violence against women and girls. And then very also wanting to hear from LGBTIQ plus communities about what are their pressing issues. I think what I bring is a depth of experience having worked in the non-governmental sector and also the university sector for many years. So, I have a deep understanding of how education works and how some of the ways in which we can ensure that all across our society have that opportunity, particularly women and girls from culturally diverse communities having worked in Western Sydney. So some of that richness of my experience I'll be bringing into this portfolio.
Rashida Yosufzai:
You've worked a lot with culturally and linguistically diverse communities. Can you tell me a little bit more about that and was there a particular moment that really defined your career and who you are as a person?
Doctor Anna Cody:
So, one of my early experiences, I think my first main job out of law school was working in El Salvador in Central America. And so that was an immersion experience, completely cross-cultural where I worked with women and girls around their legal rights doing a series of workshops. So developing as a part of a team of health and legal promoters around talking about women's legal rights. And the experience was recognising the strength of the women in their communities, the absolute poverty they were living in, and the strength of their relationships with each other, their love for their children, how hard they worked. They worked from five in the morning until 10 at night, both cooking, carting water, firewood, and then would squeeze in 45 minutes to come and learn about an area of the law. So inquisitive, curious, and I think what it did for me was dispel stereotypes around what it's like to live in a poor environment, in a poor country, but with so much against you, but such ability to live life, enjoy parts of your life. So a deep insight, I think, into different ways of thinking about the world and being in the world. And it opened me up to the ways in which culture expresses itself through people and how important it is and provided me, I think with that awareness, that language and culture is really significant for people for me, and that there's a richness there. And just watching, listening, participating, you can learn so much through that.
Rashida Yosufzai:
In the past, you've spoken about a specific legal case where you worked with a member of the Stolen Generations and how that really defined your career. Can you tell me a little bit more about that?
Doctor Anna Cody:
So, I worked on that case from 1995. It was handed to me by a fantastic solicitor before me, Paul Batley, and it was seeking recompense or some recognition of the huge injury that this woman, Joy Williams had experienced. And it was a really long, hard case because we were trying to create new ways that the law could recognise the harm that Stolen Generations had created for her, but other people as well. And what the case demonstrated was that the law wasn't able to provide proper recognition of her harm. And that's really wrong because it's a harm that is extends throughout Australia because of the policy in place to remove Indigenous children from their families for many, many years during the last century. So, it defined me because I think I recognised the limitations of the law, what it couldn't do, as well as the strength of the woman who I was working with, the incredible legal team that I worked with, Christine Adamson, Noel Hutley, really strong, committed lawyers who gave their absolute best and the determination of Joy as she was being a real trailblazer. She was a smart, funny, really determined woman, and it was really through her work and the other work from the Human Rights Commission, the Bringing Them Home Report, which started to shine a light on this really serious issue that Australia had dealt with for many, many years.
Rashida Yosufzai:
There's been a fair bit of discussion about the MeToo movement and how it has not so much filtered down to working class communities, women from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds. Do you think that there should be more done about empowering women from diverse backgrounds to be able to, I suppose, call out their abuser? Have we not done enough? And what are your perspectives about this?
Doctor Anna Cody:
So, I would note that the first, the founder of the MeToo movement was an African-American woman from working class background. So, in that way, it has captured the experience of diverse women across the community. Clearly culturally diverse women are sexually harassed and experienced sexual violence at high rates. The most recent study showed that one in two culturally diverse women experience sexual harassment. So, it is a really serious and extensive problem. The new positive duty that's coming in from December, I think will provide an avenue for employers. They will have to enact change within their organisations, within their workplaces, and I'm hopeful that that will provide a means rather than the burden of making complaints falling on individual women, which is very limited. It's a very reactive response. So having a positive duty as a preventative response will certainly assist all of workplaces to make them safe. But I think particularly will have an impact on culturally diverse women. It's also ensuring that those small businesses run by culturally diverse people, that those people are aware, as well, of their obligations to ensure that workplaces are safe, that there's leadership, that there's knowledge around what that obligation entails, that there's modelling of good behaviour, that culture is ensured to be safe and a welcoming, safe environment at work. So, I think that it's both workplaces where there are many employers who are from a range of cultural backgrounds, so ensuring that we get that message out. As a result, we will be translating our guidelines, which assist employers into seven different community languages.
Rashida Yosufzai:
In a recent interview, you spoke about wanting to do more work around the definitions of intersex people. What do you specifically want to focus on and what will your work around these areas be?
Doctor Anna Cody:
So, part of the Sex Discrimination Act, as well as including sex and gender, it also includes LGBTIQ plus communities. So, in terms of priorities, those are still to be determined. Again, I have already met with some organisations and heard some of the priorities that they're talking about. The rise in violence against trans people is really concerning, the impact that violence has. Two thirds of trans people talk about having mental health issues and having 50% have experienced some form of violence in the last two years. So those sorts of statistics are really concerning to me. So I will be wanting to find out ways that I can contribute to prevent some of that violence and some of the ways in which people are excluded from participating in the community. The commissioner and the previous commissioner did a report on trans people's inclusion in sport, which was a really interesting and important piece of work, which provided some guidelines for community sport and ways to ensure that trans people also participate in sport, which is obviously a fundamental right of all people in Australia.
Rashida Yosufzai:
The debate around transgender rights in sport has become quite heated in the past. How do you balance the rights of, I suppose, women athletes and other athletes and transgender rights as well?
Doctor Anna Cody:
I don't see it as a competition between the rights of women and the rights of trans people, trans men, trans women. We want to create an inclusive society in which everyone can reach their full potential, that everyone can get good health services. Everyone can go to university or go to TAFE, get educated, go to school. So, I don't see it as one or the other. We have a very wealthy country in Australia. We have great traditions including people into this community, and I have faith that we can do that.
