Desire for social justice: equal pay, the International Labour Organisation, and Australian government policy, 1919-1975

Research Doctorate - Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)Australia is one of the forty-two founding members of the International Labour Organisation (ILO), established in 1919. The objective of the ILP is to develop and raise international labour standards in order to promote social justice and secure world peace, with the ultimate goal of making those standards part of the law and practice of member countries. Yet, eighty-one countries had ratified the 1951 Equal Remuneration Convention before the Australian government's formal agreement in 1974. Within days of being elected in 1972, the Whitlam Labour government asserted its desire to pursue a new direction in foreign affairs and its intention to ratify a number of significant ILO Conventions addressing human rights. The Federal Parliamentary Labour Party also declared its commitment to overruling State involvement in the decision making process if this would assist in the reconstruction of Australia's image overseas. Until now, feminist approaches to the determinants and processes of foreign policy have been paid limited attention,. International relations theorists have either assumed that women's experiences are marginal to the study of "high politics", national security and diplomacy, or that both men and women are similarity affected by foreign policy decision. This study traces the development of successive Australian governments' relationships with the ILO from 1919 to 1975 in order to assess the interconnections between domestic and foreign policy decision-making with regard to the issue of equal pay for women. A particular focus is on the role of external influences, such as ILO standards, on major forces or groups within Australia. The defence of "domestic jurisdiction" has an extensive history. As such, equal pay for women was long in coming. This thesis challenges a commonly held view: - that successive Australia governments were unable to ratify many ILO Conventions, particularly those that supported equal remuneration for men and women, simply because of the constraints of the federal constitution. It demonstrates that the elimination of discrimination between men and women was both a foreign and domestic policy issue, actively ignored, suppressed or confronted through strategies designed to effectively counter demands for social justice