Nearly 1200 pre-eminent social researchers, academics and feminists and concerned citizens have signed a petition calling on the Australian Bureau of Statistics to reinstate its survey of how women, carers and volunteers contribute to the nation.
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Sex Discrimination Commissioner Elizabeth Broderick has supported the petition and has written personally to the ABS to express her ''deep concern'' that the work, life and family survey has been axed this year in an attempt to save the statutory authority $1.4 million.
The survey is the only evidence collected on the millions of hours women and men put into unpaid household, voluntary and community work and is used to inform government policy on issues such as maternity leave, childcare, superannuation and work-life balance.
The decision to abandon this year's planned survey will mean there will be a 13-year gap between the last survey in 2006 and the planned resumption of the survey in 2019 - breaking the time series which dates back to 1992.
In Tuesday's budget, the ABS received an additional $5.2 million in Commonwealth funding for the annual production of input-output tables and $1.4 million to bring the household expenditure survey on a four-year, rather than six-year, cycle.
A spokesman said on Thursday there was no scope redirect the funding from programs for which it has been allocated.
He said that while the ABS was unable to reinstate the 2013 cycle of the work life and families survey, ''we are exploring options for measuring key components of the survey using other ABS household surveys''.
Cecelia Herbert, a PhD student, diversity and inclusion consultant, and mother, helped organise the petition and said there was enormous professional concern that the data would lapse for another six years.
Other signatories included Professor Barbara Pocock, director of the centre for work and life at the University of South Australia, Professor Lyn Craig, a fellow at the social policy research centre at the University of NSW, Michael Bittman, a professorial fellow of sociology at the University of New England, and Australian National University professor of politics Marian Sawer.
When the cuts were revealed publicly in March, the office of the Minister for the Status of Women Julie Collins said the government had no control over the ABS' internal priorities for budget cuts.
But opposition parliamentary secretary on the status of women Michaelia Cash said the decision showed the Labor government was ''strong on rhetoric but weak on delivery when it comes to policies that advance Australian women''.
Feminist, author and professorial fellow at the University of Technology Sydney Eva Cox said the decision was appalling and her research into single parents would be compromised by the lack of timely data.
Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young will table the petition in Parliament next month, saying the decision would impact negatively on women in particular.
''We know that women are over-represented in unpaid work and now that the ABS WoLFS survey has been cut, the contribution of those women will be even less recognised,'' Senator Hanson-Young said. The Greens will urge the Government to bring forward funding for the survey.