The Albanese Government’s first budget has delivered some initial steps toward gender equality with Treasurer Jim Chalmers even noting the government’s goal to make Australia “one of the most gender-equal countries in the world”.
There are some good investments in areas like early childhood education and care and paid parental leave. For the first time, the government has linked climate change and gender. There is also a $1.7 billion investment in women’s safety, but this falls far short of the funding experts say is needed to end violence against women. Funding to help women, especially older women and single mothers, facing poverty was also a glaring hole.
So what’s been the reaction from women’s advocacy organisations and other groups that have women’s best interests in mind? Here’s a snapshot.
Chief Executive Women
Chief Executive Women has welcomed the budget and Women’s Budget Statement, particularly its efforts to recognise that gender equality is at the heart of Australia’s future prosperity and resilience.
“Today’s budget tells us that women are respected, valued, and their participation is now regarded as central to Australia’s economic prosperity,” said Sam Mostyn, President of Chief Executive Women.
“Commitments to boost paid parental leave, more affordable early education and care and safety in all workplaces are welcome measures. CEW members know these reforms are the most critical levers to enable women’s participation and leadership.”
Mostyn said she welcomed the expansion of paid parental leave to six months by 2026 and the “use it or lose it” components, but also said CEW is calling for the government to extend the superannuation guarantee to the Paid Parental Leave scheme as a priority.
CEW also now calls for urgent action to address critical workforce shortages in the early childhood education and care, health, aged care and disability sectors.
“In particular, with much-needed changes to the Child Care Subsidy to be implemented in July 2023, we must have an adequate and sustainable workforce to meet this demand. CEW is calling for an immediate interim 10% wage supplement for educators in this sector.”
“The Women’s Budget Statement’s interlinking of themes of women’s economic equality, ending violence against women and women’s health and housing – herald the start of gender responsive budgeting and policymaking. As does the acknowledgement of the disproportionate impact of climate change on women in Australia.”
Mostyn said it was “concerning” the budget did not comprehensively address the circumstances of women living in poverty in Australia.
“This will need to be a priority for future policy and budgets. CEW has consistently called for an increase to JobSeeker and the reinstatement of the Sole Parent Payment, which we know will have an immediate and meaningful impact for hundreds of thousands of women and their children across the country.”
Fair Agenda
Gender equity group Fair Agenda welcomed the budget’s progress towards a more gender equal future, but called out the inadequate funding to address women’s safety.
“Women’s safety won’t be the winner of any budget until the government delivers the minimum of $1 billion a year that experts say is needed to start addressing gendered violence. This budget gets us just over halfway to that figure over the coming years,” said Renee Carr, Executive Director of Fair Agenda.
“This budget still leaves so many women in danger without the service support they need. We need major new investment over the term of the Albanese Government, starting from the next budget in May.
“It’s positive to see funding for respectful relationships; safer workplaces; and the community services so many women rely on for their safety. But after a decade of neglect by previous governments there’s much more investment needed across services.
“Right now men using violence are on months-long waiting lists for behaviour change interventions; women trying to escape domestic violence aren’t able to get the safety support they need; and rape survivors are being told to wait months for trauma counselling support.”
The Australian Primary Health Care Nurses Association (APNA)
APNA said the budget “failed to address” the growing nurse shortages in general practice and aged care, and the nursing profession is still waiting for the government to recognise how serious the shortage of primary healthcare (PHC) nurses is. Recent surveys from APNA show that one in four PHC nurses plan to leave nursing within the next two to five years.
“Australia’s PHC nursing workforce pipeline cannot meet future demand,” APNA President Karen Booth said.
“We are already experiencing nurse shortages and we are at risk of not having enough suitably trained PHC nurses to staff aged care homes, general practices, and other primary health care settings. We need a sustainable pipeline of qualified primary health care nurses now to meet the health care needs of the future.”
The Parenthood
Advocacy group for parents, children and families The Parenthood welcomed the budget’s investments in early childhood education and care and paid parental leave. It also recognised that the government must act to address the shortage of early childhood educators.
“Early childhood education and care and paid parental leave reform are on the federal agenda because of decades of campaigning largely led by women. This budget reflects a government willing to listen to those voices,” said Georgie Dent, Executive Director of The Parenthood.
“It is estimated paid parental leave changes will benefit more than 180,000 families over the coming years and 1.26 million families will be better off under changes the childcare subsidy that begins mid next year.”
The Parenthood called for action to address the early childhood workforce crisis before the changes come into play next July.
“We need to make sure the early childhood workforce is properly paid and supported. We need to act now to stem the loss of early educators and do everything we can to attract Australians back into this profession.”
Early Childhood Australia
The nation’s peak advocacy organisation for children and services, Early Childhood Australia (ECA), welcomed the budget as a “positive step” towards a longer-term vision for early childhood education and care.
“The support measures for families to improve access to early childhood education and care announced today are a step in the right direction and represent movement towards longer-term reform that will be progressed through the ACCC and the Productivity Commission reviews,’ said Samantha Page, CEO of ECA.
“We recently welcomed the removal of the activity test for Indigenous families, but it must be removed completely so that vulnerable families’ children are not left out and get better access to the early childhood education system.
ECA welcomed the $4.2 million investment over 18 months to support the development of a whole-of-Commonwealth Early Years Strategy. But it also said more needs to be done to address the workforce crisis facing the sector.
“It is promising to hear the Treasurer refer to the significant role that early childhood educators play in the lives of children,” Page said.
“Recognising the effort of the profession as “more than care.” While this form of recognition is important—and necessary—urgent effort is needed to address poor wages in the ECEC sector to enable it to deliver on the government’s promise of more affordable and accessible ECEC for children and families. We invite government to work to address the wage issue in collaboration with the sector.”
Teach Us Consent
Founder of Teach Us Consent, Chanel Contos welcomed the government’s investment in consent and respectful relationships education in schools.
“$83.5 million over six years for consent and respectful relationships education” Contos tweeted.
“Thank you to everyone who made consent education a national priority this year.”
Football Australia
Football Australia welcomed the government’s investment of $2.7 million over two years to encourage greater participation in football through the delivery of specific women and girls’ diversity and inclusion programs.
As part of Football Australia’s Legacy ’23 Plan – a strategy to ensure the FIFA Women’s World Cup 2023 delivers positive benefits for Australia’s largest sporting community beyond the tournament – the sport’s governing body will use the funding to support the delivery of two programs: Miniroos Multicultural Settlement Program and National Multicultural Youth Program.
Football Australia Chief Executive Officer, James Johnson, said: “By expanding the reach and impact of Australia’s most diverse and largest club participation sport, we can create more economic, health and social benefits for all Australians, and unlock the potential of women and girls from culturally-diverse communities.”
Women’s Electoral Lobby
The Women’s Electoral Lobby welcomed the government’s commitment in the Women’s Budget Statement to setting an agenda to drive change, including changes to early childhood education and paid parental leave.
“The establishment of a Ministerial Council on Women and Women’s Safety reporting directly to National Cabinet is a good sign. WEL hopes this heralds a new era that will make Australia a global leader in gender equality,” said WEL’s National Convenor, Jozefa Sobski.
“There is no new money for women’s safety, but an undertaking to improve the quality of spending with the abandonment of some measures from the old government. There is funding of $169.4 million over four years for 500 community workers, as promised. These workers will increase support for women and children experiencing family, domestic and sexual violence.
“WEL believes much more is needed than what was in the ALP election undertaking of $1.3 billion if the ambitions of the new National Plan to End Violence against Women are to be achieved.”
WEL also welcomed the investment in housing, but said it will not ‘dissolve the queues on public housing lists”.
“WEL acknowledges that the new Housing Australia Future Fund will address crisis and transitional housing for women and children leaving domestic and family violence and older women on low incomes who are at risk of homelessness with $100 million allocated in the first five years,” Sobski said.
“The Fund will also make available $1.6 billion to support long term housing for these women with an estimated 4,000 social housing properties to be constructed.”