This election year, the women’s vote will be vital.
Now that there’s a tentative election date on the cards — the 2nd of July — we thought we’d offer Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Opposition leader Bill Shorten some ideas to help.
So below’s our memo to Canberra on just what’s pissing off many women around the country, along with three ideas on what to do about it.
Areas that could make a meaningful difference to at least 50% of the electorate? Sounds strategic to us.
And let us know what matters to you with our quick Federal Election poll.
1. Reform women’s superannuation.
What’s the problem?
Our superannuation system was not designed for women.
A hangover from decades past, it was created with a full-time, full-pay male workplace in mind. You know, the kind of workplace that hasn’t existed for a good thirty, forty years now.
Because women take breaks in their careers and work part-time roles to accommodate family commitments, they end up with significantly less super by retirement. Add to this the fact that women are paid less for equal work, and the lower pay for female-dominated industries, and it’s no surprise that there’s around a 50 percent gap between men and women’s super.
This puts single women, in particular, in a precarious position. Without a partner to financially support them, 70% of single women rely on the old age pension to retire, and 30 percent of them end up living in poverty.
We can’t have a system where older women are dependent on a male partner to live above the poverty line. With the current federal parliamentary inquiry into superannuation, it’s time for critical reforms.
3 changes that could help:
* Reinstating the low-income super contribution, which largely benefitted women.
* Reviewing recent negative changes to the age pension asset test.
* Extending tax concessions to women’s super.
2. Secure long-term funding for family violence services.
What’s the problem?
While family violence has reached epidemic proportions in Australia, successive governments have stripped billions of dollars from the very services that could prevent this national tragedy.
It’s not just that these services are drastically underfunded – it’s also the way they’re funded.
Government funding is ad-hoc and lacks a holistic, structural approach to the problem of family violence. Often, funding is only provided through homelessness prevention programs, which aren’t able to take a 360 degree approach to the problem like specialist family violence services can.
Funding often favours isolated, short-term projects over service providers with long-term costs. Government support is insecure, and can change with every election. This means the sector has to dedicate huge resources to fighting cuts, which takes away from their ability to help women and children in need.
3 changes that could help:
* Reinstating and increasing federal funding to specialist family violence services.
* Forming a national partnership agreement between federal and state governments that ensures there’s a dedicated, long-term budget with funding commitments.
* Improving the response of emergency services, courts, social services and employers to domestic violence through training and support.
3. Make childcare affordable.
It is statistically evident that most voters in Australia have children, will have children (or were at least children once!).
Needless to say, childcare is a critical issue for both gender and economic equality. But the situation is getting worse: fees and waiting lists have increased, while the number of available places is shrinking. The quality of education is dropping, while parents who can’t get into centres are forced to rely on babysitters with no formal background in early childhood development.
Women with lower incomes are affected the most, as fees represent a larger chunk of their household budget. For many, this reduces their ability to reenter the workforce. Tilting childcare subsidies toward lower income women results in higher workforce participation. What’s more, there’s some evidence to show that children from socially disadvantaged areas benefit the most in education outcomes from early childhood learning.
3 changes that could help:
* Increasing childcare subsidies across the board, particularly for low-income women and those whose children are vulnerable or at risk.
* Offering incentives, like waiving student debt, for tertiary qualified teachers to fill the staffing gaps in long daycare.
* Investing in new rooms and facilities in community and not-for-profit daycare centres, to create more places, and to stop the cost being passed to consumers.