Ms Catherine King (Ballarat, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government) Share this | Hansard source

by leave—I rise to speak on the Women's Budget Statement, tabled as a budget document on Tuesday night, as it has been for every budget delivered by the Albanese Labor government. It is a very proud history that we have of the Women's Budget Statement.

The Albanese government is committed to advancing gender equality as a national priority and closing the gender gaps in our community. This has been a priority of this government from day 1.

We are very committed to making life better for women. We are the first majority female federal government in Australia's history, and we have the first gender equal cabinet, and every single member of this government is committed to women's equality.

Gender equality brings with it opportunities for all Australians to thrive, making our economy stronger, more inclusive and, of course, more sustainable. We know that when women have fair opportunities, are treated equally and are safe, we lift living our standards, we boost productivity and we maximise the talent and capacity we need to build Australia's future.

Our government has put gender equality at the heart of policy and decision-making, through the introduction of gender responsive budgeting. Gender responsive budgeting creates better and fairer outcomes and ensures that all Australians have equal access to the opportunities and resources. I particularly pay tribute to the Minister for Finance and the Treasurer for actually embedding that within our budget development processes. It makes a substantial difference.

Gender responsive government is not just a Labor legacy, it is a Labor innovation—it was the Hawke government that led the world in introducing gender responsive budgeting back in 1984. Successive coalition governments have dismantled the practice, but under this government, gender responsive budgeting is absolutely core business—as it should be. I invite those opposite to commit to supporting and continuing to embed gender responsive budgeting, because it makes a difference.

Women's budget statements are a key feature of gender responsive budgeting. They provide vital analysis and outline the key measures in each and every budget which provide important supports for women, and they, of course, drive gender equality.

Since 2024, the statements have been informed by Working for women:A strategy for gender equality, which is the government's 10-year plan for investing in gender equality across five priority areas: gender based violence; unpaid and paid care; economic equality and security; health; and leadership, representation and decision-making. These areas have been our focus since coming to government, and they continue to guide everything that we do.

One year into Working for women, the government is continuing to take action to improve the lives of women in Australia and we are seeing progress.

Under our government, the national gender pay gap has fallen to 11.9 per cent as of November 2024—down from 14.1 per cent in May 2022. In this same period, women's full-time average weekly ordinary time earnings have grown by $217.40 a week, helping women to better deal with cost-of-living pressure and to build their lifelong economic security. And we've reached record highs for women's workforce participation. Alongside Labor's tax cuts, this means women are earning more and getting to keep more of what they earn.

The government's workplace relations reforms, improvements to wages, investments in cheaper early childhood education and care, and expansion of the Paid Parental Leave scheme are having an impact.

But we, of course, know there is always more to do. While it is narrowing, the gender pay gap exists and it is persisting—a reflection of challenges related to care and flexibility, industry gender segregation and women's underrepresentation in senior roles, and discrimination.

Women continue to carry the largest share of unpaid work, impacting on their long-term financial security, including into our retirements.

And rates of violence against women remain unacceptably high.

Since the October 2022 budget, our government has made record investments in women's safety—totalling over $4 billion—to support the National Plan to End Violence Against Women and Children in 2022-32.

In the second half of 2024, the Rapid Review of Prevention Approaches informed immediate actions following help to end the scourge of violence of against women and children in this country. We invested $534.5 million to extend the National Partnership Agreement on Family, Domestic and Sexual Violence Responses to support frontline service delivery and to deliver additional responses to high-risk and serial perpetrators, support for children and young people and support for other initiatives to help break the cycle of violence.

In addition, the Commonwealth funded a new $3.9 billion National Access to Justice Partnership with the states and territories, which has a focus on uplifting services that respond to gender based violence and provide culturally safe legal assistance to First Nations people. I acknowledge the Attorney-General's work in that.

In this budget, we have further invested to strengthen justice systems' responses to sexual violence, with $21.4 million invested over three years from 2025-26 for immediate, targeted measures to improve victim and survivor engagement with the justice system and to inform a broader response to the ALRC Inquiry into Justice Responses to Sexual Violence.

To further address family, domestic and sexual violence in First Nations communities, the government is providing $21.8 million over two years from 2025-26 to continue the delivery of prevention, early intervention and response services.

These reforms build on the actions we've already taken to address domestic, family and sexual violence.

Acting to implement all the recommendations of Respect@Work so women are also safer at work has been a significant focus point of the government.

We're investing in programs that provide direct support to children and young people who have experienced violence and may be at risk of using it as well. Again, we're working on prevention.

We're implementing paid domestic violence leave for more than 12.4 million workers—which has now been demonstrated to actually make a significant difference to victim-survivor 's lives.

We're establishing a new Leaving Violence Program to provide better support to victim-survivors leaving violence.

We're delivering consent education and support for young people, including for young men and boys, to support them to have healthy and safe relationships.

We're investing in housing for women and children fleeing violence.

We're supporting intervention for men and boys who use violence, and innovative ways of engaging with perpetrators to support them to change their violent behaviours. We haven't just left it to one portfolio to address these issues; we are all in on this.

Paid and unpaid care

We know that low wages in the female-dominated care and support economy drives the gender pay gap. We also know a lack of affordable early childhood education and care is a significant barrier to families working the way that they want.

This Government is addressing both of these important issues.

Under the three-day guarantee, from January 2026, all families will be eligible for at least 72 hours of subsidised early childhood education and care each fortnight for each child regardless of activity levels, with a greater entitlement of 100 subsidised hours for First Nations children.

We will also build more early childhood education and care centres and expand services in areas of need, including in the outer suburbs and regional areas through our $1 billion Building Early Education Fund.

To support our investments in child care, we are delivering a phased 15 per cent wage increase for eligible early childhood education and care workers over two years from December 2024.

These investments will make early childhood education and care more affordable and more accessible so that families have more choices and will help address the historic undervaluation of the critical female dominated workforce.

This work builds on the significant investments we've of course made since coming to government—including $4.7 billion in our very first budget to support cheaper child care.

This effort is having an impact—a family earning $120,000 a year has saved $2,768, while there are 97,000 more children in early childhood education supported by over 40,000 more early childhood educators.

We are making these investments because we know Australian kids deserve high quality early childhood education and Australian families, especially women, rely on access to high quality care for their children.

We also know that care industries are critical to our community and, of course, to the economy.

The budget invests $2.6 billion for aged-care nurses. This builds on the significant investments in wages for the aged-care workforce—another female dominated sector with a historic undervaluation of critical care work.

We expect these investments will help both grow these important workforces and, of course, help to close the gender pay gap. Last year, data from the Workplace Gender Equality Agency showed that the main driver of the decrease in the gender pay gap in 2023-24 was the increase in wages for lower paid workers—in particular, aged-care residential services, where women make up approximately 80 per cent of the workforce.

Women's economic equality

Australia has one of the highest rates of workforce gender segregation amongst advanced economies. This impacts on skills shortages in key workforces and contributes to the gender pay gap. We know we need to address this to ensure the success of our Future Made in Australia agenda and the massive investments we are making in infrastructure across the country.

We're working to promote greater gender balance and opportunities through our investments in new and emerging industries.

This budget includes a new $16.4 million tripartite pilot grants program to help identify new ways to make workplaces safer, more respectful and more equitable for women in traditionally male dominated sectors. This complements our $60.6 million Building Women's Careers Program, which works to drive systematic structural and cultural change in training and work environments crucial to the Future Made in Australia agenda.

The Future Made in Australia community benefit principles are designed to promote safe and secure jobs and to develop more skilled and inclusive workforces, including for women. These principles are consistent with the government's commitment to address the drivers of workforce gender segregation to ensure that women share in the jobs of the future.

We have also made deliberate and careful structural reforms to close gender gaps in the workforce.

We reformed our industrial relations system with greater protections for women, such as to provide protections for breastfeeding or being a victim-survivor of domestic or family violence.

We've made gender equality a central objective of the Fair Work Act.

We've increased transparency and reporting on the gender pay gap.

We're now in the second year of the Workplace Gender Equality Agency reporting the gender pay gaps of private sector employers with more than 100 workers, providing focus to how—and if—businesses are working to advance equality within their own workplaces.

Pay gaps for public sector employees have been published for the first time in the first half of 2025.

We've now also passed the Workforce Gender Equality Amendment (Setting Gender Equality Targets) Bill 2024, which will introduce a world-first targets scheme to accelerate action on gender equality by large Australian employers. It will require organisations with 500 or more employees in Australia to commit to achieve—or, at a minimum, make progress toward—measurable targets to progress gender equality in their workplaces.

While those opposite opposed this important legislation, these targets will lead to more ambitious commitments and progress, driving workplace gender equality in Australia and helping to close the gender pay gap more quickly.

Our investments in this budget are a continuation of our work to advance gender equality since we came to government, with reforms continuing to come into effect—superannuation will be paid on government paid parental leave from July 2025, and it will expand to six months from July 2026.

We're expanding parenting payment single to provide more support to single mums.

In late 2024 we launched the new Parent Pathways program to support vulnerable parents and their children.

We've introduced legislation to make free TAFE permanent.

Commonwealth practicum payments will start from mid-2025, supporting 68,000 education students and 5,000 VET students per year—and women are expected to be the vast majority of these students.

Our reforms to HELP and other student loans, including limiting indexation and our proposed changes to the repayment system and to reduce student debts, will help with the cost of living, with women holding the majority of student loans.

Health

Another big focus you are going to hear a lot more about, of course, is health—especially women's health. I again acknowledge the Assistant Minister for Health and Ageing's work on this matter. Women told us about the challenges in receiving health support when their needs and concerns are often ignored or sidelined and when the cost of care is often high.

We've listened to women and experts, and we are taking action to address longstanding gaps in our healthcare system.

This budget invests $792.9 million over five years to provide women with more choice and control in their own health care.

This includes the first Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) listing for a new oral contraceptive pill in more than 30 years and the first PBS listing for new menopausal hormone therapies in over 20 years. I know many of the members certainly on this side and I am sure the other side have had women approach them to tell them what a significant change that has made not only to their health but also to their cost of living. It is a really substantial investment.

These changes will improve access and provide critical cost-of-living relief by saving women who need this care thousands of dollars across their lifetimes.

Our investments in women health are being built on the important work being led through the Women's Health Advisory Council and of course by Assistant Minister Ged Kearney and Minister for Health and Ageing, Mark Butler, who have been determined to sit down and listen to women about their health needs and to ensure women's voices in their health policies. As I said, this has been an all-in effort. I want to particularly acknowledge the Minister for Social Services, Amanda Rishworth, whose strong leadership in the area of women and domestic violence has been exemplary.

Leadership

We continue to invest in women's leadership and representation in this budget. We are investing in business coaching and mentoring for First Nations women.

We are investing in women's sport, with investments in MYEFO 2025-26 to support Football Australia to deliver the Women's Asian Cup 2026, building on our previous investments in the Netball World Cup and in the Play Our Way program, which is providing $200 million in targeted grants for infrastructure and sporting facilities to support women and girls to participate in sports and physical activity. And you could not have a better advocate for women's sport than our Minister for Sport, Minister Wells.

Labor's investment in women

Our fourth Women's Budget Statement tells a clear story of a government that has deliberately placed gender equality at its centre.

It shows that deliberate systematic investment in women over four budgets, big investments in every aspect of life from parental leave to women's health.

From child care to aged care.

From better pay and a fair deal at work and in education, to tax cuts and cost-of-living relief.

All informed by analysis of impact on women and focus on lasting structural improvement.

Not an afterthought or a nice to have.

But as core business of this government.

A more equal Australia is a better Australia for everyone of us—it is safer, more productive and means more opportunities and greater flexibility for men and for women.

Our government is proud of what we are delivering for women and we will keep going.

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