Larissa Waters (Queensland, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I seek leave to amend general business notice of motion 1422 standing in my name for today, relating to budget asks for Australian women, at the request of Labor, to delete some specific funding amounts for domestic violence and abortion before asking that it be taken as a formal motion.

Leave granted.

I move the motion as amended in the terms circulated in the chamber:

That the Senate—

(a) notes that:

  (i) today on Budget day, the women of Australia will be looking to their government to address economic inequality and women's financial security,

  (ii) the gender pay gap is currently 14.6%, meaning women would have to work an extra 62 days per year to earn the same money as their male counterparts,

  (iii) the fastest-growing cohort of homeless people in Australia is older women,

  (iv) one in two women fleeing domestic violence are turned away from refuges due to lack of beds,

  (v) there is unmet need for legal advice and support for women due to underfunding of community legal centres,

  (vi) one in three women retire with no superannuation, and those who do retire with superannuation do so with just over half the amount that men do,

  (vii) women do most of the unpaid care work in society, estimated at more than 60%,

  (viii) well over 50% of migrants to Australia are women, and they bear the cost of delays in family reunification processing, and

  (ix) budget cuts made in 2014 to frontline domestic violence services have been compounded by continued underfunding; and

(b) calls on the Federal Government in tonight's Budget to:

  (i) restore the Women's Budget Impact Statement, axed in 2014,

  (ii) fully fund family and domestic violence services, by funding frontline crisis services and primary prevention,

  (iii) commit to make abortion safe, accessible, legal and free,

  (iv) address the housing and homelessness crisis for older women, by providing certainty of funding for transitional housing and crisis services,

  (v) work to extend paid parental leave arrangements to a goal of twenty-six weeks with superannuation, and

  (vi) increase foreign aid to improve global equality for women through Australia's international development program.