Anne Ruston (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Families and Social Services) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Smith for the question. The federal government is absolutely delighted to be able to have presented the second Women's Economic Security Statement as part of this budget, and a number of new measures have been able to be added to the ongoing measures that are embedded in every part of the budget to support Australia's women as part of our plan for the economic recovery that was announced, which was our budget last night. We believe that women play a very important role. First and foremost, we also understand that the most important thing we can do for women is to make sure that they have access to work when and if they want it.

But there are a number of measures that were listed last night in the Women's Economic Security Statement, including a couple that are particularly in my area. There was the announcement of the paid parental leave changes for women who have missed out on being able to get paid parental leave because the circumstances surrounding them becoming unemployed meant that they couldn't meet the work test. We have allocated $130 million over this 12-month period alone to make sure that women who found themselves out of work due to the COVID pandemic are still able to access their paid parental leave. We understand that many of those women had probably made decisions in relation to their families before the pandemic hit.

We have also made sure that we have a very strong focus on getting women into work in the areas of science, technology, engineering and mathematics. We understand that the jobs of the future are going to be around that science base, because so many of the exciting opportunities for Australian employment going forward are going to be in these areas. So there are a number of areas in the budget that are focused on making sure that women have the opportunity to take the jobs of the future, supporting them in their education, their skills and their training to make sure that they can take those opportunities.