Marise Payne (NSW, Liberal Party, Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Chandler for her question. Just this week, the Minister for Industry, Science and Technology, Minister Karen Andrews, and I announced the first 51 grant recipients in the Boosting Female Founders Initiative. These are grants that are going to help some of our best and brightest women launch their ideas for the future. The initiative supports these women entrepreneurs to grow their businesses and, ultimately, to create jobs for all Australians. We do know that female founded start-ups do face additional challenges in getting the finance that they need to establish themselves and to grow as businesses. Through the 2020 Women's Economic Security Statement, we have invested over $35 million in the Boosting Female Founders Initiative. That will provide grants of between $25,000 and $480,000 to 282 start-ups that are majority owned and led by women. It will also provide tailored mentorship and advice to up to 4,300 women entrepreneurs.

The businesses are very diverse. They include businesses like Champion Life, a health education technology company which facilitates the development of lifelong healthy habits in young people. They include the award-winning Woolcool Australia, which is an innovative, sustainable packaging business that uses Australian wool for its products. They include a really interesting New South Wales business, based in the Hunter. The owner and operator is Cherie Johnson, an Aboriginal arts and education consultant who works on Aboriginal cultural capacity training and on cultural workshops, amongst other things. Amongst the 51 grant recipients, there's an extraordinary diversity of activity and there's an extraordinary diversity of businesses. It's because we believe in private sector led economic growth as well as in boosting women's workforce—