Katy Gallagher (ACT, Australian Labor Party, Minister for the Public Service) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Grogan for the question and for her career-long work on supporting women and gender equality across the country, particularly in South Australia. I can assist you, Senator Grogan. The last gender gap report from the World Economic Forum shows that, since the Albanese Labor government took office, Australia's world gender equality rating has up from 43rd to 26th. We were 43rd in 2022 and even lower in 2021 when we were ranked 50th. In 2023, we are now 26th out of 143 countries. Our increased score is entirely due to the increased number of women in parliament and the increased number of women in cabinet since the May '22 election. The report itself notes:

Compared to the previous edition, 13 countries have improved, led by Australia, New Zealand and Philippines. Australia and New Zealand had a considerable increase in the share of women ministers.

This is the biggest increase for Australia in the history of the index since it began in 2001. This index is important. It measures the gap between women and men, as Senator Grogan outlined in her question. It uses four sub measures like political empowerment, economic participation, education and health, and the index is calculated as a score and a global rank. It is important that we are continuing to challenge and raise our international rankings. Of course, it is not only increasing representation of women in this place or around the cabinet table, which does require deliberate action but it is also in the policy agenda that the Albanese government has implemented in the first 14 months of his government and will continue to over the duration of this term.