Linda White (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Finance and the Minister for Women, Senator Gallagher. Can the minister please inform the Senate how women have been placed at the centre of the Albanese government's budget?

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

I thank Senator White for the question and for her longstanding interest in women's policy and gender equality. In fact, all of those who sit on these benches have a commitment around achieving gender equality in this country.

After a decade of neglect by the previous government, our government is committed to putting gender equality at the core of our budget and unlocking the valuing, the talent, the potential and the contribution of women in Australia. We're investing $4.7 billion in cheaper child care. This will make it cheaper and easier for 96 per cent of families to access early childhood education and support workforce participation, especially by women. We're providing $531 million to expand the Paid Parental Leave Scheme up to 26 weeks. That is another one of the national schemes that Labor built and Labor is making even stronger. We're investing $1.7 billion to improve women's safety initiatives to support our ambition of a country free from gender based violence in a generation.

These measures form just part of our $7 billion investment in this budget to drive gender equality. These are our first steps. We will also deliver a national strategy to achieve gender equality within our first year of government, to provide vision and direction about how we can achieve gender equality in Australia. I look forward to working with all of my colleagues in doing that.

We had a great event this morning launching the Women's Budget Statement. Remember when that got cancelled by then Minister Abbott, the then Minister for Women? We have put that back in place and we have made it a document of substance. That is what we will continue to do, because this is a government that takes achieving gender equality seriously.

Sue Lines (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator White, a first supplementary?

Linda White (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you for that fantastic answer, Minister. Can the minister outline the government's commitment to reinstate gender responsive budgeting?

Sue Lines (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator White, a first supplementary?

Linda White (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

HITE () (): Thank you for that fantastic answer, Minister. Can the minister outline the government's commitment to reinstating gender-responsive budgeting?

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

Thank you, Senator White, for the question. Unlike the previous government, women are not an add-on in this budget; they are at its core, and decisions that the government make, when we make them, are informed by gender analysis about how those decisions affect women. We're putting gender equality at the heart of decision-making by reintroducing gender-responsive budgeting after it had previously been abolished by the coalition government. It was something that we tried to keep up in opposition, and I pay credit to our colleagues Tanya Plibersek, Sharon Claydon and the status of women committee, who worked tirelessly in opposition with no resourcing and very little time to do the assessment that's now being led by the Public Service. It was important because it sent a message that we take gender-responsive budgeting seriously, and you see that reflected in the Women' Budget Statement released on Tuesday night.

Sue Lines (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator White, a second supplementary?

Linda White (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Can the minister explain why advancing gender equality is an economic and social imperative?

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

I thank Senator White for the question. Unfortunately, Australia currently ranks 43rd out of 146 countries in the World Economic Forum global gender gap index. This is where we are today. Our gender pay gap stands at 14.1 per cent; it is higher for First Nations women. It's not good enough and we know that we cannot call ourselves a fair country while one half of the population is paid less, does more unpaid care, and experiences higher rates of domestic, family, and sexual violence.

Driving gender equality isn't just good for women; it's also good economic policy. This was a resounding message from our Jobs and Skills Summit. One of the first outcomes of that meeting was that women's economic equality must be treated as a key economic imperative, that it was crucial to the future of our economic prosperity and that we deal with it that way. We have listened to that and that's why I'm proud of this budget which places women at the centre. (Time expired)