Women’s Budget the first step to rebuilding trust

Short of dressing up the Budget papers with neon flashing lights it would be hard for Morrison Government to send clearer message to Australian women.

Short of dressing up the Budget papers with neon flashing lights it would be hard for Morrison Government to send clearer message to Australian women.

“You have been heard” screams the notable addition to the usual budgetary documents this year – an entire 81-page tome titled the Women’s Budget Statement.

Thousands of women marched across Australia demanding action to end harrassment and abuse. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Gary Ramage

In it the lamentable status of women in the workplace, their lower wages and much higher chance of suffering harassment and abuse both on the job and in their own home is clinically laid out, alongside a raft of measures to address those issues totalling about $3.4 billion.

As a pitch to female voters, it’s about as unsubtle a gesture as they come.

But when one Australian woman is killed every nine days, there is no time for polite obfuscation.

After struggling to strike the right tone with women across the country following a series of missteps in response to the collective outrage unleashed by an allegation of sexual assault in Parliament House, the government has finally set out how it intends to meaningfully do better for all women in Australia.

The government’s Women’s Budget Statement is the first step to rebuild public trust. Picture: Brad Fleet

There’s a genuine attempt to address the horrific rates of abuse, with funds to deal with legal aid, emergency housing and finally, to properly document the rate of violence experienced by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women.

It’s a dramatic turnaround from the almost total absence of women in last year’s Budget, a problem privately lamented by female Coalition MPs at the time.

Now though, they have a seat at the table – well their own separate table: the Prime Minister’s newly formed Women’s Cabinet.

Female voters will be rightly sceptical of this sudden pivot, but they should not fear the opportunity it presents.

By lifting the issues of women above the rabble of general government business, there is far more scope for public scrutiny.

Just as actions speak louder than words, in Budget land, outcomes from many of these ad hoc shorter term funding boosts will speak louder than commitments.