Labor to exclude companies without gender equality targets from lucrative contracts

Labor will not award government contracts to businesses that do not have targets to address gender inequality.

Finance Minister Katy Gallagher at Parliament House in Canberra. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Martin Ollman

Women’s Minister Katy Gallagher says the government wants to do more to make abortions accessible to women, leaving the door open to past policies that would have forced public hospitals to offer terminations as part of their commonwealth funding agreements.

As the government unveiled its new national strategy to achieve gender equality, Senator Gallagher said one of her long-standing commitments since coming to parliament had been to ensure women had equitable access to reproductive health services.

When asked if Labor would consider reforms to make all abortions free and offered by all public hospitals, as was the party’s policy ahead of the 2019 election, Senator Gallagher would not rule it out.

“There is a Senate committee report … The government is finalising its response to that report. This is an issue that many women have raised with me around access to healthcare but including access to reproductive healthcare, including termination of pregnancy or abortion,” she said at the National Press Club. “We will consider that.”

Reproductive health advocates and the Greens blasted Labor for not acting sooner, with the Senate inquiry into access to abortion having concluded in May last year.

“Health is one of the strategy’s priority areas but the government response to the Senate inquiry into reproductive healthcare … is seven months overdue, with no explanation for inaction,” said Greens women’s spokeswoman Larissa Waters.

“Meanwhile, people are forced to travel hundreds of kilometres and spend hundreds of dollars (for) surgical abortion.”

Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Obstetricians fellow Kirstin Black said it was “outrageous” that women still had to pay for abortions, which were common procedures compared to other rarer medical treatments that were offered for free.

“It’s one of the most common procedures done. So absolutely … states should be mandated to provide it as part of their ser­vices,” she said.

As part of Labor’s national strategy released on Thursday, Senator Gallagher also announced big businesses would not be awarded government contracts unless they set and met targets to address gender inequality, including achieving gender pay parity and offering flexible working arrangements.

It follows data released last week on the gender pay gap in 5000 Australian companies revealed gaps above 30 cent in some cases.

Additionally, the government will look at “funding programs to build engagement of men as caregivers” under the national strategy, in a signal that Labor will consider further policies to make sure men took more time off when a baby was born.

As part of immediate action to improve gender inequality, Labor announced this week it would add superannuation to the government-funded Paid Parental Leave.

The costings of the measure – which are widely expected to run at about $200m a year – will not be provided until the May ­budget.