Help for women to join business world

New commitments to encourage female leadership in the corporate sector and boost the number of women entrepreneurs will be included in the budget.

Businesswoman Jane Cay says childcare assistance would help more women launch their own start-ups. Picture Rohan Kelly

New commitments to encourage female leadership in business and boost the number of women entrepreneurs will be ­included in Tuesday’s budget, as the Morrison government ­attempts to change a perception it has a problem with women.

The measures will be among a stand-alone 50-page statement ­focused on improving women’s economic security and health outcomes. It will be the third women’s statement delivered by the ­Coalition since 2018.

It is also expected that Josh Frydenberg’s third budget will more than double funding for women and their children escaping domestic violence to $680m over the next three to four years.

After the government was embroiled in turmoil over rape allegations and the treatment of women in the workplace, Jane Cay, one of Australia’s most successful entrepreneurs, said that better access to childcare was the key to boosting women in their own businesses.

The founder of the $25m Birds-nest online clothing store headquartered in Cooma, NSW, said young women constantly raised issues of home management and childcare as barriers to launching their own start-ups.

“We run quite a few women through our operations and mostly they are trying to validate their business ideas and a lot of the question are about how to manage their family issues,” Ms Cay said.

“I know an incredible person who is trying to set up a business — she has four children — and I want to give her someone to manage her home life.”

Ms Cay said the chance to balance work and home drew many women to set up their own business but the early phases required a “huge effort that we do by not sleeping, but that’s not sustainable”.

“It’s childcare that would give women the space to build their own companies,” she said.

Brydie Stewart, the founder of the Mary Maker Studio that exports its specialised craft materials, said seed funding would be a great incentive to women to launch innovative companies with potential to reach an international market.

Often those launching start-ups were locked into jobs as they began their operations, just to survive.

Ms Stewart was a schoolteacher when she began her online business as a “side hustle” and said government funding would have allowed her to start operating earlier and to set up her business differently.

The government has ­announced several major funding measures targeting women on the eve of the budget, including a $1.7bn expansion of childcare subsidies and $354m women’s health package.

Health Minister Greg Hunt ­announced the health funding on Mother’s Day, with $100.4m to ­improve cervical and breast cancer screening programs, $95.9m to subsidise the testing of genetic or chromosomal abnormalities of embryos and $47.4m to move ­towards universal mental health screening of new and expectant parents.

There will also be $13.7m handed to the Australian preterm birth prevention alliance to reduce the rate of babies born early, $19.3m to list Oripro or progesterone — a hormone that helps prevent women going into premature ­labour — on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme and $26.9m to support ­people with eating disorders.

“There’s $19m for a new PBS listing, Oripro. This will help over 14,000 patients have access to a new medicine which will assist in helping to prevent premature births. It’s hard to imagine a more important medicine,” Mr Hunt said.

Opposition women’s spokeswoman Tanya Plibersek said the women’s health funding looked “like business as usual”.

“I’m not sure that there is anything in this announcement that is highly innovative,” she said.

The Weekend Australian revealed more than 125,000 single parents would also be eligible to shift from long-term renting to owning a home with as little as a 2 per cent deposit, or just $8000, under a government-guaranteed home loan scheme to help women who are marginalised from the property market.

Additional reporting by Joe Kelly