NSW Budget: Women key as Matt Kean takes aim at disparity

Invoking the ‘courageous advocacy’ of Grace Tame, Matt Kean delivered a budget aimed squarely at women voters.

NSW Treasurer Matt Kean. Picture: AAP

Invoking the “courageous advocacy” of child abuse survivor and former Australian of the Year Grace Tame, NSW Treasurer Matt Kean delivered a budget aimed squarely at women voters, with its centrepiece a $5bn investment in childcare over the next decade.

After female voters turned on the Morrison government at the federal election, Mr Kean has cast his first budget as a “transformational opportunity” to increase the number of women in the workforce and reduce the gender pay gap once they get there.

Mr Kean claims his childcare reforms, revolving around an ­already leaked $1.7bn pre-kindergarten program, will translate to up to an extra $4400 income per household over the decade, and up to 47,000 more women entering the workforce.

In addition, up to 48,000 more women would shift from part-time to full-time work over the decade, on Treasury projections.

Around $100m will be spent over four years on women’s safety, to help victim-survivors leave domestic and family violence and stop the harassment of women at work and in public.

“Last year, following the courageous advocacy of Grace Tame, we saw an outpouring of frustration and calls for change from women across our country,” Mr Kean said. “I have heard stories of women taking the long way home to avoid dimly lit streets when they leave work after dark. I have heard stories of female managers getting paid less than their male colleagues who report to them.

“Women’s participation rates begin to drop below men’s in their late-20s, and never recover to the same level. For many Australian women, this is because they make the choice to leave the workforce to care for children.”

Too many women took home only 30c in each dollar they earned after taking account of tax and childcare costs, Mr Kean said.

Last year, women were paid 12 per cent less on average than men, the equivalent of about $11,500 a year.

The government claims it will close the women’s workforce participation gap by 4-14 per cent over the next 10 years.

On Treasury modelling, the changes would increase average women’s wages by between 0.1 and 0.6 per cent by the 10th year, which would account for between 2 per cent and 7.6 per cent of the current wages gap with men.

The broad targets are contingent on proposed changes to child­care subsidies promised by the Albanese government, which increase the commonwealth subsidy to up to 90 per cent for the first child. Mr Kean said the Perrottet government would “work with the commonwealth government to ensure that the (NSW) fee relief will be in addition to the Child Care Subsidy payments.”

A middle-income family with one child would save up to $3900 a year on childcare costs.

The pre-kindergarten program commits $5.8bn over a decade for up to five days a week low or no-cost pre-kindergarten for children in the year before school.

The government also announced a $12m women’s venture capital fund, the Carla Zampatti Fund, to support start-ups by female entrepreneurs and small business owners. Currently, only a third of businesses in NSW are owned by women and women-led start-ups receive just 5 per cent of venture capital.

The budget includes $80m to help women access affordable fertility treatments, and $40m to improve the healthcare of women experiencing menopause.