Progress, but many calls go unanswered

The Albanese government have prioritised domestic violence funding and quotas for women as it attempts to tackle gender gaps.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers and Finance Minister Katy Gallagher.

The Albanese government has shelved half of the ambitious recommendations from its Women’s Economic Equality Taskforce and used Tuesday’s budget to push ahead with more domestic violence funding, rental assistance, quotas for women in male-dominated industries and an expansion of the single parenting payment.

In a letter to Women’s Minister Katy Gallagher last month, the WEET laid out six “urgent and targeted actions” the government should take in the budget to address women’s economic inequality.

While abolishing the Parents­Next welfare program, increasing Commonwealth Rent Assistance and lifting eligibility for the single parenting payment, Labor failed to act on the other three calls from its own task force.

These included scrapping the Childcare Subsidy Activity Test – also recommended to government by the Economic Inclusion Advisory Committee – implementing an interim rise to the wages of early childhood educators and paying superannuation to primary carers while they are on paid parental leave.

Senator Gallagher told the Australian last week the work needed to address gender equality was “not finished in one budget” and that the government was unable to “do everything at once”.

She said a Productivity Commission review of the nation’s childcare system – due at the end of the year – would consider the question of the activity test, and that the government would follow proper processes in considering a future wage rise for early childhood educators.

Instead, the government used the budget to put aside just over $70m to retain and recruit more early childhood educators, which would be used to “improve” professional development opportunities for educators and give them financial assistance to complete their university practicums.

“You’ll be hard-pressed to find a budget that does as much heavy lifting in the interest of women’s equality than this budget,” Senator Gallagher said on Tuesday.

The centrepiece of the government’s Women’s Budget on Tuesday was the $1.9bn investment to raise the cut-off for the single parenting payment – from parents with children aged eight to those with children aged 14 – which Senator Gallagher said would be “life changing”.

The $2.7bn boost to Commonwealth Rent Assistance – as recommended by the WEET – was heralded as another key measure for women, given single women made up for 49 per cent of CRA recipients.

“There is much we can do as a government to strengthen equality between men and women – and we have taken strong action in our first year of government,” Anthony Albanese said in a joint statement with Senator Gallagher and Jim Chalmers in the Women’s Budget.

“We have made long-term plans and policies – which will have impacts over decades – to achieve gender equality.”

In addition to the $1.7bn in domestic violence funding from October’s budget, the government pumped $590m into making women safer. This included $159m to extend the Family, Domestic and Sexual Violence Responses National Partnership.