Extract from ABC News
Analysis
Think Howard's battlers, Abbott's tradies — budgets have long been a political exercise to align government with aspirational voters, often blokes.
While the previous Morrison government started putting a gender lens on its policy in the wake of scandals and reporting on sexism and misogyny both inside politics and beyond, establishing a women's cabinet task force to develop a budget package to address "gaps" in existing programs, there was often a failure to understand the broader gender implications of its policies.
It was resistant to expanding child care, defining it as a cost rather than a benefit. It failed to increase the paid parental leave scheme despite previous promises under Tony Abbott to deliver a six-month scheme.
The Albanese government's women's budget statement has signalled that there is about to be a massive shift in the way policy is formulated and framed in coming budgets.
Mainstreaming gender equality
The change is in its infancy but if executed as promised it has the potential to change the old paradigm that "women's" policies are all about children and family.
There is no question that the economic settings linked to having children are integral to women's economic security but this budget begins the process of "mainstreaming" gender equality and centring it in every single government policy.
The statement declares that "gender inequality is holding Australia back".
In 2022, Australia was ranked 43rd of 146 countries in the World Economic Forum Global Gender Gap Index. It continues to say that women in Australia continue to shoulder the majority of unpaid work and caring responsibilities and are more likely to be in part-time, casual or low-paid work as they try to balance work and family.
Gender inequality is also a key factor underpinning gender-based violence. "Until there is true gender equality, we cannot reach our full potential and be the Australia we want to be," it said.
So what's the answer?
The Albanese government has committed to implementing gender-responsive budgeting, also known as gender budgeting, which is an established practice across a number of Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries.
They argue that gender impact assessments are a key tool used to undertake gender-responsive budgeting: "It improves decision-making by embedding a focus on gender equality in policy development. It involves tracking and reporting gender equality outcomes through budget processes so that policy-makers and decision-makers — including ministers and the cabinet — have access to information and analysis that assesses how a policy proposal may impact women and men differently."
The government's statement argues that gender-responsive budgeting and gender impact assessment are practical ways of embedding gender equality into the design of policy and government decision-making.
The Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet has been leading a pilot to conduct gender impact assessments on select policy proposals during Labor's first budget process:
"The insights from this pilot will inform next steps and the evolution of the approach over future budgets, and consideration of the most appropriate model for the Australian context."
Minister for Women Katy Gallagher told me that this is the beginning of making these gender analyses of all policies mainstream. She says the government wants to embed an analysis of the gender implications of all policies throughout the budget — not in just one quarantined section.
Analysis from the ABC's experts
How will it make a difference?
So what happens when you put a gender impact statement on policy? What are the broader implications?
Imagine that lens was put over taxation policy, superannuation policy, welfare policy. It has the potential to look at the consequences of policy and investment that make gender inequality worse.
The report reveals that the Office for Women worked in collaboration with the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations to support the development of the Jobs and Skills proposals in the budget, ensuring that these programs contribute to reducing gender segregation across industries.
Women are well-represented across the vocational education and training (VET) system, however, VET course participation in Australia is highly gendered and continues to be influenced by norms of what is traditionally considered women's and men's work.
Trade apprenticeships are less commonly undertaken by women than men, with women making up only 8.2 per cent of current "traditional" trade apprenticeships (trade apprenticeships excluding hairdressers, animal attendants and trainers, and veterinary nurses).
For example, the construction industry has historically had a low level of participation by women, and only 4.9 per cent of apprentices in training in construction are women, which is significantly below the 29.5 per cent of apprentices across all industries who are women.
As a result, Jobs and Skills Australia will undertake cohort-specific analysis of priority cohorts, including women. This will enable government and tripartite partners to develop policy responses to better target interventions, remove barriers and improve accessibility. They say the range of data and analysis could include highlighting the issues affecting women in the skills sector, and possible opportunities to improve gender equity in non-traditional roles and trades.
The most disappointing element of the women's budget is a failure to make good on the Albanese government's promise to end violence against women "within a generation".
While the government is spending slightly more than the Morrison government on its plan, it is short of what is going to be needed to turn this around.
It's a big task to achieve genuine equality and it will take a concentrated effort and commitment to ensuring that policies no longer further entrench sexism and start creating a level playing field.
Katy Gallagher says she wants a day where there doesn't need to be a women's statement because equality has been achieved.
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