*The Gender Lens, which provides insights and a detailed commentary on the 2024-25 Federal Budget, will be available from 27 May 2024 via nfaw.org.
CANBERRA – The National Foundation for Australian Women (NFAW) acknowledges the strides made in the 2024 Federal Budget towards advancing gender equality, as announced by Treasurer Jim Chalmers.
While celebrating notable advancements, the NFAW also calls for greater ambition and comprehensive action to address persistent gender gaps in Australia.
The 2024 Budget, as outlined by the Treasurer, promised to be particularly beneficial for women, and to some extent, it has lived up to this expectation.
The NFAW applauds the changes to the Stage 3 tax cuts and payment of superannuation on Commonwealth Paid Parental Leave, measures that we have called for in previous budget analysis which are significant steps towards financial security for women.
However, there are still significant gender-based challenges that have not been addressed in the Budget.
“There are still significant gaps in the provision of front line services in homelessness and gendered violence” Helen Hodgson, Chair of NFAW’s Social Policy Committee, said.
“The steps to improve the wages of workers in the care sector, which is a predominately female workforce, are welcome although the structural issues around shortages of workers in this sector still need attention.”
Jane Madden, President of NFAW, said that “While we recognise the challenging context in which the government operates, we urge the government to harness its stated ambition to deliver more robust reforms and substantial investments in gender equality”.
Significant investments have also been made in women’s health and in ramping up the focus on gender-based violence, reflecting the government’s recognition of these critical areas.
But there is still a lack of transparency around the funding for significant programmes including family and domestic violence programmes and housing.
These complex portfolios require the cooperation of state governments. The details of funding for the Office for Women is also obscured within the funding of the PM&C portfolio.
The National Foundation for Australian Women has once again brought together a team of more than 20 policy experts – credible women with recognised expertise across all portfolios – to help to unravel some of these complex funding arrangements.
This continues the work that we have done since 2014 in providing a detailed analysis of the gender impact of Budget measures.
