Sharon Claydon (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today to also talk on the budget that was released last Tuesday night, and in particular I want to look at its impacts for the city of Newcastle and also for Australian women. Indeed, I have just come from Labor's launch of the women's budget statement 2017. This is a commitment that Labor has made because, despite the fact that Australia was a pioneer of gendered analysis of budgets, with the election of the Abbott Liberal government in 2013 the commitment to produce a women's budget statement was dropped, ending a 30-year tradition. The current Prime Minister has likewise failed to produce an Australian women's budget statement to accompany the budget last Tuesday night, which means that we now have no systematic analysis of the differential impacts of government collection of taxes and the distribution of those moneys on men and women in our society. Any government that seeks to pretend that budgets are somehow gender-neutral documents, or indeed that government policies are gender neutral, is having itself on, and Australian women in particular will know from past experience that budgets do have a differential impact for them.

It is a great shame that since the Liberals came to power in 2013 Australia has slipped from the 19th position to 46th place on the Global gender gap report. That should be an issue that concerns each and every one of us in this House, because if Australian women do not have an equal share in our social, economic and political life in this country then that is to the detriment of our nation as a whole. I implore people to look at Labor's women's budget statement—this is the first cut on that analysis; there will be more to come—and to continue and join with us in a conversation around how we achieve gender equity in Australia. So join in Labor's conversation about setting the agenda. I look forward to having those conversations with Australian women across the country.

For Newcastle also, this was a budget that was full of disappointment. There is no money there to look at the development of the Glendale Interchange, the most major piece of infrastructure that is needed in our region. There is universal agreement from all our councils and our members of parliament that this is a project that has capacity to unlock 10,000 jobs, and that is what the men and women of Newcastle need most of all: good, secure, well-paying jobs. (Time expired)

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