Ms Catherine King (Ballarat, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Jagajaga very much for the question. I know the member has been fighting for all her political life and working life for equality for women. She knows, as this side of the House knows, that equality for women has to be at the heart of everything we do. Since coming to office we have made significant headway, and last night's budget takes another step forward in delivering significant investment in Australia's women and investing in programs and policies that will echo long beyond this term of parliament and permanently shift the dial on women's equality. Not since the introduction of the Women's Budget Statement back in 1984 has there been such a deliberate focus on how budget decisions affect women, which we are backing up with funding and with structural reforms.

Our substantial investments include addressing violence against women; a pay rise for aged-care workers, nine out of 10 of whom are women; modernising paid parental leave and making child care cheaper; improving gender pay gap transparency; preventing sexual harassment at work; transforming our workplace relations frameworks to centre gender equality; and reintroducing gender-responsive budgeting. We're investing $1.9 billion to extend the eligibility of the parenting payment to single parents—the majority of whom are women—with a youngest dependent child aged under 14 years. I want to acknowledge particularly the Prime Minister and the Minister for Social Services for championing that particular measure.

We are investing $2.7 billion to increase the maximum payment rate of Commonwealth rent assistance by 15 per cent for all recipients, with single women making up the majority of the recipients of rental assistance. We're abolishing the punishing ParentsNext program from 1 July 2024 and replacing it with a new voluntary program that better meets and understands the needs of parents and actually sets them up for success, to commence at the earliest opportunity.

We're providing over half a billion dollars in funding to support the National Plan to End Violence against Women and their Children, building on the record investment in the October budget and bringing the total investment to almost $2.3 billion to end this scourge. As I said, we're funding a 15 per cent increase to the minimum wages for aged-care workers. That is a huge change for thousands and thousands of workers across this country. We're investing $26.4 million to support health and medical research focusing on women's health.

This doesn't happen by accident. It happens with purposeful decision-making, making sure that we're putting women at the heart of our budget decision-making processes. These are efforts that are led by all of us, particularly the Prime Minister, the Minister for Social Services and the Minister for Finance. This is a good budget for Australia's women.

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