Tracey Roberts (Pearce, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

The incorporated speech read as follows—

I would like to speak to the women's budget that has been presented and to recognise what I believe is a deeply significant moment not only for women across Australia but also particularly for the women and families in my electorate of Pearce, where so many people are working hard to build secure futures in one of the fastest-growing communities in the country.

This budget matters deeply to communities like ours because the people of Pearce understand pressure. They understand what it means to juggle mortgage repayments, household costs, childcare costs, school expenses, transport costs and the demands of modern family life while still trying to create opportunities for their children and contribute to their communities. Across suburbs such as Yanchep, Butler, Hocking, Wanneroo, Clarkson and Two Rocks, families are working hard every single day to get ahead, and women are carrying an enormous amount of that responsibility.

What we saw delivered was not simply a collection of announcements but a budget that acknowledges the reality of women's lives and the extraordinary contribution women make to our communities, workplaces, families and economy.

Before anything else, it is important to congratulate the Minister for Women, the Treasurer, every member of government involved in the development of this budget and, equally, the countless advocates, organisations and community leaders whose years of advocacy helped bring these measures into a reality.

Budgets do not emerge in a vacuum. They are shaped by people who continue showing up year after year insisting that governments pay attention to the lived experiences of women, who care that work has value, that safety matters, and that economic equality is not an optional extra but a fundamental requirement of a modern nation. Today's women's budget reflected exactly that understanding.

The 2026-27 Women's Budget Statement made clear that gender equality is now being recognised as a core part of economic policy. It recognised that women's workforce participation has reached record highs, while the gender pay gap has fallen to historic lows, and that these gains are connected to sustained investment in care, safety, health and economic opportunity. That reality is especially visible in large and fast-growing outer suburban communities such as Pearce, where many families are young, where both parents are often working hard to keep up with rising costs and where access to affordable child care and health care can make an enormous difference to everyday life. The significance of this budget lies in the fact that it recognises those realities and responds to them in practical ways.

The continued investment in child care and early education deserves enormous recognition because affordable child care is transformational not only for individual families but also for workforce participation and long-term financial security. The introduction of the three-day guarantee is one of the most important reforms in this area because it ensures eligible families can access three days of subsidised child care each week regardless of activity levels. That matters enormously for families in communities like Pearce, where many parents are juggling casual work, shift work, study or changing employment arrangements.

In communities across Pearce, I regularly meet mothers who want to work more hours but cannot make the childcare arrangements work financially, women trying to return to the workforce after having children and parents balancing shift work with school schedules during a cost-of-living crisis. Every one of those families understands the difference affordable child care can make. It creates opportunities for women to increase their hours of work, return to their careers earlier, pursue leadership positions, undertake study or training, build businesses and participate more fully in economic and civic life. The truth is that childcare policy is economic policy. It is productivity policy. It is equality policy.

The investments in paid parental leave also deserve recognition because they reflect a growing understanding that supporting families during the earliest stages of raising children creates stronger outcomes not only for parents and children but for workplaces and the broader economy. From July this year, government funded paid parental leave will increase to a full six months, building on earlier reforms that introduced superannuation on paid parental leave. These are important reforms because they help reduce the long-term financial penalties women have historically experienced as a result of caring responsibilities.

This budget also recognised the critical importance of women's safety because economic security and personal safety are inseparable. A woman cannot fully participate in education, employment or community life if she is living with violence, insecurity or fear, which is why investments in frontline services, crisis accommodation, prevention programs and support systems are so important. The Women's Budget Statement highlighted that, since 2022, the government has invested more than $4.4 billion toward delivering the National Plan to End Violence Against Women and Children, including additional investments supporting frontline services and prevention initiatives. Every worker in the family violence sector, every frontline advocate, every counsellor and every support worker who has fought tirelessly for stronger responses to violence against women deserves acknowledgment because much of the progress reflected in this budget has been driven by their persistence and expertise.

The increased focus on women's health also represents an important and long overdue shift in national priorities. For many years, women's health concerns were too often minimised, underfunded or overlooked entirely, despite the fact that women's health directly affects families, workplaces and quality of life across the community. As someone whose own life has been touched personally by breast cancer and MSA, I know how important accessible health care, early intervention and compassionate medical care can be for women and families navigating incredibly difficult circumstances.

This budget includes measures to expand access to cervical cancer treatment through Keytruda, increases support for long-acting reversible contraceptives and continues progress toward universal perinatal mental health screening. These are practical reforms that will improve women's lives in meaningful ways.

One of the most encouraging aspects of this women's budget is the way it demonstrates that sustained advocacy can and does lead to meaningful change. Every community organisation, advocate, researcher and woman who refused to accept inequality as inevitable has helped shape the outcomes we saw delivered this morning. This budget also sends an important message to younger women and girls in Pearce about what they should expect from their government and from society more broadly. Young women in our northern suburbs should expect fair opportunities, fair pay, safer workplaces, stronger support systems and the ability to pursue careers and leadership positions without having to choose between professional ambition and personal responsibilities.

None of this means the work is complete. Women across Australia continue to face very real challenges. The gender pay gap remains. Women remain overrepresented in insecure and lower-paid work. Too many older women are experiencing housing stress. Too many women continue carrying overwhelming caring responsibilities without adequate support. Recognising progress should never mean ignoring the work that remains ahead of us. At the same time, it is important that we allow space to acknowledge meaningful progress when it occurs.

The fact that a women's budget now sits centrally within national economic discussion reflects years of determined effort and represents a genuine shift in how governments understand economic policy itself. What this budget ultimately demonstrates is that policy matters, representation matters and sustained advocacy matters. Most importantly, it demonstrates that governments can make decisions that improve lives in practical and tangible ways.

Today is an opportunity to congratulate everyone involved in bringing these measures forward, to recognise the years of work undertaken by advocates and organisations across the country, and to acknowledge the women and girls whose lives will hopefully become safer, fairer and more secure as a result of these investments. Those outcomes are worth celebrating.

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