Zaneta Mascarenhas (Swan, Australian Labor Party) | Hansard source

I represent one of the most diverse communities in Western Australia. There are parts that have river views of the Swan, and then there are houses that look over industrial complexes. There are people whose grandparents have lived there since the early 1900s, and people who have come to live recently in Western Australia. When I hear stories from women in my community about the issues that affect their safety, their health and their financial security, what's fascinating is that it actually doesn't matter where they came from, what school they went to, whether they have children or not or what tax bracket they're in. Violence against women does not discriminate. There's discrimination at work. There continue to be unpaid care responsibilities. We've also seen the weaponisation of child support systems. These issues do not sort themselves by background or identity. They reach women from every community and every culture.

We have historically seen these issues ignored and pushed to the side or treated as too complicated to fix. And you know what? The Women's Budget Statement exists to change that. It's an accountability mechanism that encourages us to consider how a policy will affect women's lives, because budget decisions are not gender neutral. On paper, a policy can appear effective. But this mechanism pushes us to dig deeper and look for the silences in our society and the omissions within our policy that have real and lasting consequences.

Bringing diverse perspectives to the table to make more effective policy is not a new idea. The Hawke Labor government introduced the Women's Budget Statement in 1984. When the Liberal government scrapped it, these issues took a back seat. Today, for the first time in our history, 56 per cent of the Labor caucus are women. That does not happen overnight. It is the result of hard, continued advocacy to have different voices at the table to challenge norms and to ensure that the people making decisions reflect the lives of the people those decisions affect.

This year, one of the issues the Women's Budget Statement brings into focus is financial abuse, particularly through the child support system. This did not make the front page the day after the budget. It's not a salacious story and it does not lend itself to a simple headline. But that is the exact point. The Women's Budget Statement exists to make us talk about the hard issues—the ones that get quietly filed away, the ones that do not trend but do devastate. I'm proud to be a part of a government that takes that seriously, because financial abuse is not a niche issue and it does not discriminate.

I served on the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Corporations and Financial Services inquiry that looked into financial abuse. The thing that was fascinating about this inquiry is that we went in knowing that financial systems are weaponised to abuse people, particularly women, and what I was anticipating was looking at the systems associated with banks, credit lenders and superannuation, but what I did not recognise is how government systems can be used and weaponised to hurt the people that they are meant to protect. That's what we saw in the child support system. Specifically, it was former partners weaponising the child support system to harass and control, income being deliberately hidden to reduce payments owed to children, and coerced directorships leaving women liable for debts that they never incurred. It was women who had left violent relationships finding that the abuse continued through paperwork, through courts and through systems that they believed would protect them.

The Albanese government is investing $182 million to strengthen the child support system to ensure that we stop seeing it being weaponised against children. This is thanks to the great work of the Minister for Social Services. Right now, there is $2 billion in outstanding child support debt in the country. Women make up 83 per cent of recipients. The average debt owed per person is nearly $9,000. This is money that should be spent on groceries, school fees, uniforms; it's money that's supposed to be spent to help raise a child in a supported and safe environment. The thing that I will say is that parents who don't pay their fair share of child support are simply scumbags. It is unacceptable. But we have introduced reforms, and these reforms will make it easier for parents to move from private collection to agency collection, where there will be increased protections. This will give Services Australia the power to stop vexatious and harassing behaviour. They will crack down on those who minimise income to reduce what they owe. It will strengthen protections for the over 470,000 women and one million children receiving child support. These are the most significant changes to the child support system in nearly 20 years. These reforms are a significant step, but we know that the work does not stop here.

I want to share a story about a constituent of mine in Swan. She's a mother of two. She cares for them for more than 300 days a year. Her former partner deliberately reduced his working hours to minimise his child support payments. He claims the minimum threshold of overnight stays and picks up the children late and drops them off early, not actually caring for them during the daytime hours, when most of the care is required and when most of the costs occur. He doesn't pay school fees, he doesn't pay for extracurricular activities, and he continues to use the court system to intimidate and coerce. He hacked into her social media accounts. Through all of this, she's holding down a job and raising her children in a loving environment but without the supports that it requires. She stated that she knows that her story is not unique and highlighted that this form of abuse is not siloed; it interacts with your ability to manage a household, a career and live a normal life. This is financial abuse. It is deliberate, it is calculated and it is harming children. I personally want to thank my constituent for taking the time to share her story so that these systemic issues can be highlighted so we can continue to work on fixing the root causes. We need to keep paying attention and keep improving on our systems, and we need to keep on asking whether the protections we've built are reaching the women and children who need them most.

Properly valuing care work and removing structural barriers for women to participate in the labour force are the key to closing the gender pay gap and fostering a more productive economy. From 1 July, the Paid Parental Leave scheme will expand to six months of leave for parents. Beyond the expansion, this government is also investing in sharing care arrangements to send the message that caring for children should not be a burden solely resting on the shoulders of women. We are seeing this positive shift in society, and I have to say that modern dads—and there are many in the House and in this chamber right now—are being way more hands on with their children, and them having that really important time to bond with their babies in the early stages sets their children up for life. I thank the modern-day dads who are actively involved in their children's lives.

In 2025, 33 per cent of new paid parental leave recipients were men. Isn't that amazing? It's interesting; when I had my first child, I ended up having an emergency caesarean, and I was very lucky that my husband had the ability to take time off work and support me at home. I have to say that my husband is a very hands-on father—and I'm sure that there are a few dads that have had baby spew on their shoulders from burping their children. But we want to see more dads helping to raise their children. That's something that will help women and also help children. We want to see men and women share these care responsibilities more effectively because this is one of the things that will continue to break down the gender gaps that we see in our society, and this is a government that is genuinely committed to achieving equality for women.

See this speech in context