Katy Gallagher (ACT, Australian Labor Party, Minister for the Public Service) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator White for the question and for her longstanding interest in women's policy and gender equality. In fact, all of those who sit on these benches have a commitment around achieving gender equality in this country.

After a decade of neglect by the previous government, our government is committed to putting gender equality at the core of our budget and unlocking the valuing, the talent, the potential and the contribution of women in Australia. We're investing $4.7 billion in cheaper child care. This will make it cheaper and easier for 96 per cent of families to access early childhood education and support workforce participation, especially by women. We're providing $531 million to expand the Paid Parental Leave Scheme up to 26 weeks. That is another one of the national schemes that Labor built and Labor is making even stronger. We're investing $1.7 billion to improve women's safety initiatives to support our ambition of a country free from gender based violence in a generation.

These measures form just part of our $7 billion investment in this budget to drive gender equality. These are our first steps. We will also deliver a national strategy to achieve gender equality within our first year of government, to provide vision and direction about how we can achieve gender equality in Australia. I look forward to working with all of my colleagues in doing that.

We had a great event this morning launching the Women's Budget Statement. Remember when that got cancelled by then Minister Abbott, the then Minister for Women? We have put that back in place and we have made it a document of substance. That is what we will continue to do, because this is a government that takes achieving gender equality seriously.