The Australian Government must provide leadership and accountability for driving economic equality outcomes and embed gender equity into its decision making, budgeting and policy design, implementation and evaluation mechanisms.

Immediate actions

1.1. The Prime Minister and the Minister for Women will deliver an annual report to update the Australian Parliament on progress and effectiveness of Government actions taken to achieve economic equality and progress for women. They will also provide action plans for areas requiring further strengthening or improvement. The Minister for Women should provide additional reporting on progress on priorities set out in the National Gender Equality Strategy.

1.2. In line with OECD best practice, legislate to integrate gender impact assessment and gender-responsive processes into policy design, implementation and evaluation; legislative processes; and budgeting to ensure the unique challenges faced by women, particularly diverse groups of women, are addressed and that gender equality is foregrounded in the work and investments of government. This requires an intersectional approach.

The Government should improve, not worsen, the lives of women and this imperative should underpin the work of central and service delivery agencies (including in important areas such as employment and social services).

1.3. Enable the Office for Women to align its work with leading international practice as a centre of expertise on gender equality in government. This Office must be appropriately funded to expand its capacity to design and inform policy and drive change in policy practice across the APS.

The Office for Women must have the right skills, expertise and leadership, and be appropriately connected with the leadership of the broader APS to perform its functions with impact.

1.4. Establish and resource an independent national women’s economic equality advisory body to oversee the recommendations in this report, work collaboratively with other gender equality advisory bodies (such as in health and violence prevention), provide independent advice to the government on policy priorities and progress women’s economic equality over a 10-year horizon.

1.5. Improve the use of the data that’s currently available, collect new data where needed and build the right tools to present an accurate and nuanced understanding of the dimensions of gendered economic inequality in Australia and the needs of women experiencing disadvantage.

This includes setting an expectation of evidence-based policy development and investing in the data capabilities of the APS to build, collect and use gender-disaggregated data sets.

Long-term actions

1.6. Invest in sustained gender-equality capability improvement initiatives within the APS. These initiatives should focus on developing comprehensive and tailored training programs on gender analysis of policy design, implementation and assessment catering to the specific needs and remit of different agencies and their policy end-users.

1.7. Model leading practice in gender-equitable and diverse employment in the APS by taking action to improve the gender pay gap; address occupational and portfolio-based gender segregation; achieve and maintain gender balance and broader diversity in the ranks of the Senior Executive Service; provide and encourage access to high-quality, secure, flexible work; and increase men’s uptake of flexible work and care-focused leave (such as paid parental leave and carer’s leave).

1.8. Establish an independent inquiry into the social security system and broader legislative frameworks (including the family law system) using a gender impact assessment framework to understand where systems, rules and practices reduce women’s safety and enable post-separation violence and coercive control. This needs to include existing practices that do not entirely or only partially fulfil their stated aim.

Supporting information

The OECD^[39] has identified Parliaments and legislative bodies as the key actors to realise gender equality. Some examples of international best-practice includes:

• The Swedish Parliament’s adoption of the action program for gender equality for the 2014-2018 electoral period, which meant that a representative from each party is responsible for implementing the program with the goal of creating a gender-aware parliament.
• Ireland’s Joint Parliamentary Committee and the European Court of Auditors’ Audit on Gender Mainstreaming are good examples of providing institutional oversight for gender equality goals. ^[40]
• In Spain, the legislative framework requires the government to submit a Gender Impact Report of draft provisions to the Council of Ministers. This has ensured an enduring requirement despite changes due to political cycles. Through an interactive website, Spanish citizens can access data from the Gender Impact Report, increasing transparency and public accessibility to gender budgeting information. ^[41] 

International best-practice approaches show that legislation is powerful for ensuring the success and longevity of Gender Responsive Budgeting and Gender Impact Analysis. There are many different models that suit the cultural and administrative context of the jurisdictions. Seventeen OECD countries have implemented gender budgeting, including the countries with the top three rankings in the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report (Iceland, Norway, Finland).

The OECD recommends that gender budgeting efforts must be underpinned by a strong political and administrative leadership model mirroring the roles, responsibilities and coordination mechanisms outlined in a Gender Equality Strategy, to ensure a whole-of-government approach.

Iceland, which is the top-ranked country for gender equality, has a national gender equality strategy guiding the implementation of gender budgeting; legal provisions underpinning the practice; and the general availability of gender-disaggregated data. It has legislation on equal status and equal rights irrespective of gender, on gender autonomy, as well as for equal access and treatment in the labour market. The implementation of the legislation is monitored by The Directorate of Equality, a special institution under the administration of the Prime Minister.

A well-resourced Office for Women can ensure that gender equality is embedded across the Budget process, including through supporting the Australian Public Service (APS) to uplift gender analysis capability. The Office for Women has recently released a guide on including gender in policymaking to uplift the capability of the Australian Public Service in conducting a gender analysis, and engages with agencies to assist in capability uplift.

Gender impact analysis and gender-responsive budgeting processes require robust gender-disaggregated data, analysis and research. Key actions to consider for effective measuring progress towards gender equality, according to the OECD, is the requirement of data disaggregation by gender, as well as the incorporation of a gender perspective within national statistical legislation. ^[42]

The Australian Public Service Commission has noted gender data as a key action area in its Australian Public Service Gender Equality Strategy. ^[43] This aims to build the capacity of APS departments to build their capacity and capability to collect, analyse and publish gender-disaggregated data to be used by the public service.

The Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet and the Australian Bureau of Statistics have convened the Gender Data Steering Group, which is working to maximise the impact of the government’s major data holdings as an evidence base for gender equality policy.

International best-practice approaches show that legislation is powerful for ensuring the success and longevity of gender-responsive budgeting and gender impact analysis.

More broadly, APS data capability is a key element of the Government’s APS reform agenda and will ensure that the APS has the right capability, tools and processes to provide high-quality analysis and advice.

Nearly three in five APS employees are women. Women comprise 50 per cent of the total Senior Executive Service staff.^[44] Proportionately there are now more women in the APS (60.2 per cent) compared to the Australian labour market (47 per cent). The APS has become an employer of choice for women, where women account for almost three in every five new ongoing recruits.^[45] The gender pay gap in the APS is less than half of the national gender pay gap (based on 2020 APS figures).^[46] The APS must continue to be a model employer, demonstrating national leadership on gender equality.

The introduction of Gender Responsive Budgeting and analysis on new policy proposals is a positive step towards gender equality. However, it will not apply to existing policies. The social security system is an example of where a review from a gendered lens could reveal differing impacts.

The Interim Report of the Economic Inclusion Advisory Committee found that the current rates of social security payments for JobSeeker Payment and related non-pension payments for working-age Australians are seriously inadequate, whether measured relative to National Minimum Wages, in comparison with pensions, or measured against a range of income poverty measures. ^[47]

People receiving these payments face the highest levels of financial stress in the Australian community. ^[48]

Most people accessing income support are women (58 per cent). Women and girls are more likely to live in poverty than men (53 per cent compared to 47 per cent) – households whose main earner is a woman have a higher average poverty rate than households headed by a male main earner (19 per cent compared to 10 per cent). ^[49]

Over a third of people in households whose main income came from income support (35 per cent) were in poverty in 2019-20. People in households relying mainly on income support payments are five times more likely to be in poverty than those relying on wages (35 per cent compared with seven per cent). In 2019-20, the average poverty gap for income support households was $197 per week.^[50]

Long-term reliance on income support increases the risks of poor health, low self-esteem and social isolation which can have intergenerational effects. A significant proportion of people from disadvantaged communities experience multiple disadvantages, which affects their ability to participate socially and economically in their community.^[51]