Vision: An Australia where people are safe, treated with respect, have choices and have access to resources and equal outcomes no matter their gender.
The Australian Government has put gender equality at the centre of public policy and the Budget, including through the reintroduction of GRB.
In March 2024, the Minister for Women launched Working for Women: A Strategy for Gender Equality. Working for Women sets out a path to work towards the government’s vision for gender equality over the next 10 years, with a focus on 5 priority areas for action: gender based violence; unpaid and paid care; economic equality and security; health; and leadership, representation and decision making.
These priority areas are underpinned by a foundational priority of gender attitudes and stereotypes.
Working for Women highlights GRB as a key mechanism to ensure that government policies and investments support gender equality. Working for Women provides a framework for policy makers undertaking gender analysis and Gender Impact Assessment, outlining the outcomes required to progress and achieve gender equality.
What is gender?
The language used to refer to gender is important. Sex and gender are commonly used interchangeably, including in legislation.
Sex refers to sex characteristics while gender is about social and cultural difference in identity, expression and experience.
A person’s sex and gender may not necessarily be the same. Some people may identify as a different gender to their birth sex and some people may identify as neither exclusively male nor female (gender non-binary) (ABS, The Standard for Sex, Gender, Variations of Sex Characteristics and Sexual Orientation Variables, 2020).