Keywords

Introduction

The defeat of the Rudd and Gillard governments in 2013 was to usher in nearly a decade of Liberal-National Coalition governments, under Tony Abbott, Malcolm Turnbull and Scott Morrison as Prime Ministers. However, this chapter particularly focuses on how the centre-right Morrison government (2018–2022) in Australia addressed issues of gender equality, arguing that the COVID-19 pandemic that took place during the Morrison years revealed important flaws in the Coalition governments’ framing of gender equality issues, as did various sexual scandals that emerged on Morrison’s watch.Footnote 1 It will be argued that Morrison government approaches to gender equality reflected both social conservative and neoliberal influences. While some aspects of neoliberalism were challenged by the pandemic—for example attitudes towards government debt, deficits and stimulus packages—other aspects of neoliberalism remained. These included the Morrison government’s opposition to forms of government intervention in the market and the government’s emphasis on individual choice. Meanwhile, the neoliberal focus on the individual, rather than on structurally disadvantaged groups, was reinforced by right-wing, socially conservative discourse opposing so-called identity politics and gender ideology.

Background: The Morrison Government and Its Predecessors

Gender equality policy under both the Abbott and Turnbull governments that preceded Morrison’s was influenced by neoliberal perspectives that emphasised the importance of women’s economic participation but interpreted this in market-oriented ways. The major focuses on equality of opportunity for women centred around facilitating individual capability, advancement and choice. Policies emphasised capability training and encouraging entrepreneurship amongst women, rather than addressing issues such as low pay in predominantly female industries. There was an underlying assumption that the market was gender-neutral with governments loath to intervene in the market. Indeed, the Abbott government undermined previous Labor government gender equality initiatives designed to address the revaluation of pay rates in female-dominated jobs and introduce stronger requirements for businesses to report unequal pay rates.Footnote 2 Rather, it was argued that making a financial, business case for gender equality would sufficiently encourage businesses to pursue gender equality measures. As Michaelia Cash, the then Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for Women, stated:

There is an irrefutable business case for gender equality, in terms of productive capacity, for the Government, for business, and for the community.

By failing to close the gap in women’s workforce participation, the Australian economy could be losing out on $195 billion a year, or 13 per cent of GDP.

It is absolutely clear that gender diversity has advantages for business, for the economy, for our social system.Footnote 3

Similarly, it was suggested that stricter regulations on reporting gender pay gaps were not required since many businesses would fix gender inequalities once they became aware of them. Minister for Women, Kelly O’Dwyer, argued that the government wanted to work with employers rather than being “punitive” given that “there are some workplaces that do not fully understand that there is in fact a gender pay gap. When they have that information they can take action”.Footnote 4 The Australian government actually took a less interventionist position than some other conservative governments internationally. For example, while the UK Conservative government made a similar business case for gender equality it had also, as Kelly herself acknowledged, introduced tougher pay gap reporting measures.Footnote 5

Australian government action to improve women’s position focused on increasing the “choices” that were available to them, including sometimes via government subsidised training in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics).Footnote 6 However limited such perspectives were, it should be noted that they were far less hostile to feminism than those of the previous Howard Coalition government (1996–2007) analysed in Chapter 4. The Howard government had been influenced by a socially conservative neoliberalism that depicted feminist organisations as politically correct special interest groups ripping off taxpayers, with feminist policies disadvantaging traditional stay-at-home mothers and housewives. By contrast, the Abbott and Turnbull governments not only endorsed calls for gender equality (albeit in the relatively narrow conceptions suggested above) but argued that increasing women’s participation in the economy would have major economic benefits. For example, although Tony Abbott was a socially conservative Catholic on issues such as abortion and, as discussed in Chapter 5, mobilised conservative gender stereotypes against Australia’s first female Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, he argued that increasing women’s employment levels would potentially add tens of billions to the Australian economy.Footnote 7 Nonetheless, Julie Bishop, the Liberals’ deputy leader and the only women in Abbott’s first cabinet subsequently complained of being constantly interrupted and not heard in his cabinet meetings.Footnote 8 Indeed, she later claimed that Abbott did not want women in his senior ministry at all—Bishop was automatically included by her position as Deputy Leader of the Liberal Party.Footnote 9 (While Bishop did not make such public complaints about the Liberals’ treatment of women while Deputy Leader, she did highlight issues of gender equality as Foreign Minister and had appointed well-known feminist and former Democrat Senator Natasha Stott Despoja to be Australia’s Ambassador for Women and Girls).Footnote 10 Abbott also signalled his socially conservative credentials by personally opposing same-sex marriage and advocating a plebiscite, in the form of a divisive and traumatic public postal survey, on the issue. Malcolm Turnbull, Abbott’s successor as Prime Minister, after a party-room leadership vote, shared Abbott’s neoliberal economic policies. However, Turnbull was socially progressive on abortion and described himself as a feminist.Footnote 11 Turnbull also emphasised the need to encourage more women into non-traditional areas of employment, such as STEM.Footnote 12However, Turnbull was cautious about antagonising powerful social conservative forces in his party, for example, eventually supporting holding a same-sex marriage plebiscite/voter postal survey despite his own support for marriage equality. Nonetheless, Turnbull did enthusiastically support same-sex marriage legislation after 61.6% of respondents voted yes.Footnote 13

Turnbull’s replacement by Morrison after another inner party vote was highly controversial, not least because Morrison had defeated a very high-profile woman candidate for the leadership, namely Julie Bishop. As well, several women parliamentarians raised accusations of bullying in the voting process, albeit behaviour particularly targeted at supporters of a third leadership candidate, Peter Dutton, later to become Leader of the Opposition during Anthony Albanese’s term in office.Footnote 14 The Morrison government endorsed pre-existing perspectives on gender equality policy, emphasising individual choice, capability and equality of opportunity rather than equality of outcomes. Morrison stated that: “We believe in … racial and gender equality where every citizen has choice and opportunity to follow their own paths and dreams”.Footnote 15 Supporting individual aspiration was combined with a focus on women’s safety, as Morrison’s statement describing the Australia he would like his own daughters to live in makes clear:

I’m the blessed father of two beautiful young girls and they are of course the joy of my and Jenny’s life. And my girls, like all of our children, they allow us as parents to see the world through new eyes, through young eyes, through fresh eyes. And when I see the girls I want them to be able to pursue their passions. I want them to be absolutely confident that they can chase their dreams whatever they are. And receive the same rewards for their hard work and their beliefs and their passions as their male counterparts and indeed I’ve had the blessing to do over my life. I want them as adults to have real choices so they can decide what works best for them and their families and not be judged for it. I want them to be free from harassment and violence. I want them to be able to walk the streets of Australia. And I want them to be safe in their home, both today and always in the future.Footnote 16

Morrison’s comments above reflect the “protective masculinity” discussed in previous chapters. Australia’s male prime ministers have often appealed to voters by drawing on traditional gender roles in which male heads of households are protectors of their families as well as economic providers.Footnote 17 Morrison also felt it necessary to affirm that his support for gender equality did not come at the expense of men.Footnote 18

Morrison, Religion, Gender and Social Conservatism

Morrison’s reference to being “blessed” reflected socially conservative Pentecostal religious beliefs that influenced his policy framing. Morrison may have endorsed existing Liberal support for gender equality and proudly proclaimed that his cabinet had more women than ever before (although some senior women politicians questioned how well he actually listened to women).Footnote 19 However, he also flirted with socially conservative rhetoric that reflected anti-gender campaigns by right-wing Christians in Europe, Latin America and the US.Footnote 20 Particular targets internationally included abortion (which Morrison personally disagreed with but in the Australian federal system is a state government legislative issue), same-sex marriage (which Morrison had personally opposed but had been introduced under Malcolm Turnbull) and sex-education in schools, particularly regarding transgender issues (which we will see he expressed views on).Footnote 21 School education involves both state and federal governments in Australia. Corrêa, Paternotte and Kuhar have emphasised that “gender ideology” is an “empty signifier” which needs to be understood in its local, national context, so the section that follows will analyse the form it is taking in Australian government policy discourse.Footnote 22

As already indicated, Morrison himself was prepared to use terms such as “gender” in the context of support for equality policies (Corrêa, Paternotte and Kuhar make the point that anti-gender discourse should not be “confused with specific equality policies”).Footnote 23 However, there were also several instances in which Morrison signalled his familiarity with international anti-gender campaign arguments and these do impact on his particular framing of gender equality. For example, Morrison responded to a media report (incorrectly) claiming that teachers were being trained to identify transgender kids in their classes and that this had resulted in a surge of children wishing to change their gender with the words: “We do not need ‘gender whisperers’ in our schools. Let kids be kids”.Footnote 24 The expression, “let kids be kids” is one that is commonly used by US social conservatives, particularly in campaigns against transgender issues.Footnote 25

Morrison’s conservatism when it came to issues of gender diversity also became clear over an incident regarding the gender designation on toilets, an issue which, once again, has been politically prominent amongst religious social conservatives in the US.Footnote 26 A reporter tweeted a picture of a sign on a toilet door in the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet which stated that: “Prime Minister and Cabinet is committed to staff inclusion and diversity. Please use the bathroom that best fits your gender identity”.Footnote 27 When questioned about this by a journalist, Morrison responded by saying it was “ridiculous”, “political correctness over the top” and he expected the signs to go.Footnote 28 Senior bureaucrats reportedly cleared their diaries to be available to implement the PM’s wishes.Footnote 29

As indicated in Chapter 5, transgender and gender diverse Australians are partly protected against discrimination by federal legislation and, for example, Australian passports are issued to sex and gender diverse applicants.Footnote 30 Nonetheless, Morrison government attitudes had real impacts. For example, the 2016 Australian census had not been designed to generate accurate information regarding transgender or gender diversity identity. The Australian Bureau of Statistics reportedly dropped proposals to include relevant questions in the 2021 census after feedback from the office of the Assistant Treasurer, Michael Sukkar.Footnote 31 Yet, the ABS had acknowledged that the data would have “strong value” for government.Footnote 32 The information data was particularly relevant to Health given that an Australian study of transgender and gender diverse young people aged 14–25 years had reported that three out of four transgender respondents had experienced anxiety and depression, four out of five had engaged in self-harm and almost one in two (48%) had attempted suicide.Footnote 33

Nonetheless, Health Minister Greg Hunt responded to socially conservative criticisms of the treatment of children and adolescents with gender dysphoria by asking the Australian Health Ministers’ Advisory Council to audit gender clinics to review whether there were “strong and balanced counselling and safeguards” for those under 18, whether there was an over-representation of autistic teenagers and whether a more cautious approach to prescribing hormones needed to be applied, as was now being done in Britain.Footnote 34 His office subsequently stated that Hunt had urged State and Territory governments to “ensure the provision of appropriate, consistent, high-quality health care in every jurisdiction, and in particular ensure strong and balanced counselling and safeguards, workforce standards, monitoring of practices, and monitoring of long-term health and wellbeing outcomes”.Footnote 35 While Hunt did not go as far as the critics wished, it was a clear attempt to placate social conservatives.

Morrison’s views indicate that his framing of gender equality was predominantly a traditional one of equality between men and women based on conceptions of biological sex and allocated birth identity. Significantly, Morrison appointed Senator Amanda Stoker as Assistant Women’s Minister. Stoker frequently courted the religious right and faced criticism for her conservative views on abortion and transgender issues amongst others.Footnote 36 She denounced “hard-left gender ideology”, believing in “basic biology” when it comes to children being born as either a boy or a girl, and raised parental concerns about what children were being taught about sex and gender in schools.Footnote 37

Furthermore, while supporting the limited forms of gender equality described previously, Morrison expressed opposition to so-called identity politics:

…the experience and value of every human being is unique and personal. You are more, we are more, individually, more than the things others try to identify us by, you by, in this age of identity politics. You are more than your gender, you are more than your race, you are more than your sexuality, you are more than your ethnicity, you are more than your religion, your language group, your age.Footnote 38

In a speech to a Pentecostal, Australian Christian Churches Conference (that was unofficially recorded), Morrison suggested that so-called identity politics was not only socially divisive but undermined the individual identity conferred by God.Footnote 39 He suggested that identity politics was a socially corrosive weapon used “by the Evil One” (i.e. Satan).Footnote 40 Morrison also implied that he had received God’s endorsement for his Prime Ministerial election campaign.Footnote 41

Morrison used how he framed identity politics, transgender issues and same-sex marriage to reassure conservatives who might have preferred Howard-era policies that were more hostile to feminism. Morrison’s arguments also reached out to social conservatives who would otherwise vote Labor. However, as we shall also see below, such framings also have implications for economic policy framing. Morrison’s rejection of so-called identity politics extended to rejecting an understanding of structural gender disadvantage and reinforced his neoliberal focus on individuals and individual choice. Furthermore, his socially conservative religious beliefs potentially made him less sympathetic to women who were low-income earners or on welfare because of the influence of Pentecostal beliefs in the “prosperity gospel”. The “Prosperity Gospel”, which is often entwined with neoliberal ideology, holds that those who are wealthy are being rewarded by God whereas the poor are being divinely penalised.Footnote 42 So, Morrison’s form of religious social conservatism tended to reinforce his neoliberal perspectives and influenced his government’s policies.

It is to a more detailed analysis of those economic policies, and the influence of the government’s framing on them, that the discussion will now progress, with a particular focus on the government’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Economic Policy and Gender Equality During the Pandemic

The Liberal Party had often campaigned against its Labor opponent by critiquing what the Liberals depicted as the Labor legacy of high government debt and deficits. The Turnbull and Abbott Oppositions had both opposed the extent of the Rudd Labor government’s stimulus package during the Global Financial Crisis. Morrison had successfully attacked big spending and big taxing Labor during the 2019 election campaign, promising to restore the budget to surplus. The Morrison government had also legislated neoliberal-influenced tax cuts, to be phased in over five years, that would undermine the progressive nature of the Australian tax system and disproportionately benefit high-income earners, thereby mainly benefiting men, while disadvantaging women.Footnote 43 However, the pandemic was to see the government re-frame their attitude to debt, justifying bringing in a massive government stimulus package designed to keep the economy functioning that would see net debt reach around 30 per cent of GDP in June 2021.Footnote 44 This facilitated some increased expenditure on perceived “women’s issues”, particularly in the government’s May 2021 budget. The government even temporarily introduced free childcare for those workers who still had jobs.Footnote 45 However, it will be argued below that the continued influence of a neoliberal framing remained in the government’s focus on individual choice and capability; its related failure to recognise forms of gendered structural inequality or to use government regulation and intervention to address them. This was despite the fact that, as discussed in Chapter 5, feminist commentators had noted failures to ensure an adequately gendered response during the Global Financial Crisis and had called upon governments to do better in the next economic crisis.

Before discussing those policies in more detail though, it is necessary to point out that Australia’s experience of the pandemic was different to that of many other countries. Up until late 2021 when the availability and level of vaccinations resulted in the easing of government restrictions, the COVID-19 virus had been suppressed more successfully than in most other Western countries (with the exception of New Zealand). Local transmission had even been briefly eliminated at some points in time. Australia achieved this result through largely closing its international borders until February 2022 to all but returning Australian citizens and permanent residents (with numbers restricted by caps on compulsory quarantine). Australians required government permission to leave the country to travel overseas and this was only given in exceptional circumstances. Domestic measures included the use of contact tracing, appropriate health regulations including venue capacity limits, school closures and, when required, extended lockdowns. State governments also limited internal Australian travel, closing/restricting their state borders to contain COVID-19 outbreaks in other parts of the country. Consequently, as of 13 June 2021, Australia, with a population of 26 million, had only had 30,237 cases of COVID-19 and 910 deaths.Footnote 46

Nonetheless, disease outbreaks and the government-imposed preventative measures had a major impact on the economy. As in many other parts of the world, women’s employment was particularly detrimentally affected by outbreaks because of the impacts on female-dominated areas of employment, such as hospitality, retail and accommodation. The Morrison government’s Treasurer, Josh Frydenberg, acknowledged this:

The shock that we are seeing from the coronavirus is considerably sharper than what Australia experienced during the recessions of the 1980s and 1990s. … In those earlier recessions, the impacts were felt more acutely by working-age men in the manufacturing and agriculture sectors. This time around, women have experienced higher job losses than men.Footnote 47

Despite some government claims that women’s employment was recovering better than men’s by the 2020–2021 budget time, women were still suffering.Footnote 48 As one report concluded:

Women’s jobs were hit harder than men’s during the COVID lockdowns. At the peak in April, almost 8 per cent of Australian women had lost their jobs, and women’s total hours worked were down 12 per cent. The figures for men were 4 per cent and 7 per cent.Footnote 49

The report went on to note that even those women who recovered their jobs and previous hours worked could potentially suffer long-term economic “scarring” that could impact on future career progression, the gender wage gap and retirement income.Footnote 50 Furthermore, 60% of new jobs created from May 2020 were casual and women were employed in 62% of those jobs.Footnote 51 Women’s workforce participation had also decreased during 2020 as a result of lockdowns and restrictions, as well as job losses, exacerbated by increased female caring responsibilities resulting in women reducing or leaving paid work, while men’s had increased.Footnote 52

Yet, despite women having been particularly badly impacted, the government’s 2020–2021 budget responding to the pandemic was criticised for being gender-blind on numerous grounds.Footnote 53 For example, the requirements of the JobKeeper subsidy, paid to employers to keep workers on, excluded many women working in low-paid, precarious work because they would have been employed for less than the eligibility requirement of twelve months and this included many mothers re-entering the workforce.Footnote 54 The government tended to fund employment in male-dominated areas such as infrastructure and housing construction, rather than in more female-dominated areas such as health, education, food services and accommodation that would also generate more jobs.Footnote 55 The government did provide more funding for domestic violence, acknowledging that lockdowns could see women confined to their homes where they were in danger, although domestic violence service providers argued that the funding was insufficient, especially in the light of previous cuts.Footnote 56 In line with a neoliberal focus on increasing individual capability via training, the government did also provide more funding to encourage women into STEM in the form of 500 cadetships but without other specific funded measures to facilitate women obtaining job opportunities as part of the government’s focus on manufacturing and technical skills.Footnote 57

The government appears to have been framing the economy and jobs in predominantly male-defined terms, a common and long-term problem in conceptions of the economic.Footnote 58 The government’s focus on trades and construction was criticised for overlooking “the hard hit in favour of the hard hat”.Footnote 59 Quiggin argued that the government’s focus “on the kinds of workers (mostly men) who wear hard hats and hi-vis clothing” both failed to support the industries that had been hardest hit and failed to understand the contemporary Australian economy by supporting industries with a declining share of the workforce.Footnote 60 However, the influence of neoliberal frameworks on gender equality were also apparent with Scott Morrison being confident that the market would result in equitable outcomes once the economy began to come out of the pandemic-induced recession:

….where we were most successful going into the pandemic in our economy was with job creation for women in the workforce … where the businesses are successful and they can create more jobs, what we are seeing in our workforce it is often and usually women who are getting the bigger share of those new jobs.Footnote 61

The government appeared less concerned than many other commentators regarding the fact that many of the new jobs generated for women as the economy began to recover from initial lockdowns were low-paid, precarious ones. Before the pandemic, Morrison’s then Minister for Women, Kelly O’Dwyer, had dismissed concerns regarding the high proportion of women working in casual jobs with poor pay and conditions, claiming that many workers had good pay and conditions and chose to remain.Footnote 62 In fact, it was not for many months after Morrison’s statement above that women’s full-time employment began to improve, and then not because of normal market functioning but largely because of an increase in female-dominated healthcare and social service jobs due to the pandemic.Footnote 63 Many of those traditional female jobs, however, were also undervalued and underpaid.Footnote 64

The government responded negatively to the many feminist critiques of the 2020–2021 budget, arguing that women would benefit from the general measures in the budget. For example since women were also small business owners, they would benefit from business support during the pandemic, and drove cars, so would benefit from funds spent on constructing road infrastructure.Footnote 65 Morrison rejected the “divisiveness” he claimed was underlying those critiques:

This is about a Budget of bringing all Australians together in the national interest, to get us through. And there will be voices that will try and set young people against older people, women against men, jobs in one sector versus jobs in another sector - they are the voices of division that will undermine the future economic prosperity of all Australians.Footnote 66

Similarly, other Liberal politicians claimed that criticisms were based on “identity politics”.Footnote 67 The government’s Environment Minister Sussan Ley, argued such criticisms failed to recognise the opportunities the market economy offered:

….what you hear from the opposition is this long, ongoing, bleak, dreary narrative about entrenched disadvantage. And, you know, it’s just so last century. I see the opportunities for women in the modern world, and coming out of this pandemic, as giving families and communities something that adds to their choices.Footnote 68

Ley’s comment reveals the Morrison government’s tendency to downplay issues of structural disadvantage.

By contrast, the Labor Opposition had been critical of government policies, arguing, as mentioned earlier, that the government’s JobKeeper payment would exclude many women in precarious work, that government stimulus measures mainly supported male-dominated areas of employment and the first sector cut from receiving JobKeeper had been the female-dominated area of childcare.Footnote 69 Labor politicians also criticised a government policy allowing emergency withdrawals from superannuation, pointing out that given many women already retired into poverty, they were likely to be hit far harder by this measure than men.Footnote 70 (A report also noted a high incidence of women in abusive relationships being coerced into withdrawing money from superannuation).Footnote 71 As Sussan Ley claimed, Labor’s criticisms were indeed based on a conception that women faced “entrenched disadvantage”, that there were patterns of gendered structural inequality in the Australian economy that needed to be taken into account when budget policies were being developed and especially in the context of a pandemic that had had a particularly detrimental impact. As the Leader of the Labor Opposition, Anthony Albanese stated: “We can’t have a pink recession and a blue recovery”.Footnote 72 Or as Labor Leader in the Senate, Penny Wong argued:

Labor understands that inequality is so often structural. Whether that inequality is on the basis of gender, race or socio-economic factors, or some combination, it persists until and unless we take steps to overcome it. Inequity exists not because of individual attributes but regardless of them. It is something our political opponents don’t understand and that’s obvious every day.Footnote 73

While Labor perspectives on gender equality policy had been influenced by some aspects of neoliberalism during the Hawke, Keating, Rudd and Gillard governments, particularly in terms of encouraging capabilities and self-reliance, Labor had always been more open to conceptions of structural disadvantage.Footnote 74 We have seen in Chapter 5 that the Rudd and Gillard governments had attempted to tackle issues such as the low pay for predominantly women’s work—an approach that showed more of a traditional social democratic than neoliberal influence.Footnote 75 However, while Labor may have perceived the issues as ones of structural inequality, this was not the government’s position. Rather, the government’s neoliberal framing saw the market as largely facilitating gender equality. The government still privileged a focus on the individual, opportunity and choice.

For all the above reasons, the 2020–2021 budget was widely criticised for having not applied a gender lens to budget spending and thereby disadvantaging women.Footnote 76 Initially, as the responses described above make clear, the government seemed loath to address these issues. However, the gender politics began to shift following a number of gender-related scandals and issues. These included historical rape allegations (strongly denied) being made against the then Attorney General; allegations that a female government staffer had been raped by another government staffer in Parliament House and that the government had failed to address the issue adequately; prime-ministerial social conservatism and ineptness  in responding to both rape allegations and widespread reports of sexism within government ranks.Footnote 77 Crucially, polls showed the government’s support amongst women dropping significantly.Footnote 78

Consequently, in March 2021, Morrison announced a raft of female ministerial changes designed to bring “a fresh lens, in particular to achieving the outcomes, the results that we all want for Australian women across the country”.Footnote 79 The government had decided that their next budget needed to explicitly address women’s issues after all. Recommendations by an Aged Care Royal Commission to increase the aged care workforce potentially gave the government the opportunity to increase employment in a female-dominated industry, although this was to be taken up more robustly by its Labor successor. Funding the construction of more social housing, rather than the previously funded private housing, was a step too far for a Coalition government though, despite high levels of homelessness amongst older women.Footnote 80 Instead the government made it easier for single parents, predominantly women, to take out mortgages to purchase a home.Footnote 81 While this policy was consistent with a neoliberal emphasis on property-ownership, it risked encouraging women to take out mortgages that they would eventually be unable to pay, thereby potentially exacerbating homelessness. Although free childcare had long ended, increased funding was provided, with the Treasurer, Josh Frydenberg, arguing that this would facilitate women’s employment.Footnote 82 However, the funding package was arguably still highly inadequate.Footnote 83 Significantly, both the Prime Minister and his Treasurer had a tendency to assume that childcare was predominantly a woman’s issue, including apparently in their own personal family arrangements.Footnote 84 The government’s budget focus on security in uncertain times saw more emphasis placed on funding to ensure women’s safety ($1.1 billion) which was particularly important given the pandemic had increased family violence. Conservative governments arguably find it relatively ideologically compatible to fund domestic violence measures because they do not involve economic redistribution.Footnote 85 Such measures were also compatible with conservative views that it is men’s traditional role to protect women.

However, the government was less forthcoming when it came to some other issues. A (newly reintroduced) Women’s Budget Statement mentioned that work that is predominantly women’s work is frequently undervalued.Footnote 86 Nonetheless, the government did not reconsider the past Abbott Liberal government decision to oppose important, Labor government inspired, interventionist measures for pay equity that could have facilitated revaluing women’s work.Footnote 87 Nor did the Coalition rethink its undermining of Labor government legislation that would have strengthened equal pay reporting requirements in the private sector.Footnote 88 Consequently, those women who were lucky enough to return to work were often returning to the low-paid, often precarious, work they had before the pandemic. Key neoliberal assumptions remained, including an underlying assumption that the market was gender-neutral. There was little understanding that gender inequality is currently built into the labour market. The government still seemed to assume that making a business case that gender equality will benefit the bottom line would be enough to convince private enterprise to stop discriminating against women. Similarly, a gender pay gap within an organisation still seemed to be largely attributed to an oversight that would be fixed once businesspeople had it drawn to their attention.

It was not just that the government neglected the fact that some businesses make higher profits by undervaluing female-dominated jobs and by paying women less. The rejection of so-called identity politics still acted against the government recognising the existence of socially disadvantaged groups. It also prevented the government acknowledging particular constructions of masculinity and femininity that may disadvantage women, including involving undervaluations of women’s work. Similarly, the government neglected the threat that may be posed to some traditional forms of masculinity, that are dependent upon women being subordinate if women become more equal and the gendered backlash that might result.

The failure to address issues of structural gender inequality in the labour market and constructions of masculinity and femininity also had implications for the government’s plans for female employment. The 2021–22 budget contained training measures to encourage women into non-traditional trades, although only 5,000 places were funded, along with STEM scholarships for women. Karen Andrews, the Minister for Industry, Science and Technology had previously drawn attention to the impact of technological change on women’s jobs, arguing that it was crucial to encourage women to obtain more STEM skills because “75 per cent of jobs of the future requiring skills across science, technology, engineering and mathematics”.Footnote 89 Yet, she suggested that women’s low participation in STEM was largely due to the study choices that girls were making at school.Footnote 90 However, in order to understand those “choices”, it is necessary to analyse the politics of masculine and feminine identity as well as the gendered distributions of labour in the economy. There is also considerable international research on how gendered identities and power relations impact on women who do attempt careers in STEM and the implications for both attracting women to these areas of work and retaining them in them.Footnote 91 The government could also have suggested some more interventionist measures to increase opportunities for women in STEM-related industries. For example, the budget provided financial support for developing Australian sovereign capability in manufacturing industries after the pandemic revealed major deficiencies in international supply chains. Such support could have favoured companies pursing gender equity strategies.

Despite such criticisms, various commentators pointed out that the 2021–2022 budget was a significant improvement on the previous one when it came to the level of funding that benefited women.Footnote 92 This included increased funding not only in areas mentioned here but in other areas, such as women’s health. More women were also made eligible for superannuation. Clearly, the government had been prepared to spend substantial amounts targeted to benefit Australian women (around $3.4 billion in the 2021–2022 budget if the $1.7 billion for childcare is included) in the long lead up to the 2022 election.Footnote 93 The subsequent budget brought in in March 2022 shortly before the May election also promised increased funding to address issues of “women’s safety, economic security, health and wellbeing”.Footnote 94 Nonetheless, the National Foundation for Australian Women criticised stimulus measures for still disproportionately privileging (male-dominated) physical infrastructure spending over social infrastructure such as aged care, childcare and education. Furthermore, it was argued that changes to parental leave, which were claimed to make it more flexible and facilitate choice by removing designated partner benefits, thereby enabling couples to divide up parental leave as they wished, would actually result in men being less likely to use parental leave, since the family would not lose any entitlements if partners failed to take up previously designated leave.Footnote 95 In short, the parental leave changes failed to recognise the extent to which both traditional gender roles and differential male and female earning capacity would influence choices.

Overall, it seems that the improvements in funding were strongly influenced by a (correct) perception that the government was losing electoral support amongst women.Footnote 96 In other words, it was due to a reframing of the gender issue as one of election strategy, rather than due to a major rethink of the government’s existing economic and social frameworks.

Conclusion

There were some partial international successes in integrating issues of gender equality into the COVID-19 pandemic response, most notably in Europe where feminist politicians in the European parliament were amongst those successfully propagating a “care economy” agenda designed to benefit women as well as society more broadly.Footnote 97 However, while the Morrison government had a pandemic-induced rethink of its attitude towards debts and deficits, the government did not fundamentally rethink how to challenge gender inequality. Although the government eventually provided greater financial incentives to improve the position of women, it was still loath to use more interventionist and redistributive measures to tackle structural gender inequality in the labour market. Similarly, gender equality policy had been constrained by socially conservative critiques of forms of “gender ideology”, gender diversity and so-called identity politics that reinforced a neoliberal focus on individuals rather than disadvantaged social groups. The government also reached out to social conservatives, including those who might be threatened by the government’s support for existing gender equality measures. The Women’s Budget Statement talked vaguely about the need to change the culture and outlined funding for worthwhile anti-domestic violence and anti-sexual harassment initiatives in the process.Footnote 98 Nonetheless, the government was loath to acknowledge that a traditional form of gendered identity politics reinforces women’s disadvantaged position in Australian society. In short, neoliberal and socially conservative ideological framings were still impacting on government gender equality policy in Australia. The next chapter will evaluate the extent to which the Morrison government’s Labor successor has challenged such perspectives.