Unfinished Business: The Albanese Government and Gender Equality Policy (2022–?)

Abstract

This chapter focuses on Australian government policy but also provides relevant international examples. Labor’s Anthony Albanese came into office committed to making Australia a world leader in gender equality policy again. Labor pledged to complete some of the Gillard government’s agenda. The government has a particular focus on improving wages in, and training for, the “care economy”. Improving gender equality is also seen as beneficial for the economy in general. The government has made significant progress in areas such as pay equity, childcare, parental leave, housing for those fleeing domestic violence, skills and training. It is a social democratic framing that recognises issues of structural disadvantage and inequality and aimed to address them. However, the government has also been constrained by trying to bring in reforms in difficult economic times. Furthermore, the government has lacked imagination when it comes to challenging the limitations of a conventional social democratic policy framing. The experience of the Albanese government has useful lessons for governments internationally that are attempting to address the impacts of decades of neoliberalism on gender equality policy. The government also unsuccessfully tried to enshrine an innovative Indigenous Voice to parliament that would have included a gender equal representative structure.

Introduction

The Morrison government’s gender-blind policy settings and ongoing issues around women’s safety in parliamentary culture, which have been discussed in the previous chapter, contributed to its subsequent electoral defeat by Labor. Consequently, Blair Williams and Marian Sawer have argued that: “Gender was a very important part of the story of the 2022 federal election”.¹ The Liberal Party’s own review of its election defeat acknowledged that “the Party’s standing with women was an important factor in the Party’s defeat”.²

Labor argued that not only had women been left behind under the Morrison government, but Australia had plummeted to “its worst ever result” in the global gender gap rankings when “Australia should be leading the world in equality between men and women”.³ Some of the figures regarding Australia’s poor ranking and disturbing figures on gender equality were outlined in the introductory chapter of this book. Additional figures can be found in a report produced a few months after the Albanese government achieved office. That report identified “80 occupations in which men make up 80% or more of the workforce; these occupations have an average salary above $100,000. In contrast, no occupation where women make up that share of the workforce has such a high average salary”.⁴ Furthermore, women did more unpaid work in Australia than in equivalent OECD countries: “Women, for example, do 77.4% more unpaid work than men in the United Kingdom, 63.6% more in the United States, and 51% more in Canada”.⁵ (The situation was much more equitable in Nordic countries.)⁶ Australia also had some of the highest costs for childcare and early child education in the OECD.⁷ Given such figures. It is perhaps not surprising that Australia also had the fourth highest proportion of women working part-time in the OECD and had the ninth worst gender pay gap in the OECD.⁸ Australian women are still more likely to live in poverty than men.⁹

Consequently, Labor promised to address multiple issues from women’s safety and homelessness to improving employment and pay for women.¹⁰ Minister for Women, Katy Gallagher, pledged that:

In developing a National Strategy for Gender Equality, we are aiming to improve life for women and to make Australia the most gender equal country in the world.

This strategy will be about a fair go for everyone, regardless of their gender. We are looking at all aspects of life for women – from safety to pay, to stereotypes and attitudes that restrict choice, to how women’s labour and leadership is valued.¹¹

While being “the most gender equal country” and “leading the world” seem exceptionally ambitious targets, this chapter and the one that follows examines Labor’s gender equality policies as it attempts to achieve those aims. Can Australia provide internationally innovative political and policy lessons for gender equality as it has in the past? Or will Labor’s aims fall victim to economic restraints and a failure of gender policy imagination?

It will be argued that the Albanese government has genuinely attempted to address unfinished business from the period of previous Labor governments, especially in regard to issues such as women's undervalued pay in care work. This includes addressing some of the issues arising from neoliberal influences on past Labor governments that have held women’s wages and conditions back (although this is not acknowledged). The challenge for Labor has been a big one, given the figures cited above. In the words of Sam Mostyn, the then chair of The Women’s Economic Equality Taskforce established by the government: “in this country, the data shows over and over that inequality for women is prevalent and persistent and it impacts a woman’s public and private experience across the entirety of her lifetime”.¹² The challenge was even greater because of remaining gender biases in policy (although the analysis in this book suggests that Mostyn is perhaps somewhat overstating her case below):

….all of our policies seem to me to have been designed, previously, on the idea of post-war design of a family that had a primary breadwinner that was a man and a woman but then she had children with that man. And typically, she would do the caring and her income was forever dependent on his income.

We don’t live in that world anymore…. The policies have got to be contemporary and reflect that.¹³

In April 2024, Albanese announced that Mostyn would become Australia’s second female Governor-General—a usually largely symbolic role although Sir John Kerr notoriously used his rarely used but extensive reserve powers as Governor-General to sack the Whitlam Labor government in 1975.¹⁴

So, how feminist is this Labor government and how well has Labor progressed in terms of reforming policy?

Women’s and Feminist Input into Government Policies

The Albanese government has proudly proclaimed that 53% of government parliamentarians were women (48% in the House of Representatives and 69.2% in the Senate), the first time the majority of members of a government were women with 43% of Cabinet Ministers also being women (10 out of 23).¹⁵ Katy Gallagher, one of many feminists among this contingent of women, was appointed as not just Minister for Women but also Finance Minister, whose responsibilities include budget policy and reviewing government programmes.¹⁶ Gallagher’s appointment both opened up possibilities and involved constraints but did facilitate mainstreaming women’s issues into economic policy along with gender responsive budgeting.

Working for Women—A National Strategy for Gender Equality

Gallagher also engaged in a long and extensive consultation process in the lead up to producing the government’s 103-page Working for Women—A National Strategy for Gender Equality, claiming that it was “informed by thousands of people and groups from across Australia including women’s advocacy groups, businesses, unions and civil society”, including the input of First Nations/Indigenous women.¹⁷ In her launch speech, Katie Gallagher suggested that the strategy was “our country’s first national strategy to achieve gender equality”.¹⁸ However, it is actually somewhat reminiscent of lengthy National Agenda for Women documents produced in 1988 (67 pages) and 1993 (162 pages) during the Hawke and Keating period and drawn on in chapter 3.¹⁹ The 1988 National Agenda also claimed to be the product of consultation with more than 25,000 women from diverse backgrounds and experiences.²⁰ It stated that:

The Government is committed to ensuring that its policies and programs operate to improve the status of women by providing economic security and independence, freedom from discrimination and equality of opportunity in all spheres of activity. It is committed to ensuring that women’s needs are taken fully into account in the development and administration of Government policies and programs. Women must have a choice, a say and a fair go and they must have these things regardless of their culture, language, age or family circumstances. This document offers a set of strategies to achieve this.²¹

There were also lengthy National Agenda Implementation Reports, providing detailed gender disaggregated data on progress in achieving the governments’ goals.²² It is a reminder of how much the wheel has had to be reinvented since the advent of the conservative Howard government that such earlier documents appear to have been overlooked. Nonetheless, Working for Women differs from its Hawke and Keating era predecessors in some key respects. As we will see below, the Albanese government has been less influenced by neoliberalism in regard to issues such as wage restraint and public sector expenditure. The government’s position is also different in its emphasis on the care economy, with Gallagher arguing that “at the heart of our country’s story on gender is extremely rigid gender expectations about who cares for whom, and what or whose work counts as something to be valued”.²³

First Nations/Indigenous Women

However, the government suffered a major setback in consulting Indigenous women when the Australian public voted no in an October 2023 referendum to establish an Indigenous Voice to Parliament in the Australian Constitution (formally the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice) that was intended to provide essential advice to government in the form of both Parliament and the Executive. While details hadn’t been finalised prior to the referendum, the Voice had long been proposed to have equal gender representation and co-chairs of different genders.²⁴ However, the government made other efforts in addition to those in Working for Women to involve Indigenous women in policy formation, including via appointments to a First Nations National Plan Steering Committee to reduce family violence and abuse experienced by Indigenous women and children.²⁵ The government also provided $3 million for what they stated was a “world first” Institute for First Nations Gender Justice at the Australian National University, which is intended to play a key role in developing a Framework for Action.²⁶ The Framework would build on a long process of consultation that began during the previous government, namely the Wiyi Yani U Thangani (Women’s Voices) project, led by the Former Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner of the Australian Human Rights Commission, June Oscar, in partnership with the National Indigenous Australians Agency and would also build on the outcomes of a 2023 First Nations Women and Girls National Summit.²⁷

Expert Appointments and Task Forces

Blair Williams concluded her study of the impact of neoliberalism on Australian gender equality policy by arguing that: “The focus for the Albanese government should be on rebuilding the gender equality architecture that has been eroded by decades of neoliberal governance”.²⁸ It is therefore noteworthy that, as well as extensive consultations, the government also established a number of expert task forces and reviews. For example, the Women’s Economic Equality Taskforce included key feminist economists and labour market experts (many of whom had been critical of the Morrison government’s relative gender blindness), former feminist politicians and business leaders.²⁹ The government appointed feminist experts to other key positions too. These included appointing Danielle Wood to be Chair of the Productivity Commission for a five-year term from November 2023. Wood had previously been CEO of the left leaning Grattan Institute, where she contributed to a number of reports raising issues of gender equality policy.³⁰ She had also been a member of the government’s women’s economic equality taskforce.³¹ Wood had previously made a key intervention at the government’s Jobs and Skills summit, when she argued that: “I can’t help but reflect that if untapped women’s workforce participation was a massive ore deposit, we would have governments lining up to give tax concessions to get it out of the ground”.³² Amongst other measures, the government also made key feminist appointments to a new National Women’s Health Advisory Council, committed to addressing the “medical misogyny” that saw women’s health issues dismissed, neglected and under-researched.³³ Meanwhile, the government commissioned a review into whether the women’s alliances, the national advisory bodies initially established under the Rudd/Gillard governments, were still working effectively and that established their need for better resourcing.³⁴

A key decision was the appointment of Deb Brennan, as an Associate Commissioner to the Productivity Commission in February 2023 with a special brief to work on the Early Childhood Education and Care Inquiry.³⁵ The Inquiry was tasked with “identifying solutions that will chart the course for universal, affordable” Early Childhood Education and Care.³⁶ Brennan is the foremost Australian academic expert on childcare whose work, including trenchant critiques of successive governments’ marketisation models, has already been extensively cited in this book. Wood’s and Brennan’s appointments can be seen as part of a strategy identified by Treasurer Jim Chalmers of reforming key economic institutions such as the Productivity Commission so that they could “help deliver change in areas of disadvantage, to prod and inform and empower”, as part of his aim of producing better market design and a “values-based” capitalism.³⁷ Those reforms clearly involved being more open to feminist input and expertise than under the previous Coalition government.

Women and the Economy in Difficult Economic Times

However, unfortunately, the new appointments and gender equality commitments also coincided with difficult economic times. Treasurer Jim Chalmers noted the combination of the lingering effects of the Global Financial crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic, global energy, inflation and high interest rate crises, aggravated by the war in Ukraine.³⁸ Such factors were subsequently compounded by conflict in the Middle East. Furthermore, although attitudes towards government intervention and debt had shifted during the COVID-19 crisis, and despite some unexpected but temporary revenue increases producing a budget surplus, Chalmers emphasised the need for budgetary restraint to reduce the high underlying debt over the coming years.³⁹ As we have seen previously, Labor governments have repeatedly encountered difficult economic conditions, from the 1970s Whitlam government facing stagnation to the more recent Rudd and Gillard governments facing the Global Financial Crisis and economic distortions arising from a mining boom. Nonetheless, Chalmer’s response not only reflected economic circumstances but also the lingering impacts of neoliberal ideology critiquing deficits and the role such critiques had played electorally in successful Liberal Party attacks on Labor’s claimed profligacy.

Sam Mostyn, as Chair of the Women’s Economic Equality Taskforce, had accepted that the economic situation would cause delays in implementing desired reforms:

We’re very conscious that we face a terribly difficult economy and fiscal situation. So our recommendations are clearly driven to make sure that the early investments are the ones that make the most sense. But we’ve listed our recommendations across a decade of work. And we hold some of those more expensive, large-scale changes until the back end of that decade, to say that none of this can be fixed overnight.⁴⁰

This was despite Mostyn also making it clear that many of the delayed costs involved investments that would have major economic benefits in terms of utilising the skills and resources of Australian women.⁴¹ Indeed, the Women’s Economic Equality Taskforce cited estimates that the cost of not removing the barriers to women’s full economic participation was $128,000,000,000.⁴²

Women’s and Finance Minister Katy Gallagher has lamented that “If I had more money, I would be putting more money everywhere. I wish it was different”.⁴³ Nonetheless, the government stated in 2023 that “Australian women are front and centre in Labor’s second Budget with the most significant single year investment in women’s equality in at least the last 40 years”.⁴⁴ Gallagher argued that: “Investing in women’s safety is indisputable, investing in women who are most disadvantaged is the right thing to do, investing in programs that help get women back to work is common sense, and investing in wages for women is good economics”.⁴⁵ Key measures listed included, 1.9 billion addressing the controversial Gillard-era legislation that removed single parents whose children had turned 8 from the single parents benefit and placed them on job keeper by expanding the eligibility age for the youngest child from under 8 to under 14. This had been a strong recommendation of the Women’s Economic Equality Taskforce. Commonwealth Rent Assistance was increased by 15% (with single women being roughly half the participants) given high levels of single women’s homelessness.⁴⁶ However, the National Federation of Australian Women still drew attention to deficiencies in the gender lens being applied to the 2023-24 budget:

The Government is committed to Gender Responsive Budgeting (GRB) but the implementation plan is dependent on agencies determining that policy measures fall within set criteria. At the moment these exclude many proposals with a total value of less than $250 million over the forward estimates and revenue measures are out of scope.⁴⁷

Although subsequent guidelines involved multiple criteria, the $250 million figure remained for helping to determine whether “a comprehensive gender analysis” should be implemented.⁴⁸ More about the way in which GRB could be improved will be discussed in the concluding chapter that follows.

Nonetheless, the government has also introduced a number of other key economic measures during its period in office that will be discussed below.

Paid Parental Leave

Given their assessment of the difficult economic situation, the Women’s Economic Equality Taskforce report strategically suggested 26 weeks paid parental leave as a first step, despite recognising that OECD experience revealed that 52 weeks facilitated a greater “lose it or use it” component that encouraged men to play more of a role. The report therefore recommended a move to 52 weeks in the next 5–10 years while accepting that the current “fiscal environment” made that a longer term aim rather than one that was immediately achievable.⁴⁹ Yet: “According to the OECD’s key characteristics of parental leave systems data, the global average of total paid leave entitlements available to mothers is 54.1 weeks”.⁵⁰ Furthermore, Korea and Japan offer 52 and 54 weeks paid leave to fathers, respectively, with Japan making particular efforts to encourage men, although relatively few fathers in either country take this up.⁵¹

Women’s and Finance Minister Gallagher acknowledged that “we would all like to continue to improve that scheme, but we’ve got to find room in the Budget to do that as we go” although she also acknowledged that maximising women’s economic participation would have “a positive impact on the Budget”.⁵² The Paid Parental Leave Amendment (More Support for Working Families) Bill 2023 introduced by the government aimed to increase the amount of parental leave by two weeks each year from July 2024 to reach 26 weeks by July 2026, with four weeks leave reserved for each parent, that could be taken concurrently, in order to encourage sharing of duties between both parents.⁵³ Similarly, Minister Gallagher acknowledged that the government would like to pay superannuation on parental leave “when we can find room in the Budget for that”. The government was roundly criticised by the Greens for not doing so.⁵⁴ Indeed, Labor had originally promised to pay superannuation on paid parental leave in the 2019 election campaign but had dropped the commitment due to cost in the 2022 election campaign. It was subsequently announced that superannuation would be paid on government parental leave entitlements from July 2025, that is, after the next election.⁵⁵ Chapter 5 described how the Rudd and Gillard Labor governments had been widely criticised for not paying superannuation when Labor’s paid parental leave scheme was first introduced. The government was going to encourage private employers to offer paid superannuation as part of their supplementary paid parental leave schemes, partly by example and paying it themselves, but had not committed to legislate for it in all forms of paid parental leave as recommended by the Women’s Economic Equality Taskforce.⁵⁶ Furthermore, only 60% of companies were offering their own schemes, in addition to the basic government scheme.⁵⁷

Women’s Wages and the Gender Pay Gap

As we have seen in Chapters 5 and 6, Labor had been arguing for many years that women’s care work had been undervalued but the Rudd and Gillard governments’ attempts to address this had been undermined by the subsequent Liberal-National Coalition government. The Albanese government pressed ahead with supporting cases for wage increases for undervalued female-dominated care work in the Fair Work Commission and had incorporated gender equality as an object in the Fair Work Act.⁵⁸ In the process, the government was prepared to both subsidise some wage increases and subsidise higher employment levels in female-dominated industries.

Consequently, Minister Gallagher announced that key expenditures on women and the care economy in the 2023-24 Budget included:

Backing a 15 per cent increase to the minimum wage for aged care workers, over 85 per cent of whom are women….

Increased funding for community services, many with highly feminised workforces – including for organisations delivering women’s safety initiatives;

$91.3 million to boost the mental healthcare workforce through additional psychology placements, the majority of which are women;

$72.4 million to build and retain the early childhood education and care workforce, 92 per cent of whom are women; and

$67.5 million to support homelessness services during the transition to the National Housing and Homelessness Agreement, supporting jobs that are overwhelmingly done by women, including to assist women and children experiencing domestic and family violence.⁵⁹

What Minister Gallagher did not mention was that in 2023 the government had originally tried to delay full implementation of the 15% pay rise for (predominantly female) aged care workers for financial reasons, suggesting to the Fair Work Commission that it be brought in in stages across two years. However, the Commission overruled the government.⁶⁰ The government was concerned about costs given it had agreed to fund the 15% wage rise in the aged care sector, including both residential and home care (albeit not in private retirement villages and independent living facilities that were not currently funded by the federal government) at a cost of $11.3 billion.⁶¹ By March 2024, a Fair Work Commission decision increased pay for some aged care workers to a cumulative total of 28.5% (including the 15 per cent). The government reiterated its support for a major pay increase, while stating it was considering the levels of funding support that would be provided.⁶² Aged care operators expressed concern at the increased costs involved and whether government would fully cover them.⁶³ The government once again asked the Fair Work Commission to delay full implementation.⁶⁴ The fact that the increase was so substantial underlines the fact that governments as well as not-for-profit and private enterprise aged care providers have been benefiting from underpaid female labour for many years.

The government also moved early in its period in office to recommend to the Annual Wage Review Panel of the Fair Work Commission that there be an increase in the minimum wage, acknowledging that: “Many low-paid workers are young, female, in casual employment, and are far more likely to find themselves experiencing financial hardship”.⁶⁵ The government argued this was particularly the case since in their view: “For nearly a decade, low wages were a deliberate design feature of the Liberal National Government”.⁶⁶ It has continued to advocate increases in the minimum wage and real wage rises generally.⁶⁷

As well as trying to ensure that (predominantly) women’s caring work was valued more highly, the government also attempted to address flaws in industrial relations law that had disadvantaged women. Tony Burke, the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations, admitted that enterprise bargaining was not working “in feminised industries like early childhood education …. People kept telling us multi-employer bargaining is actually a way to fix this”.⁶⁸Indeed, multi-employer bargaining subsequently  contributed to a major increase in childcare workers' wages. What Minister Burke did not acknowledge is that, as explained in Chapters 3, 4 And 5, the gender equity problems with enterprise bargaining actually began under the Keating Labor government, were exacerbated under the Howard Coalition government and were partly retained under the Rudd and Gillard Labor governments whose industrial relations provisions outlawed multi-employer bargaining.⁶⁹ The government has also prioritised trying to improve pay and conditions for those in the gig economy and other forms of precarious work.⁷⁰

The government also moved to implement better gender pay gap reporting measures, including public reporting of the gender pay gap in individual businesses with over 100 employees, given stronger measures scheduled to be introduced in the previous Labor governments’ legislation had been prevented by the Liberal-National Coalition government (as noted in Chapter 6). However, it remains unclear how strong the penalties for non-compliance or poorer results will eventually be, particularly in regard to government procurement. At present companies that are non-compliant in regard to reporting can merely be named although there are also existing restrictions on tendering for government contracts, which had not been enforced by the previous government.⁷¹ By contrast Spanish law, for example, had penalties of up to Euro 180,000 for companies that did not comply as well as possible exclusion from public procurement and France had penalties of up to 1% of payroll (the UK and Sweden also had fines available through those were poorly monitored in Sweden and rarely applied in the UK).⁷² Furthermore, in Sweden all public and private employers had to report, and in Spain, France and South Africa all employers with over 50 employees had to report, whereas in Australia it was over 100 in the private sector (and in the UK 250 in both public and private).⁷³ The Albanese government’s plans for broad gender equality commitments in procurement policy (an issue that, as we have seen in Chapter 3, went back to recommendations during the Keating years at least) were vague and lacking a clear starting date. Minister Gallagher seemed to suggest that it would involve a voluntary statement, at least initially, by businesses involved with more than 500 workers and would be a “carrot”, not a “stick”. Yet Working for Women had suggested the government would be introducing clear requirements.⁷⁴ Gallagher was also uncertain whether any large companies had actually lost a government contract through a failure to adequately address gender equality issues.⁷⁵ When asked by a reporter if she thought that “the response from employers” following the release of gender pay gap data “was a little lacking”, she merely argued that the important thing was “the conversation it started”. However, she did add: “Don’t worry. We’ll be watching. This isn’t just releasing information and then seeing that nothing happens for 25 years. That’s the whole point of releasing it. So, I guess people are on notice about that”.⁷⁶ Nonetheless, even allowing for this being a first step, it was a relatively weak response.

Furthermore, it was not entirely clear what the government’s explanation was for why women were paid less and the role that exploitation in a capitalist economy may have played in this, never mind the role that male trade unionists and social democratic governments had played historically in producing the male wage-earner head of family model discussed previously; nor the role that contemporary constructions of masculinity and femininity play. Rather, sometimes it seemed to be suggested that it was just a historical relic out of touch with contemporary society. As Prime Minister Albanese put it:

….in female-dominated sectors… lower wages have lingered like a relic from another era. It’s a situation that’s been allowed to slide for too long by successive governments. As a society, we cannot continue to accept the situation where certain occupations are paid below their true worth, just because a majority of the workforce are women.⁷⁷

Women and Employment

Procurement policy could also help address government concerns about the gender segregated nature of the Australian labour force. The government’s 2022-3 Budget also allocated $8.6 million to the Australian Skills Guarantee which included targets for women in construction projects, trades/apprentices and ICT projects.⁷⁸ (Although the budget did not state that the incrementally increasing targets for tying training to government-funded projects would still only reach “a minimum of 12% for women in apprenticeships and traineeships and 10% for women in trade apprenticeships and traineeships in 2030” with the ICT targets still to be negotiated.)⁷⁹ However, it was clear that, in line with arguments put forward during the 2022 election campaign, the majority of employment funding for women was targeted at aspects of the care economy. The New South Wales Minister for Skills, Tafe and Tertiary Education Steve Whan confirmed that the free TAFE places facilitated by the federal government had often been used by women who were upskilling in health and aged care and who would not have been able to afford to do so otherwise.⁸⁰

The Albanese government also moved to Implement key 2020 Respect@Work sexual harassment report recommendations that had not been implemented by the Coalition government.⁸¹ Consequently, the government amended the Sex Discrimination Act, introduced by the Hawke Labor government in its original form in 1984, to ensure that employers had a positive duty to eliminate:

• workplace sexual harassment, sex discrimination and sex-based harassment;

• conduct that amounts to subjecting a person to a hostile workplace environment on the ground of sex;

• and, certain acts of victimisation.⁸²

In other words, the onus was put on employers (and those conducting businesses or undertakings) to prevent such acts occurring rather than to merely have individual complaint-based policies in place for dealing with them after they occurred.

Women, Taxation and Revenue Issues

The Incoming Labor government also faced gendered tax issues. Initially, the government committed to implementing the stage three tax cuts introduced by the Liberal-National Coalition Morrison government but projected to be phased in in 2024. Labor had feared the electoral consequences of opposing these cuts, especially after losing the 2019 election partly on tax issues.⁸³ However, those projected tax cuts not only undermined the progressive tax system by removing and reducing higher tax brackets, they would have mainly benefited men and worsened gender inequality.⁸⁴ They also involved major reductions in tax revenue with the Greens arguing that scrapping the stage three tax cuts would enable various measures to be “funded with $254 billion in savings” which had previously benefited “rich men”, including free universal early childhood education and childcare, full reproductive healthcare, superannuation on parental leave, better funding of affordable housing to tackle women’s homelessness and raising income support.⁸⁵ Eventually, the government did not proceed with the stage three tax cuts. However, instead of retaining the resulting revenue, the government reshaped the cuts in a revenue/cost-neutral way that benefited lower income earners. A gender lens analysis revealed that women in jobs such as childcare workers, disability carers and aged care workers would be the major beneficiaries.⁸⁶ Such a tax gender analysis was important given that the National Federation of Australian Women (NFAW) had previously criticised the government for not adequately applying a gender lens to taxation issues.⁸⁷ However, it was also effectively another way of government subsidising the income of lower paid female workers, this time by forgoing tax revenue rather than directly subsidising services in which they were employed. Such subsidies have benefits for business and, as will be discussed in the concluding chapter, reveal more of a neoliberal framing legacy than a traditional social democratic one.

Labor’s Relations with Business

As one would expect in a capitalist society, Minister Gallagher has emphasised that the business sector is one of the key stakeholders the government consults with over policy proposals.⁸⁸ The Albanese government has been more prepared to regulate business than its Liberal-National Coalition predecessors as measures in relation to issues such as gender pay gap reporting have revealed. Nonetheless, as that example also shows, the Australian Labor government has not gone as far as some other countries. Revealingly, Gallagher has stated that, “when government looks at what we can do, we look at the things that are within our control as opposed to the choice of individual employees and employers”.⁸⁹ Gallagher has emphasised that the government’s measures so far were only “first steps”, nonetheless there often seems to be a reluctance to impose strong regulations on the private sector.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese had long argued that his government would focus on bringing all Australians together, including business and labour, especially since he believed that the 2019 election had partly been lost by Labor because of Bill Shorten’s focus on targeting the so-called big end of town.⁹⁰ Nonetheless, one should not expect business to necessarily come to the party on more radical gender equality measures, including paying women more.

However, so far, the discussion has mainly focused on issues of women and the economy. The discussion that follows will focus on broader issues of government policy, beginning with one area that is often now constructed as primarily an economic issue facilitating women’s participation but that should actually be seen in a much broader context, namely childcare.

Childcare

Childcare is a major priority, with the Prime Minister Albanese reiterating his support for moving towards universal childcare that he had stated during the 2022 election campaign.⁹¹ As Frank Bongiorno pointed out then, such talk of the universal benefits of public provision had rarely been heard since the Whitlam years.⁹² Women did more hours of paid work in most other OECD countries and childcare costs were seen by the government as “the single biggest barrier to work facing single parents and primary carers”.⁹³ Consequently, the Treasurer argued that making childcare cheaper and more accessible “is our biggest on-budget commitment so far, and why we see that as a core investment in the economy and in easing cost of living pressures, and not some form of welfare”.⁹⁴ The government claimed to have reduced childcare costs by around 14% per hour in 2023.⁹⁵ As the Labor government became increasingly concerned about the impact of cost-of-living pressures on voters, more affordable childhood education and care was increasingly depicted as “a win-win for Australian families, delivering cost-of-living relief while also making it easier to increase household income”.⁹⁶ Albanese argued it was also a measure that not only boosted participation and productivity but also helped with the family budget in a way that was designed “to take pressure off people” while being “carefully designed to not to put pressure on inflation” (and thereby also higher home interest rates designed to address inflation).⁹⁷

Albanese also depicted childcare as a benefit to business, since it helped prevent businesses from losing valuable staff who otherwise might not return to the workforce.⁹⁸ Indeed, according to Katharine Murphy, Albanese had seen childcare as a crucial plank of his 2022 election strategy given it created a link to what Murphy describes as “harried working mothers”—an electoral cohort neglected by Scott Morrison—plus also being a productivity measure that provided links to business interests.⁹⁹ While it is estimable that Albanese supported universal provision, the focus on encouraging women’s workforce participation and on benefits to business did reflect a tendency to still relate childcare to work, rather than the model of free childcare for all, originally advocated by women’s liberation over 50 years ago and discussed in Chapter 2. Significantly, the National Federation of Australian Women (NFAW) also thought that there had been missed opportunities, such as removing the activity test on childcare given that how many hours of government subsidised care were received depended upon how many hours of recognised activities (including work, approved study and some hours of volunteering or looking for work) one did.¹⁰⁰ However, First Nations children could get "at least 36 hours of subsidised early childhood education and care each fortnight, regardless of their family’s activity level”.¹⁰¹ Education for the first five years of a child’s life was seen as an essential equity measure for improving the trajectory of a child’s life, and presumably for Indigenous children in particular.¹⁰²

The Draft Report of the Productivity Commission review into Early Childhood Education and Care, mentioned earlier, went further than the government’s measures, recommending that all children 0–5 years should have “an entitlement to up to 30 hours or 3 days a week of subsidised care without an activity requirement”.¹⁰³ In other words, their childcare entitlement did not need to be tied to employment. Among a long list, the draft report also advocated that families earning up to $80,000 should receive an 100% subsidy of the hourly rate.¹⁰⁴ The report also recommended better access to subsidise occasional and out of regular preschool hours care, along with better recognition, availability and regulation of training for workers, including improving pathways for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to receive appropriate training.¹⁰⁵

Violence Against Women

The Labor government’s broader focus on women’s economic security, through improving pay and conditions, was seen as a crucial element of facilitating women being able to leave domestic violence situations.¹⁰⁶ However, the government had much more ambitious plans, with the state, territory and federal governments’ National Plan (somewhat extraordinarily) pledging to: “Ending gender-based violence in one generation”.¹⁰⁷ The government also introduced measures designed to improve data on family, sexual and domestic violence; ensure that ministers in all portfolios were addressing issues relevant to domestic violence; substantially reduce the time it took to access the Escaping Violence Payment; fund new frontline and community support workers; enshrine a legal obligation for employees to have access to ten days paid domestic violence leave; reform the family law to make it safer for those fleeing family violence and examine how to improve the justice system for sexual assault victims.¹⁰⁸ Indeed, the government had provided $2.29 billion in funding over two budgets to cover issues of women’s safety under the National Plan to End Violence against Women and Children 2022–2032.¹⁰⁹ There were delays in implementing some of these measures, for example, the employment of support workers.¹¹⁰ Albanese also pledged that The Housing Australia Future Fund would include 4,000 homes (out of 30,000) would be designated for women and children fleeing family violence.¹¹¹ The government also introduced a pilot programme to assist migrant women facing family and domestic violence while on a temporary visa, recognising also that they often had additional difficulties accessing support groups or services.¹¹² The government had also committed additional funding to address violence against Indigenous women, given that, in Albanese’s words: “It is a tragedy that an Indigenous person is seven times more likely to die at the hands of a domestic partner, if you're an Indigenous woman compared with a non-Indigenous woman”.¹¹³ Nonetheless, the government has been criticised for not spending enough on domestic violence, as well as for categorising it as a National Crisis rather than as a National Emergency, which would technically release more funds.¹¹⁴ The government subsequently held a meeting of national, state and territory leaders and pledged $1 billion to help survivors leave violent situations and to counter online misogyny.¹¹⁵

Gallagher acknowledged that many Australians remained ignorant of the prevalence of violence against women and that work had to be done to raise awareness as well as change social attitudes¹¹⁶:

….it is long and hard work, but we have to get to boys. Particularly in school, and educate – both boys and girls – and educate them about respectful relationships, about consent, around attitudes towards those social norms and gender roles about who does what. I mean, all of that is part of addressing the prevalence of violence, gender-based violence, in this country. It has to be. Because I think there’s a lack of understanding about gender inequality in this country as well. And that’s linked to this.¹¹⁷

Gallagher’s statement was particularly important because, as Bromfeld, Wegner and Page have noted, conservative prime ministers such as Howard, Abbott and Morrison have had a tendency of “defining and framing the violent acts that women face as abnormal and individualised personal tragedies, rather than results of structurally gendered conditions that enable” sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV).¹¹⁸ (Although Malcolm Turnbull, as a Liberal moderate, had a better understanding of the role that gender inequality and widespread disrespectful attitudes towards women played in fostering domestic violence.)¹¹⁹

Health

The Labor government’s measures to tackle “medical misogyny” and improve women’s health included establishing 22 new Endometriosis and Pelvic Pain Clinics, investing $48.2 million for a National Strategy for the Elimination of Cervical Cancer and reducing restrictions on who could prescribe medical termination medication.¹²⁰ Importantly, the government acknowledged gendered biases in research with Assistant Minister for Health, Ged Kearney, stating that: “For too long, women and LGBTIQ+ Australians have been underrepresented in health and medical research and have all too often had their experiences ignored. Labor is committed to a stronger, more inclusive health and medical research industry”.¹²¹ It was indeed too long, given that deficiencies in understanding and treating women’s health were an issue that Labor had sought to address since the Whitlam government first funded women’s health centres in the 1970s.

The government also legislated to make it easier for patients to receive care from the (female-dominated) professions of nurse practitioner and midwife.¹²² However, the government was relatively weak on some issues, for example the Working For Women Strategy document did not specify what measures the government would take to ensure that public hospitals offer abortions.¹²³

LGBTIQ+

As we have seen in a Chapter 5, the Rudd and Gillard period had seen legislation passed that removed most formal discrimination against gay and lesbian Australians and had also provided some protection against discrimination on the basis of gender identity and Rudd had supported same-sex marriage in his final term as prime minister although it hadn’t been legislated. Albanese himself had been a champion of gay and lesbian rights long before it was fashionable to be so, having first introduced a private member’s bill supporting same-sex superannuation rights in 1996.¹²⁴ Same-sex marriage had passed during the Turnbull period after the divisive postal vote survey result in support. However, there were some key issues that remained. When Labor amended the Sex Discrimination Act in 2013 to provide protection on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity, and intersex status, it provided an exemption for religious providers, including schools,  that would, for example, allow them to continue to be able to expel gay and transgender students and sack gay and transgender staff (heterosexuals falling pregnant or having sex outside of marriage could also be targeted).¹²⁵ The issue of whether conservative religious providers should be able to discriminate (including against staff and students with progressive religious views on such issues) became an ongoing bone of contention in the debate over introducing religious freedom legislation. Following culture war, anxieties exacerbated by the defeat of the Indigenous Voice to Parliament and in the context of growing Islamophobia and anti-semitism, Albanese made an initial statement saying he’d require bipartisan support before proceeding on the issue. Although he subsequently modified his position to suggest he might possibly proceed with support from the Greens after backlash from LGBTIQ+ groups and their supporters.¹²⁶

Albanese’s fear of so-called anti-gender ideology culture war issues being mobilised, as former Liberal Prime Minister Scott Morrison had attempted to do, also led to him trying to defuse (and sometimes sidestep) the issue of transgender rights. Albanese argued that the issue of whether transgender athletes should compete was up to the sporting codes involved and that “what shouldn’t be done is to try to politicise an issue that should be made on its merits, based upon the proper assessment of whether it’s fair or not, but done in a way as well, that doesn’t seek to essentially target a very vulnerable group”.¹²⁷ During the 2022 election campaign, Albanese had responded to a question as to whether men can have babies with the response “no”.¹²⁸ Support for a LGBTIQ+ Human Rights Commissioner had been promised by Labor in the 2016 and 2019 election but had mysteriously disappeared by 2022.¹²⁹ Despite a two-page document covering the forms of discrimination faced by transgender and non-binary people, there are very few mentions in the Working for Women strategy, although there is a passing reference that “for all people, especially gender diverse people, identifying and expressing gender outside the traditional gender binary can result in violence, discrimination, stigma and exclusion” and transgender women of colour face particularly high levels of violence.¹³⁰ There was no mention of other issues mentioned in the discussion paper such as high rates of suicide, homelessness and educational disadvantage.¹³¹ Whether the Labor government can continue to sidestep the issue, particularly given its political mobilisation in Australia and internationally, remains to be seen. However, in the meantime, the government is not providing additional, proactive support to transgender people.

Foreign Policy

While this chapter has focused on domestic policy settings, it should be noted that the Labor government has affirmed that: “Promoting gender equality is a priority for Australia and central to Australia’s diplomatic, economic, development, and regional security efforts”.¹³² Furthermore, the government restored a target of 80 per cent of Overseas Development Aid to address issues of gender, arguing that: “We know investing in women and girls has a powerful effect on economic growth and wellbeing”.¹³³ The government also stated that it will tackle “the root causes of gender inequality across security, trade, foreign and development policy”.¹³⁴ Australia also joined the Inclusive Trade Action Group (ITAG) and the Global Trade and Gender Arrangement (GTAGA) supporting “equitable and inclusive” trade.¹³⁵ As we shall see in the next chapter, Foreign Minister Penny Wong highlighted the campaigns against forms of gender equality that are taking place internationally.

Masculinity

However, there were also domestic contestations over masculine gender identity in the form of politicians’ images. Albanese’s own persona tried to combine elements of blokeyness (beer loving DJ Albo) with sensitive new age man (the young man who grew up in social housing helping to support his disabled mother and who pledged to care for those Australians doing it tough). He toned down his previously more aggressive and macho statements, including that he wanted to get back to “fighting Tories. That’s what I do” (admittedly said in the context of stopping Labor infighting).¹³⁶ Rather, during the 2022 election, Albanese promised to be a force for national unity and bringing people together.¹³⁷ He also drew on former New Zealand Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, by emphasising kindness, arguing in his victory acceptance speech:

I want to find that common ground where together we can plant our dreams. To unite around our shared love of this country, our shared faith in Australia’s future, our shared values of fairness and opportunity, and hard work and kindness to those in need.¹³⁸

He made a similar call for kindness in regards to supporting the Constitutional Referendum designed to establish a consultative Voice for Indigenous Australians: “There is nothing, no cost to Australians showing kindness with their heart as well as their head when they enter the polling booth tomorrow and voting Yes”.¹³⁹

However, Albanese was to see his evoking of a caring, kind Australia turned against him, with the Murdoch media jumping on a poll respondent’s description of him as a “beta male”.¹⁴⁰ Leader of the Opposition Peter Dutton himself attempted to emasculate Prime Minister Albanese, referring to issues ranging from the cost of living to the High Court releasing some immigration detainees convicted of criminal offences:

….the Prime Minister needs to show some strength, show some leadership, instead of being weak and woke, he needs to stand up and be strong and stand up for our country’s interests. At the moment, the Prime Minister’s not doing that. He’s not doing it on cost of living, he’s not doing it in relation to allowing these criminals out into the community to commit more offences, he’s not doing it for the Jewish community, and I think the Prime Minister’s weakness at this time that our country needs strength is of great and understandable concern to most Australians.¹⁴¹

Dutton similarly attacked Albanese for what he described as “the most significant display of weak leadership that I’ve seen in my 20-odd years in the parliament” when Albanese abandoned the Morrison government’s stage three tax cuts (albeit in support of tax cuts for lower income earners).¹⁴² A December 2023 opinion poll showed only 39% of those polled thought Dutton was “likeable”, compared with 57% for Albanese. Only 45% thought Dutton “cares for people” as opposed to 61% for Albanese. However, 58% thought Dutton was “decisive and strong”, compared with only 48% for Albanese.¹⁴³ To draw on Judith Butler, Albanese’s attempts to model a more caring and kinder form of masculine leadership therefore contributed to arguments that he is not performing his “gender right”.¹⁴⁴

Albanese himself had made some statements stating the need for leaders to encourage broader cultural change that also included encouraging socially progressive behaviour by men:

We have achieved a lot in our first 18 months, while remaining deeply aware that there is a long way to go. It isn’t just the job of governments. Changing the attitudes that entrench inequality and discrimination, and objectify women and disregard consent, is everyone’s responsibility. Men in particular have to step up. And male leaders have an opportunity to champion change, and create the conditions that prevent violence, abuse, discrimination and harassment.¹⁴⁵

The government has been prepared to challenge toxic masculine stereotypes, albeit particularly in the context of violence against women. For example, the government announced a $3.5 million three-year trial programme designed to encourage “healthy masculinity” in boys that would be delivered via groups such as sporting clubs as well as online. The government was particularly concerned that:

Recent research has found that 25 per cent of teenage boys in Australia look up to social media personalities who perpetuate harmful gender stereotypes and condone violence against women… Research shows there are strong links between harmful forms of masculinity and the perpetration of violence against women.¹⁴⁶

Nonetheless, Albanese was careful to reassure men that the government’s policies in a range of areas had been “win–win” ones for all involved and that “greater equality for women hasn’t led to worse results for men”.¹⁴⁷

Conclusion

Albanese might have been “deeply aware that there is a long way to go” but the government was very proud of its achievements.¹⁴⁸ In 2023, Minister Gallagher stated that the “latest Gender Gap Report from the World Economic Forum shows that since the Albanese Labor Government took office, Australia’s world gender equality ranking has jumped up 17 places from 43rd to 26th – the largest increase since the index began in 2006”.¹⁴⁹ She was also proud of the fact that: “New data released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) today shows that the national gender pay gap has dropped from 13.3% in November 2022 to 13% in May 2023, the lowest level on record”.¹⁵⁰ However, she acknowledged that the most recent gender report card revealed that “while Australia has the fourth highest level of tertiary educated women in the OECD, Australian women still earn less than men, do more hours of unpaid care and are less likely to be in leadership positions” so “serious disparities remain between men and women”.¹⁵¹

At an event launching Elizabeth Reid’s account of her time working as women’s advisor for the Whitlam government, Katy Gallagher thanked Reid “for reminding us that revolution, reform, and Labor Governments go together!”.¹⁵² Recently appointed Governor-General Sam Mostyn, when Chair of the Women’s Economic Equality Taskforce, had spoken of the need “to actually think about a different, reimagined future, and in that future for us, women have got to be recognised and given the credit, rather than taking advantage of” and she referred to the negative role of “gender norms”.¹⁵³ Another version of the future was given by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese when he was questioned regarding what, as a self-described “progressive”, he wanted Australia to be progressing towards and replied that it was:

….to a more inclusive society. To one that has greater opportunity regardless of people’s birth or people’s ethnicity or religion or gender. A country that is able to move forward as a whole, but an economy, for example, that works for everyone, not people working for an economy.¹⁵⁴

Albanese’s answer is a typical twenty-first-century Labor one while Gallagher’s evocation of Reid reminds us of a somewhat more radical time. Albanese’s answer is, nonetheless, a worthy, reforming one. His government has conscientiously and methodically moved to address, progress, and in some cases begin to fix up, some key gender inequality issues inherited from past governments, including Labor ones. It has also often tweaked an existing policy agenda, reframing it to fit in to current political priorities as when subsidising childcare costs becomes a measure addressing an inflationary cost-of-living crisis as well as an equity, participation and productivity one. Like its predecessors, the Labor government has often cited economic constraints as a reason for not progressing faster, including in areas documented in this chapter, where Australian gender equality policy falls short in an international comparison. The next chapter will also suggest that the government could have done more to address current and future issues of climate change and technology, amongst other issues.

However, despite the genuine progress that has been made, it is in no sense a radical or revolutionary government gender equality agenda and it is not one that reconceives and refashions Australian policy regimes. Yet the concluding chapter that follows will suggest, as many feminists before have argued, that if we are really going to address gender equality, it is necessary to reimagine and reinvent the political as well as the policy agendas that go along with it.