SENATOR THE HON KATY GALLAGHER
MINISTER FINANCE
MINISTER FOR WOMEN
MINISTER FOR THE PUBLIC SERVICE
MINISTER FOR GOVERNMENT SERVICES

BUILDING AUSTRALIA'S FUTURE: LABOR’S COMMITMENT TO WOMEN

HOSTED BY PER CAPITA AND THE CHIFLEY RESEARCH CENTRE

QV WOMEN’S CENTRE, MELBOURNE
TUESDAY, 22 APRIL 2025 

I begin by acknowledging that we are gathering today on the land of the Wurundjeri and Bunurong people of the Kulin nation. And I pay my respects to Elders past and present, and I extend that respect to all First Nations people joining us today. I particularly want to acknowledge strength and leadership of First Nations women in Australia, who are so often leaders in their communities, holders of knowledge and constant advocates for equality.

Thank you to Per Capita for organising today’s important event and to all those on the panels including my colleagues Assistant Minister for Women Kate Thwaites, Assistant Minister for Health Ged Kearney, Senator Jess Walsh, Senator Lisa Darmanin. It’s so lovely to be here with you all today, in the final half of an incredibly important election campaign where the contrast between the two parties seeking to form government couldn’t be clearer.

From the first ever federal Government to have a majority of women members, to an Opposition that can’t and won’t budge beyond 30 per cent. From a political party whose affirmative action rules require 50 per cent women candidates, to an Opposition that continues to preselect men over women, with women only holding six of the opposition’s safe seats. From a Labor Government that has done more in under three years to progress women’s equality than we have seen in decades, to an Opposition who wasted a decade in government. From a Prime Minister who put gender equality at the heart of his government and at the centre of his government’s economic policy, to the Opposition leader who continues to consider women’s policy as an afterthought and women as victims simply requiring protection. And government which will continue to shift the dial in our pursuit of gender equality if we win the election, or an Opposition whose Deputy Prime Minister, if they were to win on 3 May, recently referred to a female Labor MP as a dog. This is the choice on 3 May for Australia’s women.

Now, I have had the enormous privilege to be the Minister for Women since May 2022. And from that first day right up until today and beyond, our agenda for women has been front and centre of the Albanese government’s decisions. I acknowledge my colleague Tanya Plibersek for her role in shaping Labor’s agenda for women from Opposition, which gave me such a strong platform to start work on when we won the election. I thank Amanda Rishworth, Justine Elliot and Kate Thwaites in particular for working together with me and in women’s safety, which has been critical to our overall approach in women’s policy. I would also like to thank all the women that have helped guide and inform the achievements of our first term – always keeping us accountable, keeping the pressure up, helping us to prioritise a very long to do list for women. I acknowledge and thank you all. You join the very best of women who have always rolled up their sleeves to continue the unfinished work of the generations of feminists who came before us and who have always shown up and who never took no for an answer.

Now, Labor women in Government are acutely aware that it is our responsibility to make the most of our time in government, to advance gender equality and to advance the rights of women. Labor has always been the party to take this seriously. It was Labor under Ben Chifley that led the world in embedding rights for women in the birth of the UN, driven by the formidable Jessie Street and laying the foundation for women’s human rights today. It was Labor under Whitlam that introduced no-fault divorce, the single parents benefit and scrapped the luxury tax on the contraceptive pill – policies that were pushed by the first-ever women’s adviser to a head of government in the legendary Elizabeth Reid. It was Labor under Hawke, side by side with Susan Ryan, who introduced the Sex Discrimination Act and introduced gender-responsive budgeting to the world. It was Labor under Julia Gillard and Jenny Macklin that introduced Commonwealth Paid Parental Leave and established the Workplace Gender Equality Agency. And it was Labor under Tanya Plibersek’s leadership who initiated the first 12 Year National Plan to Reduce Violence Against Women and their children. If you look at a timeline of key steps towards gender equality in Australia, you will see that every time Labor is in power, we deliver the lasting reforms that progress the rights of women. But we also know that progress isn’t linear, and that progress made can always be wound back. Susan Ryan put it best when she warned us all not to be complacent and said: “The gains were so hard to make, and if you don’t watch out, they're going to disappear.” 

So, when I look back over the past three years, we have achieved a lot of progress together, as Emma outlined. Expanding PPL to six months and encouraging shared care arrangements, investments in early education and care, getting rid of the activity test, guaranteeing 3 days of subsidised care for all children. Supporting our critical early childhood education workforce by paying those workers more, as we have done for the aged care workforce too. We put gender equality at the centre of our workplace relations settings and worked hard to close the gender pay gap faster – and it’s been working. Women are earning $217.40 a week more now than in May 2022 and we have shaved over 2 per cent off the gender pay gap. We have made record investments to end violence against women and we’ve put in place the Second National Plan to End Violence Against Women. We boosted Commonwealth Rent Assistance and we provided tax cuts and cost-of-living relief. These have all been informed by gender analysis. We expanded Parenting Payment Single to when the youngest child is 14 and ended that harmful ParentsNext program. We brought back gender-responsive budgeting – another Labor innovation that had been abandoned by the conservatives during their time in government. Under Ged’s leadership, we opened 22 endometriosis clinics and put reproductive health and menopause care on the agenda – and, for those that don’t read the Women’s Budget Statements like all of us do, every single one of them discusses menopause, in all the budgets since we handed them down. 

Now, we've done this, and it's been driven by the first majority-women Federal Government in Australia's history, the first gender equal cabinet. None of these policies were an afterthought. It was the result of deciding from day one that women’s equality is a core economic imperative. It was not by accident the Prime Minister gave me the portfolios of Finance and Women in May 2022. This was clear decision to bring the women’s portfolio right into the core of governing, to sit alongside the money and the institutions which have traditionally been the domain of very protective men.

Across this term, I have met with hundreds if not thousands of women and listened to them, and as a Government we have sought to respond. You called me when we expanded Parenting Payment Single to tell me how your life was changed. You called me when we scrapped ParentsNext and told me that the weight had been lifted off your shoulders. When employer pay gaps were published for the first time, women around the country jumped online to check out what they had always known but couldn’t confirm. And it was women’s voices from right around the country that informed our first-ever national strategy for gender equality, Working for Women, focusing on women’s safety, valuing paid and unpaid care, advancing women’s economic equality and security, supporting women’s health and elevating women’s leadership, decisionmaking and participation. Because we know there’s not a single or simple solution to achieving gender equality in this country. Women’s health is connected to our work, and women’s safety is connected to our financial security, and the unpaid care that we undertake is connected to our security in retirement.

Women’s safety
Across this term we have worked hard to advance economic equality for women – through our tax reforms, through our payments system, through rights at work and better pay, and through housing. And throughout this term, we have been focused every day on ending violence against women and children, as violence against women is the single biggest barrier to achieving gender equality in this country. People often ask me if I had a magic wand for a day, what would I wish for, and for me the answer is always, always ending violence against women. Women need to be and have a right to be free from violence.

Under Amanda Rishworth’s leadership, assisted by Justine Elliot, we secured the agreement of states and territories to a second National Plan to End Violence Against Women and Children in a generation. Every jurisdiction has agreed to the bold but important goal that we want to end violence against women in a generation. And importantly, all agreed to services, supports and policy priorities that pull in the same direction.

We have backed this plan in with funding. In just one term we have invested around $4 billion, including to provide direct assistance to victim-survivors, to crack down on violent perpetrators, to support children who have experienced violence and to engage with men and boys to prevent violence. We have also invested $3.9 billion in legal assistance services and ended the funding cliff that these essential services faced under the former government. Peter Dutton likes to include this funding in his list of wasteful spending, but we see it differently – as properly resourcing essential services, such as Women’s Legal Centres.

And in housing we are investing in social and affordable housing after the wasted Liberal decade – and importantly, we have included specific measures to support women and children escaping violence in this area. And while we are proud of what we have been able to do already, we also know as Labor people that there is loads more to do. There are far too many women who live with violence in their lives, and for these women change is not happening quickly enough.

Levels of violence remain high, and in the case of sexual violence, appear to be increasing. It is all too frequent that we see a chilling new headline reporting on the death of another woman, so often at the hands of a current or former partner. And we are encountering new challenges, particularly as we grapple with how our young people, especially boys, are accessing online content. We know the only way we can continue to make progress in ending violence against women and children is to listen, learn and be prepared to act and adapt when needed. This means looking at what’s working and reflecting on where the gaps remain. It means considering new options and ideas where new evidence emerges or when things change, or new challenges arise. The National Plan – developed alongside experts and victim-survivors – is a critically important tool in navigating this work. But we know we also must evolve, and act, to build on its promise.

In our last term we made women’s safety a priority for National Cabinet, to ensure all jurisdictions are working on ways to address this crisis. We have invested in justice responses to respond to high-risk perpetrators, while also investing in trauma-informed support for children, particularly those who have been exposed to violence, because we know that different drivers of violence require different interventions. We have made structural changes to the family law system. And we commissioned a rapid review of the evidence around prevention of violence to help further inform our work and our approach. In responding to the rapid review, we are undertaking an audit of Commonwealth systems to understand how they are being weaponised by perpetrators and how we can make them more accessible and protective for victim-survivors. Already the audit is providing insights that we are acting on.

Announcements
Today, we are announcing a number of reforms that a second term Albanese Labor Government will deliver, which come directly from the conversations we have been having with victim-survivors, advocates and experts about where systems are letting women down.

We will take action to legislate practical changes in the superannuation, tax and social security systems so they cannot be weaponised by perpetrators. We will look at how we can stop abusers receiving their victim’s superannuation – because there is no world where we believe that perpetrators of violence should benefit from the death of someone they themselves have abused. We will prevent perpetrators from using the tax system and corporate systems to create debts as a form of coercive control, and ensure perpetrators are accountable for these debts if they do. I acknowledge the work and advocacy of Senator Deb O’Neill, whose work as chair of the recent Joint Parliamentary Inquiry on Financial Abuse has been critical in exposing some of these terrifying practices. I also acknowledge Zaneta Mascarenhas for her advocacy on this issue across this term of Parliament. This includes the dodgy practice of appointing people to directorships using coercion and without informed consent. We will put an end to this loophole, which has existed for too long. And we will also examine ways to apply this approach in the social security system, so perpetrators are accountable where their abuse results in victim-survivors carrying the burden of debt.

We are going to do more to stop high-risk perpetrators by providing additional funding through the Innovative Perpetrator Responses Fund to deliver new and practical ways to deal with those who abuse women in this country. This will build on our existing work with States and Territories, including reforms like enhanced electronic monitoring and intensive behaviour change programs. This announcement stems directly from the National Cabinet discussion to establish new, world first policing approaches to stop deaths from domestic violence. It also complements the work we have already started such as pilots using focussed deterrence, as well as domestic violence threat assessment centres as two new ways of identifying and dealing with perpetrators that pose the highest risk.

We recognise that there is still much to do, and Labor remains fiercely determined to meet the commitment and promise of the National Plan to end violence against women and children in a generation.

Labor’s Plan
While our first term agenda for women was ambitious, our second term agenda, if we are fortunate enough to be re-elected, will be just as ambitious. As well as the safety reforms I’ve just spoken about, we will deliver the biggest investment in Medicare ever – and will deliver over three quarters of a billion dollars for women’s reproductive health and menopause care, thanks to the incredibly hard work of Ged Kearney and her women’s health council, who together lifted the lid on health misogyny and didn’t like what they saw. We have also committed to $1 billion for mental health and a re-elected Albanese Government will invest $16.7 million to open another eight Perinatal Mental Health Clinics around the country, operated by the Gidget Foundation. That will bring the total number of centres to twenty and will see these centres provide mental health care for close to 5,000 new parents each year.

A re-elected Albanese Government will also make Free TAFE permanent, a program that is supporting women to train and retrain without the worry of TAFE fees. And we are keeping an eye of to make sure that women get their fair share of the Free TAFE program. We will wipe 20 per cent of student debts and provide a Commonwealth Prac Payment to support nursing, midwifery, teaching and social work students to undertake their now unpaid prac. These investments will give women more choices to invest in their own futures and are a deliberate investment in sectors that are supported by women, and which support women.

We will also continue our work to close the gender pay gap. We will address the motherhood penalty by finally paying super on government Paid Parental Leave from July this year. I thank Assistant Minister Kate Thwaites for all of her years of work on that. We will implement workplace gender equality targets for large businesses. We have welcomed the Fair Work Commission’s initial, historic decision finding gender undervaluation in a number of feminised awards. I acknowledge the 20-year campaign of the trade union movement in delivering this outcome. It has been quite an extraordinary and unrelenting effort. A re-elected Albanese Government will work co-operatively with the Commission as it sets out a pathway to address the gender undervaluation of these awards, because we always support rights at work, including the flexibility you need to do your job and live your life. We will legislate to protect penalty rates and awards, which is a critical protection for women, who are more likely to be employed on the awards system.

And in Government, as the largest employer in the economy, we believe the APS should lead the way and should set the standard that other employers follow. We know that, when asked, women often rate workplace flexibility above pay rises in the order of importance. This election we have seen more of a focus on workplace flexibility than normal. Perhaps it was when Senator Hume sent the unguided missile telling all those working from home that a Dutton government would frog march them all back into the office. Talk about cut through – you could almost hear the gasps from suburbs right around the country as families started re-assessing their work and care arrangements! For those families who had worked out ways to manage their busy lives and balance caring the threat to upend those arrangements went down like a lead balloon. And then Peter Dutton said – no problem, if you can’t handle being back in the office then women can always job-share! What a choice – reduce your hours and pay or lose flexibility. You can’t make this stuff up. So unpopular was their back to the office policy that they had to do an embarrassing backflip, only to come back days later and say, it’s good policy, that hadn’t found its appropriate time for it, which is a backflip on a backflip.

But the Albanese Government, we do recognise the importance of flexibility at work and what a game-changer it’s been for many women, including increasing options for work. We have strengthened flexible working conditions. And in a second term we want to examine how we can use flexible working arrangements, including working from home, to attract and retain more workers into the public sector. In the global fight for labour, the APS must look to how we can use our big employment footprint and flexible working arrangements to ensure that more women, including women with a disability and older women, see working for the public service as a great career choice.

Now, housing for women will also be an important priority for a second term Labor Government. In addition to the investment in social and affordable housing we have underway, we have made further announcements, including first home buyers’ access to 5 per cent deposits and building up to 100,000 homes for sale only to first home buyers, including those who have not owned a property in Australia in the previous 10 years. So, if you’re locked out of the housing market after a breakup or a crisis, the Government will help you find a way back in. We’ll build into the program guidelines with the States and Territories that there will be an expectation that women get fair access to these programs – because we know that women are underrepresented in many first home buyer programs. So, we’ll be keeping a close eye on that.

Today, as part of all of what I've just said to you, it's wrapped up in our policy agenda for women. It's called Building Australia's Future: Labor’s Commitment to Women. This really outlines the progress we've made to date to drive a gender-equal Australia and how we will build on this foundation in a second term. We have the plan, we have the commitment, and we have the team. I see them sitting here with me today to deliver on this commitment.

Now, right at the beginning of my speech today, I spoke of the contrast between the two major parties when it comes to women and gender equality. And I mean, I know you hear politicians all the time say, this election is very important and there's a real choice. But for me, when I look at what's on offer, the contrast really couldn't be more stark. And with that contrast comes the risk, because we know that a Dutton government would have us go backwards and put at risk all of the work and all of the progress that we have achieved together. We only need to look at the track record of Peter Dutton and the Coalition. He was Minister in a Government that for ten long years sat on its hands when it came to advancing gender equality. And after three years in Opposition, he has not put forward a single meaningful policy to improve the lives of women in Australia. No election commitments, no women’s policy, nothing. Although, to be fair, he did say that the cuts to fuel excise will benefit women who are driving the kids around. 

And when he was forced to show his hand on any specific policy for women, he’s said he will undermine super on PPL, because he will give you the opportunity to cash it out. And he’s opposed our cost-of-living help that was designed to make things easier for women. He’s opposed our vision for universal childcare and the abolition of the activity test. He’s said that he will abolish free TAFE. He talks a big game about protecting women and children, but has never explained how he’d actually do this, or demonstrated any understanding of the complex factors that drive violence against women. We know flexible working arrangements are back on the chopping block. And the cuts that will be required to pay for his taxpayer-funded nuclear reactors will mean cuts to services that women rely on and thousands of public sector women workers who will be sacked. He’ll also abolish the HAFF, the Housing Australia Future Fund. But not to worry, because last week he told us that his plan to claim interest payments off your mortgages through the tax system will allow homeless women to get into the property market and buy a home. So, while we want to increase women’s superannuation balances, Peter Dutton wants women to weaken their super and weaken their retirement incomes. And as I said at the beginning, the man who would be Deputy Prime Minister in a Dutton government last week likened our own Lisa Chesters, the Member for Bendigo, to a dog. Just last week. Now, that was just one throw-away word, but one that said so much about the Liberals and Nationals. They haven’t learnt a thing about women or shown whether basic respect for women is the standard they will follow.

Improving the culture of our workplace has been an important feature of the 47th Parliament. And women’s representation in Parliament is such a critical ingredient to drive that cultural change and to deliver the policy agenda that I just outlined. Just over thirty years ago in 1994, only 12.5 per cent of Labor representatives were women. In 2025 it’s 53 per cent. It really is an extraordinary achievement, but it was driven by women in our party who never took no for an answer, the structural change that we put in place to make sure that Labor's representatives better reflected the communities that we are all elected to serve. In contrast, the Liberals and Nationals today sit at 29 per cent women in their ranks, with only eleven women in the House of Representatives. And considering women represent only around a third of LNP candidates this election, they certainly have not set up a pathway to improve this story.

So, friends, we have seen what can be achieved when we have a government that has a core commitment to women, with every member of government working together across government to drive gender equality. Labor’s message today is that a re-elected Albanese Government will never take a step back from pushing for progress for women in Australia. Unlike our opponents, we have gender equality at the centre of decisions, not as an afterthought once all the decisions have been made. Pursuing gender-equal outcomes is woven through every decision. As it should be.

We have so much more to do. And so much to protect. For your daughters and mine. The work is never finished but our sleeves are rolled up. And together, under an Albanese Labor Government we can get this done.

ENDS