Submission: Women’s Economic Opportunities Review

The National Foundation for Australian Women strongly supports the following measures.

1) Improving women’s economic security through access to more affordable child care (including raising the Child Care Subsidy from 85% to 95% for low income families) and NSW Government commitment to support vulnerable families in accessing child care places.

2) Providing ongoing funding from the Australian Government and NSW Government support for the National Partnership on Universal Access to Early Childhood Education for children in the year before full-time school and extension of this funding to two years of preschool for vulnerable children, irrespective of ECEC setting.

3) The introduction of subsidised ‘wrap-around’ care options families using stand-alone community or government preschools, similar to outside school hours care for school age children

4) Funding the Centre for Policy Development’s Starting Better Guarantee for young children and families.

5) Addressing low pay, recruitment and retention issues in the ECEC sector, including supporting:

1. a 2021 Equal Remuneration Order by the Fair Work Commission to help address low pay for early childhood teachers in the ECEC sector;
2. expanding the ECEC workforce, in particular, to enable provision of universal access to two years of early childhood education before full-time school and child care provision through the expansion of JobTrainer, VET or higher education fee waivers, scholarships or incentives for women (and men) to undertake Certificate III training, diplomas or early childhood degrees; and
3. supporting the ECEC workforce through short, medium and long-term workforce development strategies under a funded National ECEC Workforce Strategy agreed to by Australian, State and Territory governments, including professional development support for educators and services.

6) A gender pay audit should be undertaken of all NSW agencies and departments.

7) The NSW Government should be a model employer when developing a code in relation to flexible working that extends beyond the current COVID period. This code should ensure that the 3 needs of workers are balanced with business operational requirements to ensure that parents are better able to balance paid work with unpaid care.

8) The NSW Government should improve diversity on Government Boards and Committees by proactively searching out nominations and supporting the appointment of women and other underrepresented groups to those bodies.

9) The NFAW recommends that the NSW Government urgently increases the funding for social housing for women in low income households and older women.

10) The NFAW recommends that the NSW Government adopt gender budgeting processes in the development of policies; expenditure and revenue programs to ensure that the effect on women is taken into account. We would welcome the opportunity to participate in stakeholder consultation on these issues.