Most of the provisions included in the Workplace Gender Equality Amendment (Closing the Gender Pay Gap) Bill 2023 (the Bill) were recommended in the submissions made by NFAW and other women’s organisations to the 2021 Review of the Workplace Gender Equality Act 2012 (the Review).
NFAW congratulates the Government on the introduction of an amendment to the Fair Work Act to provide 10 days of paid family and domestic violence leave as part of the National Employment Standards. NFAW is one of many organisations that have repeatedly sought such an amendment.
It is now widely acknowledged that the COVID-19 pandemic is affecting women and men in different ways; it is not gender neutral. The by-products of economic shock and its impact on insecure employment have hit women particularly hard. Women are over-represented in industries most affected by the virus.
We are responding to the terms of reference through a gender lens. Women’s workforce participation reflects their role as unpaid carers as it changes over the working lifecycle. The industrial relations framework penalises women as it is based on the male breadwinner model, while the tax-transfer system imposes high EMTRs on second incomes and gender segregation limits career progression.
The NFAW supports measures that improve the affordability, accessibility and quality of early childhood education and care (ECEC), early childhood development (ECD) and the well-being of children and families.
mproving decision-making around future pandemics requires an understanding of the decision-making that underpinned Australia’s COVID-19 response – not only how decisions were made, but also by whom and on what basis.
In general we support the provisions of the Bill. However, we note that there are key features of the current child care system implemented in 2018 which have not been addressed in this Bill. They warrant further consideration and review. Some of these issues were raised in the Government’s independent Evaluation of the Child Care Package (AIFS, 2022).
NFAW’s 2024 Federal Budget gender lens analysis finds that the budget’s initiatives only partially reflect the ambition outlined in the Government’s Working for Women—A Strategy for Gender Equality, released in March. While there are some commendable efforts to include gender impact analysis, particularly women’s careers in the Future Made in Australia program, it has not yet been fully integrated across the entire budget process.
National Foundation for Australian Women (NFAW) Responds to the 2024 Federal Budget: A more ambitious and comprehensive action plan is needed