The budget for ALL Australians that forgot about women

The $240 million slated to support women's workforce participation, safety, entrepreneurship and more, equates to about $40 a woman.

By Shivani Gopal published by Women's Agenda October 2020.

Ahh the days after Budget night, just like the day after Christmas, people are sorting through the rubble of presents to find the real gifts amongst the lemons in shiny wrapping. 

Dubbed the most important budget since WW2, the budget for all Australians has seemingly missed half of its population; women.

Treasurer Josh Frydenberg singled out women in his budget speech, correctly noting that women made up the majority of jobs during the crisis, following which he introduced the second “Women’s Economic Security Statement”. Watching the budget live, and hanging off every word of our treasurer, I rejoiced.

But the premature celebration came to an end with the subsequent announcement of these words: “$240 million”  – spread over a raft of initiatives such as increasing women’s workforce participation, closing the gender pay gap, getting more women into stem positions which stands for science, technology, engineering and maths, lifting the numbers of women in construction, leadership and entrepreneurship.

It doesn’t end there: somehow the money is also stretching out to vitally important necessities like making women safer at work and at home – because we all know that domestic violence is very real, affecting around 16% of women in the country. So how much help are women getting exactly? Not very much at all, is the sad reality.