BUDGET MARKED DOWN BY WOMEN

A LEADING women’s network says the federal budget fell short of driving a “truly gender equal” recovery.

Women’s Health and Wellbeing Barwon South West chief executive Emma Mahony said while she was pleased to see the return of the women’s budget statement, the government still had a long way to go to achieve gender equality.

Ms Mahony said wins for women included a $3.7m boost in funding for women and children facing violence after disasters and $26m more for women’s online safety.

But she said it failed to specifically fund marginalised communities, including women.

“When you roll out a budget and you don’t think about women … you are maintaining the inequality,” she said.

“What is really important is to make visible the investment in gender-equal communities.”

Ms Mahony said concerns included a lack of targeted women’s employment strategies to address the impact of COVID-19.

Other shortfalls included not fully funding the new national women’s health strategy and a failure to apply superannuation to the paid parental leave scheme.

In its gender equality scorecard, Gen Vic, of which Ms Mahony is a board member, gave the budget a D- for more gender-responsive budgeting, a D+ for genderequal job creation and stimulus, a C- for boosting women’s health services, an E for creating a caring economy for parents and C for ending all forms of violence against women.

Ms Mahony said while the government had spoken about supporting women, the budget was not focused on putting those words into action.