Gender Equality

Women's safety

Women have the right to feel safe at home, at work and in the community. That’s why we’re delivering the new National Plan to End Violence Against Women and Children.

We’ve legislated 10 days paid family and domestic violence leave, we’re funding 500 new frontline workers, and we’ll deliver 4,000 social housing dwellings for women and children escaping violence. We’re also funding consent and respectful relationships education – to help stop violence before it starts.

And we’re implementing all 55 recommendations from the Respect@Work Report, including a requirement for employers to actively prevent sexual harassment in Australian workplaces.

Closing the gender pay gap

We understand the pressure that family budgets are under. Especially in industries that are dominated by women workers – our cleaners, our early childhood educators, our aged care workers, our disability care workers. These are the heroes of the pandemic who deserve something more than our thanks, they deserve an increase in their wages.

That’s why in our first month in office we successfully advocated for a 5.2% pay rise for 2.8 million minimum wage workers, the heroes of the economic frontline. We also advocated for aged care workers to get a pay rise. As a result, the Fair Work Commission has boosted their pay by 15%.

We’re leading a national push to help close the gender pay gap by:

  • Creating new laws so companies with more than 250 employees will have to report their gender pay gap publicly.
  • Banning pay secrecy clauses and giving employees the right to disclose their pay, if they want to.
  • Taking action to address the gender pay gap in the Australian Public Service.
  • Strengthening the ability and capacity of the Fair Work Commission to order pay increases for workers in low paid, female dominated industries.

There’s more to do to get wages moving for everyone – and that’s why we’re working hard to get wages moving again, and close the gender pay gap.

Cheaper child care

No one should be punished for working more days. But the child care system right now does exactly that. It’s a broken, confusing mess that stops parents going back to work. And the cost puts it out of reach for so many families.

That’s why in our first budget, we’re making child care cheaper for over a million families. It’ll mean reliable, affordable and accessible early education and care for every Australian working family.

Paid parental leave

We want new parents to feel supported and have choice. That’s why we’ll deliver the biggest boost to paid parental leave since Labor created it in 2011.

We’re extending paid parental leave to six months paid time off – and the flexibility to choose how to split it between parents.

It’ll mean more dads can take time off work, so caring responsibilities can be shared more equally. And it’ll mean more opportunity for mums, boosting participation across the economy.