
You’re a woman living in Australia, the federal budget has come and gone, and you’re wondering where you fit. It’s certainly been painted as a less dramatic budget than its predecessors, but little has been said about women — more specifically, how it will affect them.
For Research Fellow at the University of Technology Sydney and commentator Eva Cox, it was a “disappointing budget for women”. Cox believes the Turnbull government is doing “very little” about the low income of women, and says there’s “nothing that says [they] really care that, economically, women are far behind”.
This may not be immediately clear, but dig a little bit deeper, Cox says, and the government’s “obsession” with getting women into work betrays the fact unpaid work is still painfully undervalued.
Paid parental leave
One of the things that hasn’t been mentioned much in analysis of this year’s budget is the government’s position on Paid Parental Leave.
Although many argue changes and cuts to PPL are officially off the table, Cox claims it’s not good news for parents just yet.
“I suspect they just put it on hold and they haven’t given it up on it,” she tells Mamamia, adding they’re probably just waiting for the “numbers” to push the changes through.
In fact, she says the fact PPL is all but ignored in this budget may be “cause for concern”, because it appears the government intends to push its original proposals. The very “fact it isn’t there”, she says, is “something to be wary of”.