Women are not just underwhelmed by the 2017 Budget announcement. They feel completely ignored.
According to results of Mamamia’s ‘Australian Women React: Federal Budget 2017’ survey*, 60 per cent of women gave the Budget a rating of 5 or less out of 10, ultimately disappointed that conversations around equal pay, climate change, aged care and domestic violence didn’t demand much, if any, airtime. Even less so were these issues the subject of much, if any, change.
This is just some of the other things they had to say.
We’re not buying the fact there will “better days ahead”
Perhaps unsurprisingly, only a quarter of women are feeling optimistic about their future following the Budget’s release. Those who do have a sense of optimism are ones who, overwhelmingly, feel secure financially and aren’t feeling the pressure of the housing market.
In fact, 35 per cent of those who feel optimistic about the future own property outright, while 38 per cent of positive thinkers have an investment property. To add to that, more than 50 per cent of those who felt secure in the future after the Budget are Liberal supporters and 30 per cent retired.
Despite a stereotype that would suggest otherwise, young women are engaged with what’s going on, and hold strong but extreme views on what was presented on Tuesday night. Those on the younger side and aged 18-24 weren’t neutral or disengaged. In fact, 41 per cent felt optimistic and 44 per cent pessimistic.
The issues that were ignored
Rather than feeling cheated on the changes the government intend to make, women feel cheated out of conversations they want to have on issues important, and uniquely relevant, to them.
70 per cent of women were disappointed the budget did not address equal pay, with it surfacing as the key issue the government ignored. In an interview with Mamamia for Budget analysis, Research Fellow at the University of Technology Sydney and commentator Eva Cox pre-empted this reaction, arguing the government is doing “very little” about the low income of women. She added there’s “nothing that says [they] really care that, economically, women are far behind”.