June 2025
It is a little over five weeks since the 2025 Federal Election. We are excited by the new Cabinet line-up, with so many talented and progressive feminists in positions to drive the Government's agenda for women’s equality and the elimination of violence against women.
The fact that our most important economic institutions, Treasury, the Productivity Commission and the Reserve Bank, are now led by women is another cause for hope, with the Government’s productivity agenda about to roll out leading to the August Summit..
Last week’s decision by the Fair Work Commission to award a 3.5% increase in the minimum wage also points to ongoing support from the Government to improve wages and conditions for the lowest paid workers, the majority of whom are women.
WEL has written to Ministers with portfolios of direct relevance to the achievement of women’s equality, outlining our policy platform and detailing our specific policy priorities for each Minister’s portfolio.
The Government plans to focus on Working for Women: A Strategy for Gender Equality as the instrument to drive feminist reforms.
In this issue of WEL Informed we report on the establishment of the new Women’s Alliances where women’s advocacy, expert and campaigning organisations can seek to influence policy and program proposals under the rubric of Working for Women.
WEL plans to participate in these alliances where they align with our policy areas. But as an independent, non-party political organisation we will not constrain our advocacy.
New Women’s Alliances ‘up’ – but how will they run?
The Australian Women’s Movement is strong, determined, complex and multi-faceted.
Powered by millions of Australian women (and men), we have just helped deliver a resounding election victory to the Albanese Government. For this reason it is imperative for the Government to be able to listen to and consult with women’s organisations and their allies and to take on their advice in the process of policy making.
The stated intention of the Federal Government’s remodelled National Women’s Alliances is to provide ‘evidence based, intersectional gender equality advice and civil society expertise to government on areas of most impact and influence to Working for Women: A Strategy for Gender Equality.
These National Women’s Alliances started operation on 2 December 2024:
- Working with Women Alliance
- National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Women's Alliance
- National Rural Women's Coalition
- Women With Disabilities Australia
- Australian Multicultural Women's Alliance
Working with Women Alliance
Led by YWCA Canberra, the new Working with Women Alliance includes two portfolios: National Women’s Safety (NWSA) and National Women’s Equality (NWEA). The Working with Women Alliance aims to connect the critical areas of addressing gender-based violence and the advancement of women’s economic equality and leadership.
Within each portfolio there is a Policy and Advocacy Group, with 16 members each. These Groups are served by Working Groups. For the NWEA, there are two working groups: the Economic Equality and Security Paid Working Group on which WEL will have a member and the Unpaid Labour Working Group.
To date there have been online surveys inviting Working for Women Alliance members to contribute to policy formulation, as well as online one-hour national consultations. WEL NCC and other members have participated in these.
How the consultation process works from then on is not clear. The consultation structure implies a process of going through the working groups up through to the Policy and Advocacy Groups.
The process is vastly different to the direct national communal engagement that the former Equality Rights Alliance (ERA) undertook with member organisations and delivered as policy comment, submissions, and proposals to the Governments of the day.
Intersectionality and inclusiveness are key responsibilities under the performance contract for the Working for Women Alliance.
To enable this, the Working for Women Alliance must work closely with four other national groups that have received federal funding: Women with Disabilities Australia, National Rural Women’s Coalition, National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Women’s Alliance and Federation of Ethnic Communities’ Councils of Australia to prepare consolidated advice.
The Working with Women Alliance states that its “program will unify existing advocacy frameworks and key relationships to provide the government with coordinated, impactful policy advice.”
We will give you updates as we learn more.
In the meantime, we encourage you to explore the Working for Women Alliance website at: Working With Women Alliance and consider signing up as a member under the two arms of the NWSA and NWEA so that you are in the loop to take part in online surveys and consultations.
WEL participates in first consultation of the National Women’s Safety Alliance
On the 5th of June the National Women’s Safety Alliance conducted its first membership consultation to provide input from members for the National Alliances Pre-Budget (2026/27) Submission.
The consultation was facilitated by Katherine Berney, Executive Director of the Working for Women Alliance
WEL representative, Jozefa Sobski participated in the zoom session alongside participants, representing organisations and workers in the DV sector.
Jozefa reports that:
’The consultation was focussed on a series of questions to which participants were invited to respond. There was little opportunity for discussion in the one hour allocated.
The session was advertised as bringing together civil society leaders, community advocates and lived experience voices. This project of the National Women’s Safety Alliance claims to be aiming to identify the investments and reforms needed to improve safety, equality and well-being of women.
Questions posed ranged from: What does real policy change look like for gender-based violence? To: What types of reforms would help improve victim safety and access to justice? To: Are there existing pilots or models that need funding to scale?
There was no reference to the framework of the National Plan and its Action Plans. This is surprising, given that the National Plan is the structure within which all reforms and programs must work and from which programs must emanate.
Although a valuable session for taking the pulse of activists and professionals in the DV sector post- election, it was unclear to me how the many and varied responses to the seven questions posed were to be refined into a Pre-Budget Submission.
One hour was clearly inadequate given that many suggestions belonged for action to different levels of government, Federal and state.
The NWSA will need to discriminate between responses which could be part of a Budget Program versus those which require action at different jurisdictional levels of government.
The timeframe for the preparation of its Submission was not discussed. WEL looks forward to reading the report from this consultation.’
NSW Parliament legislates for Nurse Practitioners and Registered Midwives to prescribe abortion drugs: Opponents resort to Trumpist tactics and sexist insults
WEL congratulates the NSW Parliament for adopting the amended Abortion Law Reform Amendment (Health Care Access) Act 2025.
We acknowledge and thank Dr Amanda Cohn MLC for initiating the original Bill (which we supported in principle) and Penny Sharpe MLC for her expert guidance through the labyrinths of the NSW Legislative Council. We also acknowledge the Minister for Health Ryan Parke for his passionate defence of the final Bill and commitment to expanding rural, regional and remote women’s access to productive health services, including abortion.
WEL contacted all members of the Legislative Assembly to urge support for the Bill.
The key provision of the Abortion Law Reform Amendment (Health Care Access) Act will allow registered midwives and nurse practitioners to prescribe MS2 Step (Mifepristone) for women seeking early abortions. (GPs can already prescribe the drug).
All other states and territories except Tasmania have already made this change, without particular controversy.
The passage of the Bill was marred by false claims and disturbing alliances from familiar opponents of women’s equality, such as former Prime Minister Tony Abbott and prominent religious leaders. They were joined by new, more ‘Trumpist’ allies, such as the Adelaide academic, Johanna Howe, who we understand was partially funded by the far right lobby group, Advance Australia.
The Premier and the Leader of the Opposition both voted for the Bill.
We were encouraged by both leaders’ condemnation of the bullying and personal harassment from some opponents. Premier Chris Mins and opposition leader Mark Speakman repudiated the misinformation that was circulated.
In WEL’s view a new low was reached in the Catholic Weekly’s gendered insult against the Leader of the Opposition as a ‘mummy’s boy’, when he had called out threats made to him in relation to the Bill.
‘Mummy’s Boy’ used as an ‘insult’ seems hypocritical at best from an outlet that urges devoted reverence for mothers.
By extending the range of health and medical practitioners able to prescribe MS2 Step, the Abortion Law Reform Amendment (Health Care Access) Act could support women to have easier access to prescriptions to enable safe access to abortion up to nine and possibly ten weeks. In NSW, and other states and territories women in rural, regional and remote communities may find it easier and cheaper to get scrips and supplies and to self-administer the drug in a timely way.
Yet shortages of GPs, registered midwives and nurse practitioners persist outside metropolitan areas, especially in rural and remote Australia. These shortages present barriers to women gaining greater access to MS2 prescriptions.
The Australian Government’s Nursing Supply and Demand Study 2023-2035 predicts ongoing shortfalls in the numbers of nurse practitioners, relative to demand over the next decade.
Similarly Australia’s midwifery workforce is in crisis, with an in-depth analysis of the profession revealing there are not enough midwives or students to meet future needs, especially in non-metropolitan areas.
We call on the NSW Government and Health Minister to drive meaningful implementation of the Act.
This effort needs to focus on working with the Commonwealth and other states/territories to urgently fund workforce strategies to increase the numbers of nurse practitioners and midwives in rural, regional and remote NSW (and Australia wide).
WEL, together with other feminist and medical advocacy organisations understands that measures such as expanding health practitioners’ scope of practice to prescribe will make a gradual improvement over the long term to women’s access.
However WEL policy is clear.
Until the Commonwealth Government incentivises and pushes the states and territories to require most publicly funded hospitals to provide abortions as a condition of funding, abortion will remain as the only largely privatised health service, especially for women outside our cities who are the most likely to have recourse to surgical abortions.
The Family Planning report ‘Use of Medical Abortion Services in NSW, Australia, between 2018-2022’, shows that women in regional and rural NSW seek medical abortion at more than double the rate of city women.
New Biography – ‘Fearless Beatrice Faust – Sex, Feminism and Body Politics’
Judith Brett has made a valuable contribution to Australian feminist history in writing this biography. Supported by the Victorian Women’s Trust, with funding for some research from donors, she embarked on the project with some knowledge of Beatrice’s work associated with the founding of Women’s Electoral Lobby. She reveals the complex women who became an activist just before the emergence of second wave feminism and went on to be a civil libertarian, a sexual radical, a feminist advocate and a key abortion law reformer.
Faust is described on the book’s jacket as “a transformative feminist activist, writer and intellectual” and Brett traces these life lines with scholarly clarity and an abundance of detail.
Beatrice’s fearless exterior camouflaged a troubled inner life. The book should be compulsory reading for those interested in the transitions made by the immediately pre and post war generation of women. Many suffered insular, poor or damaged childhoods in what we used to call ‘patriarchal families’ but became feminist activists. Some such as Beatrice Faust made a difference to all Australian women’s lives. The book is a significant contribution to our understanding of 70’s feminist politics, preoccupations, passions and personalities, particularly in Melbourne.
Judith Brett is a political historian and biographer. Her reading of Beatrice’s diaries and letters sees Beatrice ultimately as “a frail, super-smart woman, born with a demanding body into a poorly educated lower class family” who campaigned “to make the world a safer, happier place for women and men.”
Australian Honours
WEL congratulates the 202 women in the general division who received awards for their service to the Australian community.
We are especially delighted that Wendy McCarthy was awarded the highest honour as Companion – AC – for her service to children, to health, to the arts, to business, to the community and to women’s leadership.
Wendy is a founder of WEL and our Ambassador. She remains an active supporter, providing wise counsel at critical times. Her steady leadership, long memory and strategic foresight were essential to the success of our 2016-2019 coordinated campaign through the Pro Choice alliance to decriminalise abortion in NSW. We could not have done it without her.
Listen to Wendy talk about her award with the ABC’s Sally Sara HERE.
WEL also congratulates Menaka Iyengar (Cooke) who was a member of the NSW Executive as well as the National Coordinating Committee. She has been awarded a Medal for service to women, and to the community. In 2022, she was a recipient of the International Alliance of Women and Women Chiefs of Enterprises World of Difference Award.
WEL acknowledges the award of Member of the Order of Australia to Dr Beverley Kingston who was a member of the Board of Jessie Street National Women’s Library from 2006-2022 and in 2022 received the Australian Dictionary of Biography (ADB) Medal for long and distinguished service. Her 31 entries to the ADB are considered masterpieces of the biographical art. The citation for the Medal rates her contribution as “outstanding” and her study and teaching of history. She was the author of the ground-breaking publication: My Wife, My Daughter and Poor Mary Ann: Women and Work in Australia, (1975) among other historical publications.
Finally, WEL was heartened to see Helen Dalley-Fisher honoured with a Member of the Order of Australia in recognition of her significant service to women through gender equity and equality and equality advocacy. Australian women have benefitted from her various roles in the Equality Rights Alliance (ERA) from 2012 to 2024. She was the heart of the Alliance establishing a culture of collaboration and trust with a complex network of organisational representatives who belonged to ERA. She has now joined the Board of the National Foundation of Australian Women to continue her national work on women’s rights and human rights.
UTS awards honorary doctorate to Jozefa Sobski AM
WEL is also delighted that the University of Technology Sydney has conferred an honorary doctorate on National Committee member (and frequent WEL convenor) Jozefa Sobski AM for her ‘lifelong commitment to human rights and empowerment through education’.
Jozefa made an inspiring keynote address at the UTS Graduation ceremony which you can read HERE.
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