PRIORITIES
- The Federal Government should commit to a statutory base for gender impact assessments and gender responsive budgeting (GRB) through an amendment to Schedule 1 of the the Charter of Budget Honesty Act 1998.
- The Charter should provide a definition of gender equality and outline practices, processes and tools for all government agencies to enable gender responsive budgeting to be incorporated as an essential mechanism for advancing gender equality.
RATIONALE
Gender equality is affected by government policy across the board. Public policy makers need to recognise the differential impacts of policies and programs. For over a decade, WEL representatives have worked with the National Foundation of Australian Women (NFAW) to apply a gender lens to national budgets, examining funding allocations and their underpinning policies and programs. The NFAW Gender Lens on the Budget https://nfaw.org/gender-lens-on-the-budget/ has revealed the extent to which budget decisions may increase inequalities, despite programs intended to close gender gaps.
In recent years, the Equality Rights Alliance (ERA) along with its large number of member organisations has advocated for GRB to be adopted by government so that those making budgetary decisions are better informed as to their implications for women of all backgrounds and circumstances. As ERA points out, GRB has been accepted internationally as a means of assessing whether a country’s resource allocations match its gender equality goals. It has both equity and efficiency benefits as the distributive effects of decisions are made clearer and there is less likelihood of unintended outcomes.
Highlighting specific budget initiatives aimed at women has been the practice of governments for several decades. More important are the larger macro-economic decisions which are far from gender-neutral in their impact, given the economic and social division of labour and the concentration of women in the paid and unpaid care economy.
WEL welcomed the present Federal Government’s commitment in Working for Women: A Strategy for Gender Equality https://www.pmc.gov.au/office-women/working-women-strategy-gender-equality to putting “gender equality at the centre of public policy and the Budget through the reintroduction of gender responsive budgeting” (p84).
Including gender analysis in budget proposals is a very useful first step in integrating gender equality through all federal Budget processes. This commitment, however, and the public service training and resources needed for its implementation, is vulnerable to changes of government. Conscious of this vulnerability, WEL calls on all parties to support the insertion of GRB and attendant processes into relevant legislation, that is the Charter of Budget Honesty Act. No.22.
Guidance on what such an insertion, by way of amendment, might contain is provided in the 2023 OECD Report - Gender Equality in Australia.
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