What’s underway: Commonwealth actions to progress gender equality

Since the launch of Working for Women the Australian Government has continued to invest in a range of actions to progress gender equality.

Priority area 1: gender-based violence

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• Released the National Plan to End Violence against Women and Children 2022–2032 (National Plan) with states and territories, as well as the First Action Plan 2023–2027, to guide actions towards ending violence against women and children in Australia. In addition, the dedicated Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Action Plan 2023–2025 committed additional funding to continue delivery of critical prevention, early intervention and response services in high needs First Nations communities. The Australian Government has invested over $4 billion in women’s safety since the launch of the National Plan in 2022.
• Supported Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women and children's safety through developing Our Ways – Strong Ways – Our Voices: National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Plan to End Family Domestic and Sexual Violence 2026–2036, and providing over $395 million for a range of initiatives to address family safety and to Close the Gap. This includes $218.3 million to support early actions.
• Invested to deliver the Northern Territory Remote Aboriginal Investment, in partnership with the Northern Territory Government and the Aboriginal Peak Organisations Northern Territory.
• Invested in frontline services for women experiencing domestic and family violence. Since its establishment in 2021, the Australian Government has invested $1.286 billion in funding under the Family, Domestic and Sexual Violence Response Federation Funding Agreement. This includes $456.7 million for the 500 Workers Initiative and $793.8 million to deliver front line services. This funding is targeted to support women and children in rural, regional and remote areas; Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples; culturally and linguistically diverse communities; women with disability; and the LGBTIQA+ community.
• Funded Working Women’s Centres (WWCs) in every state and territory, in line with Recommendation 49 of the Respect@Work: National Inquiry into Sexual Harassment in Australian Workplaces Report. Funding of $37.6 million has been provided over 4 years from 2023–24 to establish and fund WWCs in every state and territory and to establish a national peak body to facilitate collaboration and coordination. WWCs are not-for-profit organisations that provide holistic, trauma-informed services to women on workplace issues including sexual harassment, workplace entitlements, rights and discrimination.
• Invested in financial support for victim-survivors leaving a violent intimate partner relationship, with $925.2 million for the permanent Leaving Violence Program providing support services for up to 12 weeks.
• Funded independent evaluation of frontline services for victim survivors, with a focus on specialist services for women; services to support children exposed to family, domestic and sexual violence to heal and recover; and working with those who perpetrate violence, including investment in men’s behaviour change programs.
• Invested in emergency accommodation and transitional housing to support women and children experiencing family and domestic violence, established a National Housing Infrastructure Facility Crisis and Transitional Program under the Housing Australia Future Fund, and extended the Safe Places Emergency Accommodation Program.
• Invested in social and affordable housing for women and children experiencing family violence through the Housing Australia Future Fund. This includes supporting the construction of 30,000 social and affordable homes, with an intent to provide 4,000 homes for women and children impacted by family and domestic violence, as well as older women at risk of homelessness.
• Enhanced safe places for women and children to stay and recover by providing outreach trauma-informed healthcare in women’s crisis accommodation and services.
• Invested in preventing alcohol-related family violence, with funding to the Foundation for Alcohol research and Education to review and update the National Framework for action to prevent alcohol-related family violence, to address the role of alcohol in exacerbating violence.
• Invested in preventing violence from happening in the first place, providing $104.4 million to Our Watch, Australia's national leader for the primary prevention of gender-based violence.
• Enhanced and expanded child-centric trauma-informed supports for children and young people, with a specific focus on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and young people, to help break the cycle of violence. This includes working with sector experts to identify gaps in support for children and young people with experience of violence, to inform the design and implementation of new and revised interventions.
• Supported a range of prevention and early intervention efforts to address violence, engage with men and boys and stop violence escalating, including: funding for a healthy masculinities project to trial and evaluate activities designed to encourage healthy expressions of masculinity among school-aged boys and young men; therapeutic support for young men and boys with adverse experiences, including family and domestic violence; respectful relationships education for school-aged boys; and trialling innovative perpetrator responses in partnership with states and territories.
• Provided funding to establish national standards for men’s behaviour change.
• Strengthened responses to high-risk and serial perpetrators of family and domestic violence. This includes improving information-sharing across systems and jurisdictions, and intervening earlier to stop violence escalating.
• Invested in consent and respectful relationships through Consent and Respectful Relationships Education, Consent Can’t Wait campaign, Partners in Prevention of Sexual Violence project and social media resources for young people. Also released the Consent Policy Framework.
• Developed the Action Plan Addressing Gender-based Violence in Higher Education to respond to sexual assault on campuses and improve student and staff safety. Strengthened complaints avenues for higher education students by establishing a National Student Ombudsman as an ongoing function of the Commonwealth Ombudsman. The National Student Ombudsman enables higher education students to escalate complaints about the actions of their education provider if they are unsatisfied with their provider’s response, including complaints relating to gender-based violence.
• Introduced the National Higher Education Code to Prevent and Respond to Gender-based Violence. The National Code commenced on 1 January 2026. It establishes a new set of best practice standards to ensure higher education providers embed a whole-of-organisation approach to prevent and respond to gender-based violence.
• Commenced an audit of key Commonwealth government systems to identify areas where they are being weaponised by perpetrators of family and domestic violence, to stamp out opportunities for systems abuse.
• Released the National Principles to Address Coercive Control in Family and Domestic Violence, to inform more effective and consistent responses to family and domestic violence.
• Improved criminal justice responses to sexual violence, helping reduce trauma for victim-survivors by supporting the Australian Law Reform Commission’s Inquiry into Justice System Responses to Sexual Violence. This was informed by a national roundtable and an expanded lived experience expert advisory group of victim-survivors and their advocates. Also funded immediate, targeted measures to improve victim and survivor engagement with the justice system.
• Acted to better prevent and respond to workplace sexual harassment by supporting implementation of all 55 recommendations of the Respect@Work: Sexual Harassment National Inquiry Report. This includes:
  • additional funding to support public sector reporting requirements
  • introduction of a new positive duty on employers to prevent workplace sexual harassment and sex discrimination under the Sex Discrimination Act 1984
  • express prohibition on sexual harassment in connection with work under the Fair Work Act 2009
  • supporting implementation of the Set the Standard: Report on the Independent Review into Commonwealth Parliamentary Workplaces.
• Helped ensure women don't have to choose between their work and their safety, by amending the Fair Work Act 2009 to introduce an entitlement of 10 days paid family and domestic violence leave for all employees and subsequently making subjection to family and domestic violence a protected attribute to prohibit discriminatory action against employees on this basis.
• Invested in supports for frontline legal assistance services through the new National Access to Justice Partnership 2025–2030 (NAJP). The NAJP will deliver approximately $275.7 million for Women’s Legal Services and nearly $366.8 million for Family Violence Prevention and Legal services, which provide specialist legal and holistic non-legal assistance, to prevent and respond to the gender-based violence crisis. This funding helps keep women and children safe and accelerates the Australian Government’s efforts to end family, domestic and sexual violence in 1 generation.
• Reformed the Family Law System so that it is simpler, safer and more accessible for separating families and their children, including making changes to the Family Law Act 1975 and expanding programs in the Federal Circuit and Family Law Court of Australia. The Australian Government has also supported Australia's implementation of the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction, to make it safer for women and children impacted by international parental child abduction.
• Extended the First Nations Family Dispute Resolution pilot to support culturally safe family dispute resolution services.
• Strengthened privacy protections for all Australians through reform:
  • implementing a new statutory tort to address serious invasions of privacy
  • introduced new criminal offences to outlaw doxxing (the malicious release of personal data online).
• Supported migrant and refugee women who experience violence by expanding the family violence provisions within the Migration Regulations 1994, supporting visa holders experiencing domestic and family violence (DFV), and investing in the Settlement Engagement and Transition Support (SETS) program. The Australian Government has also established a Forced Marriage Specialist Support Program and funded a specialised visa support service in the Department of Home Affairs, to assist temporary visa holders experiencing DFV with their visa status and immigration matters.
• Established a House of Representatives inquiry into the relationship between domestic, family and sexual violence victimisation and suicide, and how more accurate data and trends on related deaths can be obtained.
• Bolstered the evidence base by establishing an independent rapid review of prevention approaches to end gender-based violence. The Australian Government established the review in May 2024, led by 6 experts with a mix of skills, to draw together advice and identify opportunities to strengthen prevention efforts and approaches across all forms of violence against women and children, including a particular focus on homicides. The outcomes were detailed in the report, Unlocking the Prevention Potential: accelerating action to end domestic family and sexual violence, published in August 2024.
• Expanded the Perpetrator Research and Evidence Base,with a $4.3 million investment to commission Australia’s National Research Organisation for Women’s Safety (ANROWS) to further build the evidence base on pathways into and out of perpetration of family, domestic and sexual violence.
• Improved data and reporting on domestic, family and sexual violence, by establishing a new statistical dashboard in 2024 to provide more timely reporting on intimate partner homicide, and by working with states and territories to improve data sharing and support for women's safety through the Data and Digital Ministers Council, and Women and Women's Safety Ministerial Council.
• Bolstered information sharing by funding the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission (ACIC) to support enhanced collaboration and information sharing through continued integration with state and territory law enforcement agencies.
• Supported the Domestic, Family and Sexual Violence Commission to promote coordination across government and communities, monitor progress of the national plan, and amplify the voices of people with lived experience, including by establishing a lived experience advisory committee.
• Invested in actions to prevent and respond to technology-facilitated abuse, including through the Preventing Tech-based Abuse of Women Grants Program; a National Roundtable on Online Dating Safety; establishing the Online Harms Ministers Meeting, to address online harms experienced by people in Australia by coordinating policy across the Australian Government; and delivering the National AI Plan priority of keep Australians safe, including through establishing an Australian AI safety institute.
• Amended the Online Safety Act 2021 to require ‘age restricted social media platforms’ to take reasonable steps to prevent Australians under 16 from having accounts. This legislation came into effect on 10 December 2025. As at 16 January 2026, more than 4.7 million under-16s accounts had been deactivated, removed or restricted.
• Provided an additional $41.8 million for 1800RESPECT to ensure those experiencing family, domestic and sexual violence can easily access the trauma-informed support they need. This brings funding to deliver 1800RESPECT to $146.8 million until 30 June 2027.
• Extended the Family Violence and Cross Examination of Parties Scheme and Lighthouse, maintaining protections for victim-survivors and improving family law processes, by providing early risk screening and preventing harmful cross-examination practices, and ensuring courts are safe, culturally responsive and accessible.
• Extended a pilot on a model of care for improved coordination and access to specialised trauma informed mental health recovery care for victim-survivors of family, domestic and sexual violence.
• Continued the Supporting Primary Care Response to Family, Domestic and Sexual Violence (FDSV) pilot to train primary health care workers to recognise, respond and refer patients to local FDSV services.
• Extended funding for No to Violence to continue to provide national coverage for the Men’s Referral Service, Brief Intervention Service and the National Directory of Services for people who use violence. Providing a critical first point of contact for men seeking to take responsibility for their violent behaviour and driving interventions that stop violence before it escalates, helping to end men’s use of family violence.
• Continued to address financial abuse through government systems, including legislation to mitigate financial abuse through coerced directorships, consultation on options to stop perpetrators of family and domestic violence receiving victim’s superannuation after their death, and consultation on mechanisms to make perpetrators liable for social security and tax debts incurred by a victim-survivor due to coercion or financial abuse.

Priority area 2: unpaid and paid care

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• Improved and extended paid parental leave by investing $1.2 billion over 5 years from 2022–23 to make the Government-funded Paid Parental Leave scheme more accessible, flexible and gender equitable and increased the length of the scheme to 26 weeks by July 2026. To encourage sharing of care, 4 weeks of Paid Parental Leave will be reserved for each parent and parents can take up to 4 weeks together. The Government is also investing $1.1 billion over 4 years from 2024–25 to pay superannuation on Paid Parental Leave from 1 July 2025.The Australian Government legislated in 2025 to ensure parents dealing with stillbirth and early infant death have certainty about their entitlements to employer-funded paid parental leave and completed a review of the Maternity Leave (Commonwealth Employees) Act 1973 in 2023.
• Made it easier and cheaper for parents to access early childhood education and care (ECEC) by investing $4.7 billion, including to increase Child Care Subsidy rates for families earning less than $535,279 with children in care. The Australian Government replaced the Child Care Subsidy activity test with a new 3-Day Guarantee from January 2026.This ensures eligible families have access to 3 days per week (72 hours per fortnight) of subsidised ECEC. Also committed $1 billion for a Building Early Education Fund, to establish new ECEC services and expand the capacity of existing services, including in the regions and outer suburbs. The Early Education Service Delivery Prices Project is also in progress, to better understand the recurrent costs of operating a safe and quality ECEC service around the country and to underpin future reform.
• Supported a 15% wage increase for eligible ECEC workers phased in over 2 years through a Worker Retention Payment, investing $3.6 billion over 2 years from December 2024. Women will particularly benefit from this increase as they represent approximately 92% of workers in the sector.
• Developed the Early Years Strategy 2024–2034, outlining the Government’s vision to best support children and their families in the early years.
• Funded the Fair Work Commission’s decision for a 15% award wage increase for aged care workers providing direct care, investing $11.3 billion in 2023, $3.8 billion from 1 January 2025 and committed $2.6 billion for further award wage increases for aged care nurses from 1 March 2025. The Australian Government recognises that aged care work is complex and undervalued, and that an award wage increase will support the workforce, which is overwhelmingly made up of women.
• Established an Expert Panel on the Care and Community Sector in the Fair Work Commission.
• Invested to address acute bottlenecks in the psychology training pipeline, with 80% of psychologists being women.
• Expanded the Australian Apprenticeship Support Loans Scheme to provide interest-free loans of up to $24,492 in areas such as early childhood education, aged care and disability care, and supported the delivery of the National Teacher Workforce Action Plan.
• Reinforced the value of care work through the introduction of a Commonwealth Prac Payment, providing financial support for students undertaking mandatory (nursing and midwifery), social work and teaching placements, to help address workforce shortages in key feminised industries.
• Enhanced support for carers and parents, by modifying Carer Payment employment participation limits from 25 hours per week to 100 hours over a 4-week period, and implementing other changes to reduce barriers to workforce participation for recipients, who are mostly women. Also provided additional support for the Raising Children Network, the Fathering Project, and the Brave Foundation’s Supporting Expecting and Parenting Teens Program.
• Established a Carer Advisory Committee to guide the implementation and evaluation of the National Carer Strategy 2024–34 and accompanying National Carer Action Plan 2024–2027 (the Action Plan), with $1.6 million over 12 years from 2024–25. The National Carer Strategy (the Strategy) sets the direction for Commonwealth efforts to improve the lives of unpaid carers, including to support their health and wellbeing, and enable them to stay connected to economic and social opportunities. The Action Plan addresses priority areas of the Strategy and delivers practical and vital additional supports for carers.
• Extended the Carer Inclusive Workplace Initiative to 30 June 2026, to assist employers to develop and adopt practices that support employees with caring responsibilities to enter and remain in the workforce.
• Invested to expand the Primary Care Nursing and Midwifery Scholarship Program by 400 places.
• Provided $248.7 million to provide salary incentives for junior doctors, and paid parental leave and study leave for trainee GPs, to help compensate for the entitlements that junior doctors lose when they move out of the hospital system. Women made up 58% of new GP trainees in 2024.
• Invested in the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) to measure the labour contribution of unpaid care in the Labour Accounts, improving visibility of the value of unpaid care to society and the economy.

Priority area 3: economic equality and security

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• Delivered tax cuts through a gender lens, to support participation and deliver a fairer share of tax relief, as well as a tax cut for all women who pay tax.
• Put gender equality at the heart of economic policy and decision-making through the re-introduction of gender responsive budgeting and gender impact assessments to the Commonwealth Budget process. Also made gender equality a priority at the 2022 Jobs and Skills Summit and in Working Future: the Australian Government's White Paper on Jobs and Opportunities.
• Worked to accelerate closing the gender pay gap, by reducing gender segregation and helping to address workforce shortages by supporting more women to pursue careers in key high-demand industries. This includes progressing work on designing and implementing Future Made in Australia Community Benefit Principles, to promote safe and secure jobs and develop more skilled and inclusive workforces, including for women.
• Set expectations that women will get fair access to the 100,000 homes built for first home buyers through the Government’s $10 billion investment.
• Supported women's access to housing through the 5% Deposit Scheme (an expansion of the Home Guarantee Scheme), $2 billion Social Housing Accelerator and the National Agreement on Social Housing and Homelessness.
• Established a Women's Economic Equality Taskforce to provide advice to government on key priorities for the 2023–24 Budget and recommendations for immediate and long-term actions in its final report, Women's Economic Equality: A 10-year plan to unleash the full capacity and contribution of women to the Australian economy 2023–33.
• Put gender equality at the heart of the workplace relations system, making gender equality an object of the Fair Work Act 2009 (the Act), banning pay secrecy, legislating a statutory equal remuneration principle, and establishing an Expert Panel on Pay Equity in the Fair Work Commission. The Australian Government has made breastfeeding, gender identity, subjection to family and domestic violence, and intersex status protected attributes under the Act. The government provided funding for the Fair Work Commission to undertake a review of modern awards, to consider how award terms impact workers with caring responsibilities and support the need to improve access to secure work. The Fair Work Commission also conducted a research project about occupational segregation and gender undervaluation.
• Introduced changes to unpaid parental leave, to complement improvements to the Government's Paid Parental Leave Scheme and help families share work and caring responsibilities.
• Enshrined protections for employees reliant on modern awards, who are more likely to be women, by amending the Fair Work Act 2009 to ensure penalty and overtime rates in modern awards cannot be reduced or substituted in a way where workers lose out on their take-home pay.
• Boosting support for women through the income support system, including expanding eligibility for Parenting Payment Single and increasing the maximum rates of Commonwealth Rent Assistance.
• Made the child support scheme fairer by implementing legislation to improve the timely collection of child support owed to parents – who are overwhelmingly women – and help prevent future debt among low-income parents. The Australian Government is building the evidence base for longer term improvements, looking at issues like noncompliance as a means of financial abuse, whether the child support formula reflects the current costs of raising children in Australia, and what can be done to support parents where private collect arrangements have broken down.
• Ended the ParentsNext Program and launched Parent Pathways, a replacement voluntary program.
• Improved transparency and reporting on the gender pay gap, passing legislation to give effect to a range of recommendations from the Workplace Gender Equality Act 2012 Review, including to publish gender pay gaps of employers with 100 or more workers. These were reported for the first time on 27 February 2024.
• Accelerated employer action on workplace gender equality by implementing the Workplace Gender Equality Amendment (Setting Gender Equality Targets) Act 2025. This requires large employers with 500 or more employees to select, commit to achieve, and report on gender equality targets in a 3-year cycle. Implementing the targets scheme will support closing the gender pay gap by encouraging more gender-equal practices and commitments within organisations.
• Invested in feminised industries to improve women's wages, including $560 million to support community sector organisations to meet additional cost pressures and through the Australian Government's changes to indexation, including for organisations delivering women's safety initiatives. Also introduced Payday Super reforms so that from 1 July 2026, employers are required to pay their employees' superannuation at the same time as their salary and wages, which overwhelmingly benefits women in service industries.
• Supported women's participation in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) through actions relating to the independent Pathway to Diversity in STEM Review, which evaluated existing Women in STEM programs. The final report and recommendations, Pathway to Diversity in STEM Review: Final recommendations, was released in 2024. The Australian Government’s 2025 Statement on the Review outlined broad actions across government to improve opportunities in STEM and reduce barriers to participation. The 2024–25 Budget included $38.2 million over 8 years (and $1.3 million per year ongoing) to scale up the successful existing Women in STEM and science engagement programs, expanding support for more women and girls with diverse and intersecting identities to pursue STEM education and careers.
• Improved women’s participation in key male-dominated industries, including construction, clean energy, advanced manufacturing, and digital and technology. The Building Women’s Careers program is advancing structural and cultural change to improve women’s access to flexible, safe and inclusive training and work opportunities, investing $60.6 million over 4 years from 2024-25. The Australian Skills Guarantee includes targets for women in apprenticeships, traineeships and cadetships, for eligible ICT and construction procurements. The Australian Government is also working with states and territories on options to increase women's participation in major Commonwealth-funded infrastructure projects.
• Supported new digital career opportunities in the Australian Public Service (APS) through the APS Digital Traineeship Program, which aims to drive women’s participation in technical ICT roles. Through its Cyber Security Strategy, the Australian Government has committed to improving diversity of the cyber security workforce and established a workstream for industry leaders to develop initiatives to improve the diversity of the cyber workforce.
• Released the Women in the Aviation Industry Initiative, to improve attraction and retention, and increase visibility and awareness of the sector among women and girls.
• Invested up to $12.6 billion over 5 years through the National Skills Agreement, to support state and territory training systems and address national challenges such as sustaining essential care services, and to deliver reforms, for example to improve VET completions, including for women and others who face completion challenges.
• Provided cost-of-living support through greater tax cuts, the Cheaper Child Care reforms, increases to Commonwealth Rent Assistance, the expansion of Parenting Payment Single eligibility and energy bill relief.
• Introduced fairer student loans and made the HELP and student loan repayment system fairer. This caps indexation of Higher Education Loan Program (HELP) and other student loans to the lower of the Consumer Price Index or Wage Price Index, and will wipe around $3 billion in debt, with a significant benefit for women who hold around 60% of HELP debts. The Australian Government also announced a marginal repayment system and committed to reduce every Australian’s HELP or student loan debt by 20% from 1 June 2025.
• Created jobs in remote Australia by establishing the Remote Jobs and Economic Development Program to create 3,000 jobs and support income support recipients to move into paid employment.
• Bolstered evidence by delivering an enhanced annual General Social Survey to support Measuring What Matters.
• Supported Community Hubs to continue delivering conversational English classes to support migrants and refugees.
• Strengthened information and education activities for migrant workers by providing appropriate information about workplace safeguards, protections and compliance measures related to migration laws.
• Invested $16.4 million over 2 years to pilot workforce and industry-level initiatives to improve gender equality in gender-segregated industries, occupations and workplaces, particularly male-dominated industries. This will support the Australian Government’s workplace relations reforms to make workplaces safer, more respectful and more equitable.
• Made Fee-Free TAFE an enduring feature of the national vocational education and training system, which will fund 100,000 free TAFE places each year from 2027. From January 2023 to September 2025, Women made up 62% of enrolments in Fee-Free TAFE (over 448,000 enrolments).
• Supported women to retire with more by expanding the Low Income Superannuation Tax Offset (LISTO). From 1 July 2027, the LISTO threshold will increase from $37,000 to $45,000 to match the top of the second income tax bracket. The maximum payment will also increase to $810 to account for recent increases in the Superannuation Guarantee rate. These changes will benefit around 1.3 million Australians, of which around 60% are women, helping shrink the retirement income gender gap.
• Extended the Advancing Gender Equality in Gender Segregated Industries grant opportunity, providing an additional $28.5 million to extend the program for an additional 2 years to 2028. This builds on the initial $16.4 million investment to support state and territory Trades and Labour Councils, and peak employer organisations, to trial initiatives to improve gender equality in gender-segregated industries, building on the Australian Government’s workplace relations reforms to make workplaces safer, more respectful and more equitable.

Priority area 4: health

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• Provided a $792.9 million women’s health package to deliver more choice, lower costs and better care for Australian women and girls, including making it easier for women to access and afford long-acting reversible contraception, implementing temporary new health assessment MBS items for women experiencing menopause or perimenopause, and listing oral contraceptives on the PBS.  
• Invested in support for positive body image, including for children to build and maintain positive body image and provided funding to enable Australians to continue to access support for eating disorders.
• Supported women's health needs, introducing a new Medical Benefits Schedule (MBS) item to determine a patient's risk of recurrent breast cancer.
• Provided funding for the Glen for Women, giving Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women access to culturally appropriate alcohol and other drug treatment services.
• Invested in pregnancy and peri-and post-natal support, including to extend the Australian Red Cross Lifeblood's role to maintain and expand delivery of donor milk across Australia, and to support the Australian Breastfeeding Association's National Breastfeeding Helpline across multiple Budget cycles. Also established the 20 Perinatal Mental Health Centres across Australia, delivering free psychological support to families. In addition, the pregnancy and postnatal care guidelines will be expanded to ensure expectant and new mothers receive high quality care.
• Improved access to medical support and advice, by introducing a new MBS item for consultations of 60 minutes or more, which are often used by women, to support improved access and affordability for patients with chronic conditions and complex needs.
• Invested in research and data led by women health researchers, creating targets for the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) to award equal numbers of Investigator Grants to women and men, leading to 2023 being the first year that women applicants received an overall greater proportion of the funds. In addition, investing in health and medical research and data collection focusing on women's and girls' health outcomes.
• Supported a review of gendered differences in MBS items for diagnostic imaging services by the MBS Review Advisory Committee (MRAC).
• Funded the National Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation, to provide free period products and develop strategies in participating maternity services, and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, to prevent preterm and early term birth.
• Supporting the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare to develop a dataset on sexual and reproductive health, and a miscarriage data scoping study.
• Bolstered high quality and tailored maternity care through funding to implement the remaining recommendations from the MBS Review Taskforce Participating Midwives Reference Group Report, to promote flexible, high quality and tailored maternity care.
• Invested in research into women’s health priorities,including menopause, pregnancy loss and infertility, through the updated Medical Research Future Fund 10-year Investment Plan.
• Listed a number of treatments on the PBS to reduce health and medication costs for women, including Visanne® to treat endometriosis and expanded access to Enhertu® to treat patients with human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2)-low unresectable or metastatic breast cancer, and abemaciclib (Verzenio®) to treat early breast cancer. The oral contraceptive pills, Yaz and Yasmin, and menopausal hormone therapy Estrogel, Prometrium and Estrogel Pro, were listed from 1 March 2025.
• Added a maternal respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) vaccine to the National Immunisation Program, for eligible pregnant women from 28 weeks.
• Supported 10 existing Birthing on Country services to provide continuity of care to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women and babies.
• Supported continued perinatal mental health screening across public antenatal and postnatal care settings.
• Supported bereaved parents by maintaining perinatal pathologists to perform stillbirth autopsies and the perinatal loss workforce
• Improved health outcomes through preventative and other health initiatives, including extending funding for research and critical patient support services for Australians with chronic conditions. This includes diabetes and stroke, and for newborn bloodspot screening programs. The $187.9 million provided will positively benefit women as they are more likely to have at least 1 of the 10 selected chronic conditions than men in Australia (52% to 47%).
• Continued delivery of the Every Moment Matters awareness campaign, to support women who are planning pregnancy to achieve alcohol-free pregnancy.
• Actions to reduce the stillbirth rate in Australia and to ensure high quality care is provided to families who experience stillbirth.
• Funded the University of New South Wales for the maintenance and improvement of the YourIVFSuccess website, to support Australian couples with independent advice and information on in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) clinics.
• Extended the Commonwealth Psychosocial Support Program for a further 2 years. This will assist around 25,000 people living with severe mental health challenges to get the support they need to live independently and safely in their communities.
• Continued the Australian Longitudinal Study on Male Health, including data, analysis and reporting on the health and wellbeing of Australian men and boys.
• Improved access to more effective and high-quality models of care for endometriosis and pelvic pain, and perimenopause and menopause management and support.
• Invested $8.4 billion in Medicare to reduce medical costs for all Australians, including supporting access to affordable primary care and providing more bulk billing. This will positively impact women and contribute to gender equality as women are more likely to spend more money on out-of-pocket medical expenses, which this new funding combats.
• Supported research and education on the prevention, early detection and management of diseases affecting women and girls.
• Supported maternal health by providing ongoing funding for breastfeeding support services for new mothers; lowering the rate of preterm and early birth by continuing the Preventing Preterm Birth program; and providing care and support for women and families impacted by miscarriage, stillbirth and neonatal loss.
• Invested $154 million in life-saving medicines to treat breast cancer and endometrial cancer and expand contraceptive choices for women on the PBS.

Priority area 5: leadership, representation and decision-making

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• Lifted Australia's overall ranking in the World Economic Forum Gender Gap Report to 13th out of 146 in 2025, compared to 43rd in 2022.
• Improved representation of women in parliament, as the first majority woman Australian Government. In the 47th Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia, 49.6% of seats across both chambers are held by women – the highest recorded number of women in an Australian parliament.
• Invested to equip and encourage women across the political spectrum to run for public office at local, state and federal levels, providing $5 million to Women for Election Australia.
• Increased the representation of women on Australian Government boards by over 20%, from just 33.4% in 2009 to 54.3% in 2025, and introduced new targets for Chair and Deputy Chair positions and board positions at the portfolio level.
• Supported representation of women and girls in sport through establishing the $200 million Play our Way program, to promote equal access, build more suitable facilities, and support grassroots initiatives to get women and girls to engage and participate in sport throughout their lives. To help protect sporting participants against discrimination, abuse and mistreatment, the Australian Government established a Safety in Sport Division for Sport Integrity Australia. The Australian Government is also developing a national sports plan, to:
  • enhance diversity, inclusion and equity in sport for all Australians, including women and girls
  • support women's and girls' participation in talent and development programs
  • increase female representation in coaching, officiating and sports administration.
• Implemented a transparent and merit-based judicial appointments process that ensures all candidates from a diversity of backgrounds can apply. This was in response to recommendations under the Australian Law Reform Commission's report, Without Fear or Favour: Judicial Impartiality and the Law on Bias.
• Endorsed the Equal by 30 campaign, to work towards equal pay, leadership and opportunities for women in the clean energy sector.
• Established a new Centre for Arts and Entertainment Workplaces, to ensure creative workers are paid fairly and have safe workplaces free from harassment and discrimination.
• Supported delivery of Wiyi Yani U Thangani (Women's Voices), which was led by the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner, June Oscar AO.
• Championed the United Nations Women, Peace and Security agenda, which aims to ensure equal participation of women at all levels of decision-making globally.
• Established the Working for Women Program to fund key partnerships to engage with women and the Australian community on gender equality, and further support including women’s voices and experiences in policy-making.
• Strengthened reporting on women-led business by implementing a voluntary Commonwealth Supplier Registration process through AusTender, enabling government to measure and analyse women-owned and led businesses.
• Bolstered the legacy of women’s sport,by investing in the delivery of the Asian Football Confederation Women’s Asian Cup 2026 and Netball World Cup 2027, increasing Sport Integrity Australia’s capacity to address contemporary challenges to make sport safe for all participants from grassroots to elite levels, and through investment in the Play Well priority and capacity sector activities. This aligns with the National Sport Strategy 2024-2034, which recognises sport has an important role in ensuring individuals from all backgrounds, genders and abilities can access the health, social and economic benefits of sport.
• Elevated women’s sport by investing in the planning and delivery of the Women’s Softball World Cup in Queensland in 2027.

Women’s Budget Statements

For more information about past and current government action to progress gender equality, refer to the Women’s Budget Statements and Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook papers, published by the Department of the Treasury after each economic update:

Financial Year 2022-23

• Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook 2022-23 - PDF (refer pg14-15)

Financial Year 2023-24

• Women’s Budget Statement – Budget 2023-24 - PDF
• Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook 2023–24 - PDF

Financial Year 2024-25

• Women’s Budget Statement – Budget 2024-25 - PDF
• Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook 2024-25 - PDF (refer pg20-23)

Financial Year 2025-26

• Women’s Budget Statement – Budget 2025-26 - PDF
• Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook 2025–26 - PDF (refer pg22-24)