Wednesday, 15 May 2024

Financial Management Amendment (Gender Responsive Budgeting) Bill 2024

Second reading

Debate resumed on motion of Tim Pallas:

That this bill be now read a second time.

Brad ROWSWELL (Sandringham) (10:21): I do rise on behalf of the opposition to address the Financial Management Amendment (Gender Responsive Budgeting) Bill 2024. From the outset I would like to, frankly, state the obvious: that this is the first year that I am aware of that this financial management gender-responsive budgeting bill has been included as part of the government’s budget bills package. Ordinarily there would be the appropriation bill, the appropriation Parliament bill and the state taxation bill. This year, for the first year, included as part of the budget bills package is the Financial Management Amendment (Gender Responsive Budgeting) Bill 2024. The government states that the gender-responsive budgeting bill 2024 amends the Financial Management Act 1994 to embed gender-responsive budgeting into the Victorian budget. While the government has been reporting on gender impacts for several years, this year, as I mentioned, will mark the first year that gender-responsive budgeting will become a legislated requirement.

In undertaking some research to contribute at this point in time, I did delve a little bit further into that, and I do understand that there is an area within the Department of Treasury and Finance, the gender-responsive budgeting unit, which has ordinarily as part of their course undertaken work to understand the gender impact of budgeting on Victorians. This unit, as I understand it, develops new policies, programs and services with a gender lens to enable more inclusive design of budget initiatives. In fact DTF, being the Department of Treasury and Finance, have published gender equality budgeting statements since 2017 – since the 2017–18 budget. They have done so publicly, and these have been made available on the Department of Treasury and Finance website – the one in my hand being the first, from the 2017–18 budget.

I think it is a fair question to ask, seeing as though this unit within the Department of Treasury and Finance has established the practice of providing a gender equality budget statement as part of the Department of Treasury and Finance’s ordinary work in relation to the preparation and the aftermath of the Victorian state budget: why is this new bill needed and why is this bill now included as part of the suite of budget bills? To understand that, we need to understand two areas of work – two packages of work – that have been undertaken: one because of the work of the Public Accounts and Estimates Committee and the other being a report undertaken or commissioned by the Department of Treasury and Finance.

In 2023 the Public Accounts and Estimates Committee, in their budget estimates report of October 2023, had a number of recommendations which they made in that report specifically for the Department of Treasury and Finance. The member for Laverton Sarah Connolly was the chair at that time. My colleague in the upper house, member for North-Eastern Metropolitan Region Mr McGowan, was the deputy chair of the committee at the time. There are a number of committee members, including other colleagues – Mrs McArthur of Western Victoria and Mr O’Brien the member for Gippsland South. That Public Accounts and Estimates Committee report made a number of recommendations. Finding 112 was that the 2023–24 budget included $1 million over two years to continue the work of the gender-responsive budgeting unit in the Department of Treasury and Finance. The finding goes on to say that:

The GRBU has recorded several achievements, delivering two budgets employing gender responsive budgeting approaches and training almost 400 Victorian Public Service staff in developing gender impact assessments.

Finding 113 states that:

The 2023–24 Budget includes one new performance measure related to Gender Response Budgeting – ‘Percentage of Gender Responsive Budgeting/Gender Impact Assessment information session attendees who indicated the session helped improve their understanding of the GIA requirements’.

Recommendation 67 was that:

The Department of Treasury and Finance introduce the performance measure ‘Percentage of funding requests through the budget process that meet minimum gender impact consideration requirements’ in the 2024–25 Budget.

Recommendation 68 of that Public Accounts and Estimates Committee report states that:

The Department of Treasury and Finance include further performance measures related to the outcomes achieved from gender responsive budgeting including the activities of the Gender Responsive Budgeting Unit in the 2024–25 Budget.

So nowhere in either of those findings nor the recommendations of the Public Accounts and Estimates Committee 2023 report does it state that there should be the establishment of a Financial Management Amendment (Gender Responsive Budgeting) Bill 2024, but it is just interesting to note PAEC’s support for ongoing funding for the gender-responsive budgeting unit and various other measures. I note that this report was one of unity; there is no dissenting report that I am aware of by other members of that committee.

To understand the origins of the Financial Management Amendment (Gender Responsive Budgeting) Bill 2024 we do need to turn our minds to the Department of Treasury and Finance commissioned report Inquiry into Economic Equity for Victorian Women. This was a report commissioned jointly by the Victorian Treasurer and the Minister for Women at the time, and this report was given both to the Treasurer and to the Minister for Women for their consideration. The final report is dated January 2022. Recommendation 15 in this report calls on the government to:

Embed Gender Responsive Budgeting in Victoria through legislation that secures and future proofs the practice within government.

So there we have it. There is the work of PAEC, but there is also the report commissioned by the Treasurer and the Minister for Women, the Inquiry into Economic Equity for Victorian Women final report of January 2022, which makes that recommendation. I do note that the inquiry panel members for the DTF report commissioned by the Treasurer and the Minister for Women included Carol Schwartz AO, Liberty Sanger OAM and James Fazzino as well ‍– the chair and subsequent panel members. I think it is a curious mix of panel members; however, they delivered their report to the Treasurer and the Minister for Women, and within that report, as I have stated, was recommendation ‍15 that gender-responsive budgeting be embedded in legislation to futureproof the practice within government, so we are here today considering the Financial Management Amendment (Gender Responsive Budgeting) Bill 2024.

The intended purpose of gender-responsive budgeting is to consider and promote gender equality and inclusivity while developing spending and taxing policies. Each year the government will be legally obliged to provide a report on the gendered impacts of the budget. Historically there was just a unit within the Department of Treasury and Finance that, under DTF’s own steam, published reports. Following the passage of this bill there will be a legislative requirement. The gender impact report on the budget must be tabled on or before the appropriation bills are moved to the second-reading stage.

While we do not oppose this bill being brought forward by the government, the opposition is concerned that this legislation will not alleviate the persistent gender inequality issues faced by every Victorian. We are seeing the result of a decade of financial mismanagement by the Andrews, now Allan, Labor government, and our read of the gender impacts of Labor’s 10th budget is that with record taxes, record debt and now cuts to critical services all Victorians, whether they be women and girls or men and boys, will be worse off under this budget. I do not say that lightly, as I addressed in yesterday’s budget reply.

In Labor’s 10th budget, women’s safety remains a key concern for us. There has been a record increase in sexual and indecent assault offences against women in our communities, yet women struggle to access quality services, health care and law enforcement. New data from Respect Victoria shows that women continue to experience high rates of violence, pointing to a need for cultural change. The Respect Victoria data is as follows: around 39 per cent of women in Victoria have experienced physical or sexual violence since the age of 15, and around 26 per cent of women in Victoria have experienced partner violence from a partner they live with, including emotional, physical, sexual and economic abuse. The Crime Statistics Agency is on the record as saying that family incidents recorded by Victoria Police, which disproportionately impact women, increased by 6.7 per cent from 82,651 in 2018–19 to 88,214 in 2019–20, an increase of 5 per cent in the rate of incidents per 100,000. These are deeply concerning statistics for us.

On the back of that data and those hard data points that we have demonstrating the impact of gendered violence in this state, we would have thought that the government would have had a greater concern to funding a solution to that in this budget. That does not appear to be the case. It could be asserted, and I will assert it, that under Labor there are many Victorian women who continue to be let down. If Labor genuinely wanted to improve gender equality in Victoria, they would have started with more funding to public health, to police, to social services, but instead this latest budget, Labor’s 10th budget, saw a number of cuts in every one of those areas.

We also know that parents in Victoria are navigating childcare deserts and are unable to participate in the workforce. This is a burden that we know falls onto the shoulders of women more so than it does for men. I know my colleague the member for Euroa will be contributing straight after this contribution, and I am sure that the member for Euroa will go into further detail about the impact on the community of childcare deserts not only in her community but around the state. Currently a lack of access to child care takes almost 26,600 women entirely out of the workforce in Victoria and costs our economy $1.5 billion a year in lost earnings alone. This is a significant cost to women who are forgoing wages that could help them get ahead as well as to our economy, which misses out on their productivity and their skills.

It is worth noting that over 50 per cent of women who say that they want to do more paid work say that a lack of access to affordable child care is the main barrier preventing them from taking on more hours. Frankly, it is incredibly concerning that a 2022 study found that having a child opens up a 55 ‍per cent pay gap for Australian women in the workplace compared to their male colleagues in the first five years after childbirth. I know in my own family circumstance my wife Kate has experienced such a circumstance. A lack of access to childcare services reinforces traditional gender roles, as women who may want to work are often obliged to stay home or either work part-time or take on lower paid jobs closer to home in order to look after their children. We must also acknowledge the benefits of early childhood education for children, not just the economic or workforce benefits.

The Mitchell Institute at Victoria University published what many would consider a first in a report which considers the impacts of a lack of access to child care. It is something which I have looked at in some detail. I am quite impressed by the work of the Mitchell Institute at Victoria University, and it should be used to inform policy decisions when it comes to alleviating the pressures of all Victorians, especially when it comes to childcare deserts and oases across not only Victoria but Australia. Last year their findings were alarming: around 9 million Australians, or 35.2 per cent of the population, live in neighbourhoods they classify as a childcare desert, with the definition of a desert being an area where there are more than three children per one available childcare place. There are circumstances around this state where the waiting list for a childcare place can be many years, and that is simply not good enough. The report highlights how child care is scarcer in regional areas than in metropolitan areas. I do note the work of my regional Liberal and National colleagues in highlighting this challenge of families in the electorates that they serve.

This budget was about helping families – it is written on the front page of every budget paper. It is not just women that make up families, it is men as well. My view is that not only every woman but every man has an obligation and has a duty to highlight inequity when they see it before them. In making this contribution today that is my intention. When Labor say they are helping families, I ask the question: how is it helpful to cut wellbeing support for schoolkids by $34 million, as we have seen in this year’s budget? How is it helpful to cut early child sector support and regulation by some $79 million? How is it helpful to cut child protection by $141 million? If that is this government’s version of helping Victorians, then we frankly have no interest in seeing their version of hurting Victorians.

There were significant cuts in this budget. In the lead-up to this budget we had been hearing that it would be a tough budget, that it would be a budget of cuts, but we did not realise at that point the impact in the areas that it would cut. Ambulance services and medical research funding in this budget were cut. Community crime prevention and seniors programs in this budget were cut. Family violence and mental health support services in this budget were cut. As I said yesterday, and I say it again today, these decisions to cut such programs in my view are not tough decisions through the lens of a tough budget, these are in fact cowardly decisions that potentially impact in the worst possible way on many vulnerable Victorians around this state, many vulnerable Victorians who actually need a government to be investing more in services that protect them, more in services that take care of them and more in services that ensure their safety and their wellbeing.

Sadly, through a number of cuts in this budget, I say that this government has in fact let those vulnerable Victorians down terribly. The Victorian Comprehensive Cancer Centre Alliance, for example, getting their funding cut makes no sense whatsoever, and cuts to family violence support and mental health support in particular should deeply concern every Victorian. Through a gender-responsive lens, every Victorian, no matter their gender, uses a road. Every Victorian, no matter their gender, requires a home, a roof over their head. Gender does not discriminate when it comes to disability; disability does not discriminate when it comes gender. Every Victorian, no matter their gender, wants our tourism and major events program to be a thriving tourism and major events program. Every Victorian, no matter their gender, wants our creative industries, in Melbourne especially, the cultural home of Australia, to thrive. Every Victorian, no matter their gender, wants there to be the best resourced youth justice services, the best resourced dental services, the best resourced aged and home care services and the best resourced public IVF services. Sadly, in this budget, whether it be road maintenance, housing assistance, disability services, tourism and major events, creative industries, youth justice, dental services, aged and home care services or public IVF services, all those services that, no matter their gender, Victorians rely upon were cut in this budget. That is not a good thing at all.

In relation to IVF services, as debt hits a record high, Labor have made cuts to public IVF services which will leave Victorians waiting longer for vital treatment. As we know, IVF is a highly expensive and time-sensitive treatment, and as result of Labor’s cruel cuts, women and their families will suffer. That is an injustice. That is not right. That does not have to be the case. Sadly, this is the price that Victorian women are paying for 10 years of economic mismanagement and 10 years of economic recklessness at the hands of a government that says that it cares but in this case has demonstrated that it really, really does not.

In relation to family violence service delivery, we see Labor’s $29 million cut to funding for family violence services and, further, their cut to women’s policy funding at a time when in the Victorian community women’s safety is a concern for every Victorian. We have seen it not just in the Melbourne metropolitan community but in the regional community, and I am thinking about some of the possibly preventable deaths of women in the Ballarat region. These family violence services that every Victorian relies upon may very well lead to lives being saved, yet in this budget this government has cut $29 million from family violence services. That is not going to be delivering the best outcome for vulnerable people in our Victorian community.

In the area of mental health, Labor have also delayed the rollout of 35 local mental health and wellbeing hubs in this budget. These mental health hubs were recommended by the Royal Commission into Victoria’s Mental Health System. Like you, Deputy Speaker, I remember wandering across the Carlton Gardens to the Royal Exhibition Building to hear the work of the royal commission into mental health commissioned by this government and to hear from those who undertook that work on behalf of the Victorian people and on behalf of the Victorian government. I was at the time pleased that 35 local mental health and wellbeing hubs would be established, especially after the impact on mental health of the pandemic and the lockdowns that were experienced here in Victoria. Victorians need more mental health support now than frankly they have ever needed before. In my own community I am hearing reports from principals that still, a couple of years since the pandemic ended, they and their communities are facing difficulties in relation to mental health within their own student population and within the families within their school communities as well.

These mental health hubs were recommended by the Victorian royal commission into mental health. With one in five Victorians experiencing a mental health condition each year, now is frankly not the time to be cutting mental health services in this state but to in fact roll out community-based early intervention initiatives. Victoria lost over 800 lives to suicide in 2023, up 5.3 per cent on the year before, and 70 per cent of these individuals who we lost were in fact men. I would like to think that the bill we are considering today, the Financial Management Amendment (Gender Responsive Budgeting) Bill 2024, would take into consideration the impact of government policymaking and government decision-making budgeting priorities not just on women but also on men, especially when we hear such tragic and impactful statistics as that. Frankly, the government must do better. We must help individuals before they are at a crisis point, and rolling out the mental health hubs would have been a lifeline for so many Victorians. But sadly, that will now not be the case.

In this budget we saw cuts to cancer research, and the budget also saw a 75 per cent funding cut to leading cancer research in Victoria. With a growing and ageing population, the number of Victorians diagnosed with cancer is expected to increase from about 35,000 in 2022 to more than 50,000 in 2030. Cancer touches every Victorian, Deputy Speaker, as you know, as members of the government know, as members of the opposition know and as members of the crossbench know. Cancer touches every Victorian one way or the other. We all know someone who has been touched by cancer, whether it is a direct family member or whether it be a neighbour or a friend. Many of us in this place have lost loved ones because of cancer. If the government were going to cut anything, why on earth would they cut funding to the Victorian Comprehensive Cancer Centre alliance? No matter your gender, cancer does not discriminate. Cancer touches the lives of every Victorian in one way or another, often in tragic circumstances. I would have thought with this new bill that we are considering, following the recommendation of the Public Accounts and Estimates Committee and following the recommendation of the DTF report Inquiry into Economic Equity for Victorian Women, that when this government looks at things through a gender-responsive budgeting lens something that touches everyone, like cancer research funding, would not be cut. Not cutting off critical funding that helps edge closer to a cure for cancer would be my request of this government.

In the short time that I have remaining I simply want to say this: this budget historically had only three bills. We are now seeing the inclusion of a fourth, being the government’s gender-responsive budgeting bill. I have gone through the reasons why the government is establishing a gender-responsive budgeting bill – on the back of the work of the Public Accounts and Estimates Committee and on the back of a Treasurer and Minister for Women commissioned report, which made the recommendation that gender budgeting be enshrined in legislation. That is why we are considering the bill before the Parliament today. But I do say this to the government: no matter our gender, every one of us is a Victorian, and every one of us, no matter our gender, is impacted by budgeting decisions that this government and frankly any government – a government of the future – makes. Yes, I think it is appropriate for governments to consider the gender impact of their decisions on the Victorian community, but equally this government and future governments must also consider the broad-ranging and the broad-sweeping impacts of their budget decisions on the Victorian community. After 10 Labor budgets, after 10 years of Labor and after the budget that was delivered last Tuesday by the Treasurer, the Premier’s first budget – which is a budget of cuts to critical services, mainly impacting families and mainly impacting women – frankly, my request of the government is that they do better, not just for women but for men and for every Victorian.

Nina TAYLOR (Albert Park) (10:51): I am very happy to rise to speak on the Financial Management Amendment (Gender Responsive Budgeting) Bill 2024. I will just pick up on a couple of points raised by the member for Sandringham. If you are going to query our investment in family violence, I would think again. Victoria continues to lead the nation in preventing and responding to family violence. Since the royal commission more than $3.86 billion has been invested to transform Victoria’s family violence system, and that is more than every other state and territory combined. So I just think a bit of perspective would be appreciated when we are discussing such a serious topic. That is not to say that it is done. We would be the last people to say that. We know there is so much more to do, and that is why we can see some terrific collaboration nationally, because of course this is a national and I should also say an international problem. But that is not in any way to resile from the responsibility that we take collectively to get better outcomes for our community when it comes to safety and security across the board, particularly when we are speaking to issues of family violence.

I just want to make a few further points, because I think there was a risk that there were some signals being sent that somehow there is some diminishing of focus on this incredibly important topic, which could not be further from the truth. We are unequivocal in our focus because we are determined to end family violence in Victoria. I note that we have implemented all 227 recommendations of the Royal Commission into Family Violence, and we are also supporting those experiencing or who have experienced family violence with initiatives such as the statewide Orange Door network. The rollout of the Orange Door network means that there are 54 safety hubs and access points across the state, which have assisted nearly half a million Victorians, including 184,000 children. It is regrettable that any of those women and children have been exposed to these shocking circumstances, but I think it is important to acknowledge that the supports that are there and available now are really important structural reforms that we have implemented because it is the right thing to do. The Orange Door network is a nation-leading initiative that provides access to coordinated help and support for people experiencing family violence or who need assistance with the care and wellbeing – I do not know about the inference, but the word ‘wellbeing’ was quite rightly raised – of children and young people. The Orange Door network provides access to support, which is face to face or via telephone or email, as the case may be.

We also continue to invest in initiatives and programs that aim to prevent family violence before it starts by addressing the attitudes, beliefs, systems and structures that underpin it. This has included establishing Respect Victoria and the delivery of prevention programs across the state. More than 1950 ‍schools across the state are delivering the Respectful Relationships program, and we have introduced specialist family violence courts. At a local level we are supporting councils across Victoria, including in the regions, to implement prevention initiatives under the Free from Violence local government program 2024–27. We have introduced the multi-agency risk assessment and risk management framework to improve assessment and management of family violence risk, which is supported by the family violence information-sharing scheme, which enables organisations and services to share information to keep victim-survivors safe and perpetrators of violence in view. The FVISS collates relevant information from services about a perpetrator into a single report that is used by specialist family violence services to assess risk. In a practical sense this means that once family violence has been identified, a service can request additional information from other services about the perpetrator without their consent to inform a full picture of the pattern of behaviour and associated risk at any given time.

I think, just to reiterate, we have to date spent $3.8 billion to prevent and respond to family violence. It is a continuum; it is not an end point. We acknowledge that for every single person in Victoria – and unfortunately it is predominantly women and of course the children – who may be in that situation who are exposed to any kind of extreme or bad behaviour it is regrettable, and it should not be, and we are determined to end this. On that corollary, this is why it is all the more important to have a holistic system when it comes to tackling the ways in which women are viewed and their opportunities to be able to access pathways to employment and also to be able to live independently and safely as well, and hence you will see that coming back to the bill that we have in front of us.

There is one other further point I did want to make before I speak to this bill. I do think that one has to take a little care with some of the signals we were being sent: cancer does not discriminate, this does not discriminate; that does not discriminate. What are you saying? Are you saying that we should not be putting in these measures to end the inequality that has prevailed for centuries? What are you saying? I just think the context of some of those comments was a little offhand and a little out of place with what we are prosecuting here and now – and also the efforts to undermine and diminish the many structural reforms that have already been put in to date, because we are as keen as everyone. We absolutely want to see the end to what is complete disrespect in relationships, and we are doing everything we can to achieve that, but we know there is so much more to do at a state level and nationally as well.

Coming back to the bill, this legislation will amend Victoria’s primary financial legislation, the Financial Management Act 1994, to ensure that consideration of gender equality remains one of the key principles of sound financial management. The Allan Labor government made history with the passage of the Gender Equality Act 2020. This was a landmark step in breaking down discrimination and gender barriers in the workplace. This new legislation will complement the Gender Equality Act ‍2020, allowing the Treasurer to request gender impact assessments and ensure gender equality is given the priority it deserves. I do not think we are sort of in an Oliver Twist situation where it is like, ‘Please, sir, give some more.’ On the contrary, this is about just fairness at the end of the day – respectful relationships and fairness. Obviously we do not want to see the very dire consequences that we have seen to date and unfortunately will be happening as we speak, in spite of our best intentions and efforts to stop it, of women experiencing extremely sad and cruel situations that they should not have to experience.

I should say, giving some context to this legislation, that gender-responsive budgeting is a tool to identify budget measures that will close gender gaps and advance gender equality objectives, and I think if we see this legislation within that prism we are squarely focused on the job we have at hand and the purposive rationale for this legislation and why it is so important. Why? Because by removing embedded inequalities by considering gender in all funding decisions with a direct impact on Victorians, if everyone is treated fairly at the end of the day, we are going to have a much healthier and happier community. So it is not by biasing women to somehow advance them ahead of men; it is actually to balance, to actually achieve true equality, because we are all going to be happier and healthier as a result. It identifies how resources can be best allocated to close gender gaps – surely that has to be a very important and critical element – and improves value for money by achieving gender equality goals concurrently with other policy goals.

If this amendment bill passes – and I would pray on the best wishes of this house and of course when it hopefully proceeds to the upper house – Victoria will become the first jurisdiction in Australia to make gender-responsive budgeting law. I would hope that that will benefit current and future generations of Victorians. It could be collectively a very positive legacy that we could leave for the future, with the caveat that we have to keep advancing protections and support to the best of our ability in this space until that day when we can say we truly have ended family violence and, at the positive end, that we are achieving true equality for all in Victoria.

Annabelle CLEELAND (Euroa) (11:01): I rise today to speak on the Financial Management Amendment (Gender Responsive Budgeting) Bill 2024, a bill that we do not oppose. 2024 marks the first time that the gender-responsive budgeting bill has been introduced as part of the government’s suite of budget bills. This follows an inquiry and recommendation from the Public Accounts and Estimates Committee. This bill introduces legislation mandating a statement on gender equality to be included in every future Victorian budget, and that is about it.

This is not something I have a problem with. However, I would prefer that debating this bill did not come at the expense of a more robust discussion about the budget itself. The concept of having a statement on gender equality in future budgets does raise some interesting points about how this government will justify the impact that this budget and the last nine disastrous budgets from the government are having on women in our state. For starters, this budget has seen $29 million in funding for family violence services cut at a time when women’s safety is a concern for every Victorian. Under this government breaches of family violence orders continue to be the most frequent criminal offence across much of the state, including in all six local government areas in the electorate of Euroa. Most towns in my region have rates of family violence incidents that are over double the state average. Improving the safety of women in our region is a priority that needs addressing urgently. Instead, we are seeing further cuts from this government.

In Benalla there were 300 offences recorded in the past year, and the family violence rate is nearly double the state average. In the Mitchell shire there were over 700 breaches of family violence orders, nearly double the next highest offence recorded. There was also a 14 per cent rise in family violence incidents in the last year, and the rate in Mitchell shire is nearly double the statewide average as well. It is the same situation in the Strathbogie, Greater Shepparton, Greater Bendigo and Campaspe local government areas.

Across the entire state there have been approximately 54,000 breaches of intervention orders in the last year. Alongside call-outs every 6 minutes and a family violence arrest every 18 minutes, Victoria Police are engaging with 80 people who use family violence each and every day. These numbers are showing that we are in the midst of a family violence crisis. Despite these heartbreaking statistics, Seymour and Benalla do not have a dedicated physical point of contact for those experiencing family violence. There is no place to go. These are towns where family violence incidents outnumber all other criminal offences combined and make up 80 per cent of the local police’s work. When the floods hit Seymour in 2022 one of the few crisis accommodations available for women fleeing domestic violence was inundated and had to close for an entire year. Victims of family violence had no alternative but to flee to Shepparton, Wangaratta or Melbourne, out of their community and away from family, support and routine. All the while the perpetrator remained in the community. For these women, without adequate support or a home to go to, leaving is just as dangerous as staying.

In September 2022 the Victorian Law Reform Commission tabled a report on stalking, harassment and similar conduct which made 45 recommendations to address this conduct. During question time the Premier confirmed the Victorian Labor government had not yet provided a formal response to the report and was unable to say when this would occur.

In 2022 the Commonwealth government allocated $220 million to provide 500 frontline workers to support women and children experiencing family, domestic and sexual violence. Again, the Premier was unable to confirm how many of these critical workers had been employed in Victoria following revelations that just 17 had been employed nationwide. It sounds like spin. Last week’s budget does not instil much confidence when it comes to improving the situation, with cuts made to child protection, family violence service delivery and women’s policy. No to Violence, a family violence not-for-profit, has already said the lack of support in this budget is a missed opportunity and that this budget fails to deliver. Our community does not want matching earrings and colour-coded outfits; we need genuine support and funding to address the issue. We need bail reform urgently – something that was once again raised with this government recently. We need support networks, we need dedicated local crisis locations, and we need to be heard.

In addition to this, Labor has flagged cuts to homeless and community housing services. By the end of 2025 the total number of social homes available will decrease from a target of 91,248 to a new 2025 target of 91,148. That is disgraceful. Meanwhile the housing waitlist continues to reach unimaginable levels, particularly for those trying to escape family violence. Data from last year’s Department of Families, Fairness and Housing annual report shows the average wait time for public rental housing for people fleeing family violence was just under two years, up from 17 months the year before and 11 months the year prior. Can you imagine trying to flee family violence and having to wait two years for a home?

In addition to family violence, there have been cuts to women’s policy for the second consecutive year. We are seeing the result of a decade of financial mismanagement under Labor, with record taxes, record debt and now cuts to services that are critical to Victorian women. Child protection is also relevant in this area, with significant cuts to the tune of $140 million. At a time when Victoria’s child protection system is in crisis, with the commissioner for children and young people describing it as underfunded, under-resourced and not fit for purpose, this government has now all but abandoned vulnerable children in its care with these dramatic cuts. Under this budget, and Labor’s fifth minister in less than two years, the child protection system will continue in crisis mode, with vulnerable children and their families the victims of Labor’s cruel cuts to funding.

Women’s health is also set to suffer in this budget, with $207 million cut from public health, on top of millions cut from dental services, aged care, ambulance services, health workforce training and maternal and child health. These cuts are coming at a time when our healthcare providers can least afford them, with significantly delayed ambulance response times, out of control GP and surgery waitlists, exorbitant health taxes and a general lack of resourcing.

This budget, like many before it from this government, has failed women and failed families. Putting a statement on gender equality in their budget does not resolve this; rather, it will provide a new way for this government to justify funding cuts and inaction that hurts so many in our state. The government needs to update this year’s budget title from ‘Helping families’ to ‘Hurting families’, because that is the truth, because the Allan Labor government cannot manage money, and regional Victoria’s most vulnerable families are paying the price.

As an example, I want to draw your attention to one of the Allan Labor government’s major election commitments, which was a new childcare centre for Seymour. In a community that has been regarded as a childcare desert for nearly 30 years, this was a really, crucially important investment. In this budget it looks like it is set to be axed, with funding for Labor’s new kindergarten and childcare rollout now taking a back seat due to a lack of forward thinking from this government. Seymour’s childcare centre was one of 50 initially planned for the state, but it would seem to be another broken promise. It was bad enough when Labor said it would take until 2028 for the new centre to open, deterring two not-for-profits and private investors from operating a centre in town. So many communities across our state, including several within the Euroa electorate, are set to remain without child care despite desperately needing it.

I recently held an online forum to discuss the accessibility and availability of both child care and kindergarten in the region with parents, educators, and childcare providers, support staff and administrators. Those at the forum expressed concern over multiyear waitlists – a two-year waitlist in Seymour – a lack of staff, families needing to travel long distances and parents being unable to get back to work. Instead of making it easier, Labor’s attempted rollout of new childcare centres across the state has been a disaster. Child care for my region is only going backwards, and this government is single-handedly compounding the crisis. Time and time again they have shown they cannot manage money, they cannot manage a project and they cannot deliver accessible child care for our regional communities.

Natalie HUTCHINS (Sydenham – Minister for Jobs and Industry, Minister for Treaty and First Peoples, Minister for Women) (11:11): As the Minister for Women, I am incredibly proud to be talking about this piece of legislation. I want to pay tribute to the late Fiona Richardson, who had the vision on this way back almost 13 years ago. As a government we are absolutely determined to build a fairer, more equitable Victoria for women and girls, and we have made some important improvements here in Victoria with a strong and progressive agenda. We are the first jurisdiction to have a gender-responsive budgeting unit and the first to put in place this sort of legislation, and we know that other states are looking to us as an example.

Implementing initiatives that benefit Victorian women and girls is a whole-of-government responsibility, and that is why this bill is so important. It puts in place mechanisms to ensure funding is allocated in ways that support more gender-equitable outcomes. Research conducted by the OECD shows thinking about gender impact early in the policy design creates better gendered outcomes. It also helps us gain better insights and deliver better outcomes and shared resources to fairly address those inequalities, those barriers, those lost opportunities. Embedding it in policy early: this is the answer.

I want to touch on the Gender Equality Act 2020. The implementation of gender-responsive budgeting builds on the requirements of the historical Gender Equality Act 2020 – the first of its kind, yet again, in Australia, led by Victoria. The Gender Equality Act was a landmark step in breaking down discrimination and gendered barriers. It applies to approximately 300 Victorian public sector organisations with 50 or more employees. This includes local councils, universities, TAFEs, hospitals, health services, water corporations, arts centres, museums and sports centres amongst others. I want to acknowledge the great work that has been done by the gender equality commissioner in assessing all of these but also driving the action plans to really address some of the gaps that exist. It targets the drivers of gender inequality across the public sector, including the gendered pay gap, gendered workplace segregation, under-representation in leadership roles, lack of workplace flexibility and sexual harassment. These are all barriers, all issues, all of the day-to-day things that women in our workforces, not just in the public sector but across all workforces, face. We want to break down those barriers, and that is exactly what the Gender Equality Act is doing and what gender-responsive budgeting is doing as well.

The act places a really positive duty on organisations to take action towards gender equality, and they are required to conduct workplace gender audits and develop gendered equality action plans and gender equality indicators. What we mean by that is actually putting plans in place and then measuring them, reporting publicly on those measures every two years and undertaking gender impact assessments. These gender impact assessments are requirements for organisations to have policies and services that directly and significantly impact the policies that those public servants are delivering to the public. As a policy decision, any budget initiative is considered to have a significant impact, and an impact on the public is required to have a gender impact assessment. The bill is embedding this important process – gender-responsive budgeting – into legislation.

In August 2022 the Commission for Gender Equality in the Public Sector published, for the first time, comprehensive data on the state and the nature of gender inequality in our public service. The workplace gender audit baseline report reported a statewide level of measurements across issues on sexual harassment, on gender pay gaps, on gender segregation in workforces and also on the way that processes in regard to promotion and recruitment are undertaken. The key findings from the report that was released by the commission show that the total remuneration pay gap for the Victorian public service is 15.6 per cent and that women make up 66 per cent of the public sector workforce but only 46 per cent of senior leadership management roles. Women reported double the rate of experiencing sexual harassment when compared to men, and male-dominated industries had a much higher rate of sexual harassment. These are the challenges we face, but at least now we have a baseline to look at and plans to improve it.

Victoria’s new gender equality strategy, Our Equal State, also puts in place a range of actions and of course strategies to work forward. The strategy itself provides a legislative mechanism to legislate and prioritise the strategy across the state. As part of our requirements under the Gender Equality Act 2020, we must report back to Parliament on our progress towards implementing the strategy every two years, and I was proud to be able to launch Our Equal State in August last year. Our Equal State takes a life-course approach to gender equality, focusing on childhood, youth, adulthood and older age, to highlight the gendered gaps in choices and opportunities between women and men and diverse genders at all ages. Our priorities at each stage of life have focused on cultural change, health and wellbeing, safety and respect, economic security and public sector leadership, and the strategy includes 110 ‍whole-of-government, Victorian government specific, aims and actions. The strategy also recognises that gender inequality is further compounded by intersecting forms of discrimination, such as racism, homophobia, ableism and ageism.

Our Equal State recognises the government is in a unique position to lead by example. That is why we are setting concrete, measurable targets, including halving the pay gap in the Victorian public sector within the next five years, reaching gender pay equity in CEO roles and senior leadership roles in each portfolio in the public sector within the next five years and doubling the number of men taking available paid parental leave in the Victorian public sector, again in the next five years, to help rebalance gendered uptake of care and childcare entitlements.

Another significant commitment under Our Equal State of course was embedding gender-responsive budgeting in legislation, which is what we are doing today and which makes me so proud to be part of this government. Last week’s budget invests $6.1 billion towards advancing gender equity in this state, and more than 130 of our budget initiatives have been assessed as having a positive impact on gender equality. These initiatives will provide gender equality at a statewide level, change attitudes and improve gender equality by reducing gaps in outcomes, access and participation.

Gender-responsive budgeting highlights that not every budget outcome which benefits women needs to fall under the women’s portfolio; they fall under every portfolio. For example, this government is investing $1.8 billion to increase women’s economic participation by supporting women workers into male-dominated sectors but also supporting women in women-dominated sectors and helping those women to re-skill and train up. This budget also allocates $292 million to assist with the cost-of-living pressures that we know disproportionately affect women. Our important Best Start, Best Life policy is helping with an enormous contribution of allowing more women the opportunity to work more hours or to upskill and take on higher roles because they have that support of three- and four-year-old kinder.

The gender-responsive budgeting bill will enshrine a commitment to consider and promote gender equality and inclusivity in principles of financial management. It does not get better than this. For women to have a government that is looking directly at its own bottom line around how it is resourcing opportunities for women is a fantastic step forward. We all have a role to play in the pursuit of gender equality, and I want to thank the Treasurer and his staff and department for their cooperation and also thank the Office for Women for the work that they have been doing around this. I know that everyone on this side of the house is extremely proud of this bill.

Roma BRITNELL (South-West Coast) (11:21): I rise to speak on the Financial Management Amendment (Gender Responsive Budgeting) Bill 2024, which is the first year we have seen this bill included in the bills budget package. The bill amends the Financial Management Act 1994 to ensure that a gender lens is cast over the legislation that is presented in this Parliament. At the bill briefing I asked the question – or somebody asked the question – ‘What actually will change?’, and what I heard in the response was ‘Nothing’. That makes me understand once again how this is a government that likes to do stunts that actually do not get results or outcomes, which is what our community actually needs from a government.

We see the budget that was handed down and guillotined off last night, giving very few people the opportunity to speak about it, and I am not surprised, because this is a budget that the government should be actually apologising to the Victorian people for presenting. It is a budget that, as a result of years and years of mismanagement, we see laid out there for everyone to see that this Labor government have not managed money. They cannot manage money and they cannot manage projects, and Victorian people are paying the price.

The gender equity that this government speaks about is not demonstrated at all in the actions of what this government is delivering. We see that. Whether they are diluting, delaying or cutting, what we are seeing is very disappointing results. One of those disappointing results that I will highlight is this: if you are serious about gender equity, then when you have got males with high suicide rates in the regions, you would hardly be thinking you would see a cut to mental health. I have raised in this Parliament the challenges we are seeing in our schools and our students. As I just said, male suicide rates are going up, and the community desperately requires more mental health support and mental illness support. But what we are seeing is less funding.

In South-West Coast we are not going to see an increase of 25 per cent to the acute mental health beds as promised. We are not going to see the mental health locals, for which Warrnambool was in the next tranche of the rollout. We are not going to see that. They help people in the community remain mentally able to manage, and they help with anxiety and depression. They do a lot of alcohol and drug counselling, and that is desperately needed in South-West Coast. That is why the government announced it. They sang from the mountains that they were doing a wonderful job in mental health, and yet in the budget there is cut after cut. Those mental health acute beds – not going to be delivered. That mental health local in Warrnambool – not going to be delivered.

I know that this government is fully aware that we have seen a massive increase in drug and alcohol use in the community since COVID – I think a 40 per cent increase in demand for drug and alcohol rehabilitation beds – and yet South-West Coast remains the one place in Victoria that has not had an announcement. Once again in this budget the Lookout drug and alcohol rehabilitation centre was overlooked by this government, and we remain the only place in Victoria that does not have that available to the families. They need to remain in their communities. Women particularly need to remain in their communities. The Aboriginal community have highlighted that need for their community as well to stay in the community to be rehabilitated in the community around the supports of their family while addressing drug and alcohol use and misuse. It is absolutely fundamental to the success of the program, but once again it was overlooked.

It is not just mental health, it is the health budget too. The government spruiked about putting $8.8 billion into the health system yet in their own press release talked about the fact that prices have gone up, costs have gone up, medicines have gone up, cost of energy has gone up. They have not been funding the health system appropriately for the hospitals to actually deliver health. We have seen that in Portland, where we have had cuts to many, many services. We have not had an announcement of the new CEO. They have gone completely quiet on Portland. I have to ask the question: is that because the government has an agenda? I have been pointing this out in this place for over two years, since I asked the last health minister, ‘Does the minister have plans to merge Portland? Does Port Fairy have the right into the future to have its own board?’ The Port Fairy hospital fought so hard to get funding over the years and to have the community raise money as they do. Heywood is the same; is Heywood hospital going to have its own board into the future? Are they going to be able to determine what their health service needs are for their community and have a say in that? Is Warrnambool going to have their own health service that they can have a say on? Is it going to be the hub, or is it going to be all swallowed up? It is time the minister came clean and told the community what the plan is, because the communities of Portland, Heywood, Port Fairy and Warrnambool all deserve to understand what the minister has planned.

No more shocks, no more surprises – like the shock that the schools got when they announced this $400 payment to the schools that is not going to go anywhere near the family. Schools in my electorate, the Catholic schools in particular, are absolutely disgusted. They called it a shock announcement with no consultation and a most unfair announcement that gives it to children of wealthy families that go to a public school, like the Oakleigh South Primary School that was highlighted in the Herald Sun last week as one of the top 100 primary schools. I am sure there are parents there who do not qualify as low socio-economic and do not need support who will get the $400 bonus, but a school like Our Lady Help of Christians, where the children might be on low socio-economic status, is not going to get that. It is the most unfair system that they have invented that will not go to the children who need it, particularly those in South-West Coast at the Catholic schools. It is just really unfair, and this government have made a massive error of judgement by giving it to the wealthy who do not need it, and all that was asked for by the Catholic schools was to means-test it. These schools have to administer it; it is another task, just like the hospitals who cannot manage to have enough staff to do all the reporting that is required. The Royal Melbourne has the same reporting as Warrnambool Base Hospital and Port Fairy has the same as Warrnambool Base Hospital, and they do not have the extra staff because the government have not been funding them appropriately. We have seen so many cuts to programs that you just wonder about this whole gender equality lens. How can you say there is an equality lens when you look at what they have done to the CFA? The Country Fire Authority have been completely thrown to the wolves; they have not been given the funding they need for their trucks and the equipment that they need updated. These are volunteers.

The farmers have come out pretty angry today. They are angry because what the government are doing is they want to pay more money to the United Firefighters Union, and this is what angers farmers the most who volunteer. As they struggle to replace their ageing trucks and dilapidated stations –

Lauren Kathage: On a point of order, Acting Speaker, I believe the member has strayed from the debate.

Roma BRITNELL: This is a bill about equality, about gender equality, and in the bill briefing they talked about the fact that it is about males as well as females, and I referred to that in the suicide reference I made about males. I am talking about equality, and that is what this bill is about.

Vicki Ward: On a point of order, Acting Speaker, while I appreciate that it has been a wideranging debate and will continue to no doubt be a wideranging debate, and the member does have a valid point when she wants to talk about the health and mental health of all Victorians, including men, to then start talking about fire trucks may be just stretching the parameters of relevance.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Paul Hamer): I will rule on the point of order. It has been a wideranging debate, and I think the member was straying into areas that were not in the bill, and I would ask that the member continue to refer in her contribution to the bill.

Roma BRITNELL: I will continue to refer to the gender inequality that is occurring right across our state from the state government, particularly in the regions, which is what I was discussing when I was pulled up by a point of order. The regions have been severely disadvantaged, and that means any equality lens that has been cast across the legislation or budgetary decisions that this government have made has been less than equitable – in fact most unfair – and regional Victorians are suffering. We have seen a 30 per cent cut in agriculture. We saw over 100 staff from Agriculture Victoria cut last year, and now we have got a government that says they care about biosecurity but cuts agriculture. Just let us see what happens when we have a foot-and-mouth disease outbreak and whether there are enough people on the ground to actually roll out those biosecurity measures. That is when this will demonstrate itself. When we are talking about inequality across this state, it is there in the budget for all to see.

Vicki WARD (Eltham – Minister for Prevention of Family Violence, Minister for Employment) (11:31): I will approach this debate quite calmly, I think. At the heart of family violence are disrespect and inequality.

Roma Britnell interjected.

Vicki WARD: Disrespect and inequality, which includes interjecting across the chamber. Victoria has led our nation when it comes to responding to the challenges of family violence. Close to $4 billion has been invested by this government since we were elected in responding to family violence. Those opposite try to pretend that they know what we are investing in family violence, and they are absolutely incorrect. We were the first in our nation to implement a royal commission. We were the first ones to take this seriously. We were the first ones to take serious action in response to family violence. We implemented all 227 recommendations, many of those nation leading. We have heard that our work, our investment and the work of the sector – the workforce that we have increased by 2000 – is nothing more than slogans and earrings. That is what we hear from those opposite, which is absolutely disrespectful. I have my motor neurone disease badge on me today, as do many of those opposite. I would ask those opposite whether this is tokenistic, whether this is meaningless, whether it is meaningless for us to sit in here with our beanies. It is not. My mother-in-law died from motor neurone disease. For us to wear badges, for us to wear earrings, for us to have slogans on T-shirts is not –

Roma Britnell: On a point of order, Acting Speaker, the minister has strayed from the bill. The fact that we are wearing badges is not relevant to gender equality. I think it is a very similar point of order that was called on the last speaker, me. Thank you for addressing this.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Paul Hamer): It was a little difficult to hear the minister over the interjections from the member for South-West Coast, but I do ask the minister to come to the bill.

Vicki WARD: The link that I was making was about the comments made by those opposite in the course of this debate thus far that we have been tokenistic in wearing earrings and having slogans and the rest of it. I am saying that wearing a badge is comparable to wearing earrings that say ‘Respect women’. That is the point I was making, and that is why I say to you that the member for South-West Coast was not actually listening to what I was saying. To go to your point, Acting Speaker, she was too busy interjecting things about which she clearly does not understand. Let us talk for a minute about these earrings. The ‘Respect women’ earrings that I wear –

A member: I wear them.

Vicki WARD: Many of us on this side of the chamber wear them. The Premier wears them. We wear these earrings that are made by the Haus of Dizzy, a business in Fitzroy created by a proud Wiradjuri woman Kristy Dickinson. This is a great small business that we on this side of the chamber are very happy to support, because we want women to have economic power, we want women to be economically strong, because when women are economically strong, they have healthier lives and they have better lives. That is exactly what this budget does, and this is exactly what this bill comes to, which is about gender equality.

There are those opposite who will say that family violence has nothing to do with gender equality, and it just shows you how little they know, because at the heart of family violence are disrespect and inequality. Because if you are not going around punching your mate, disrespecting your mate, being rude to your mate, belittling your mate and coercively controlling your mate, because he is your mate, but you are doing it to your partner and you are doing it to your children, that is about inequality and that is about disrespect. It is about a power imbalance, and that is exactly the root of family violence.

We on this side of the chamber understand that. That is why we have invested close to $4 billion. That is why this budget invests $211 million in responding to the challenges of family violence. These challenges keep happening, and we will keep responding to them, because this government will not back down from pushing down on family violence. We will continue to pull every lever available to us to reduce those numbers. Women are getting murdered, and we want it to stop. Women are having to flee their homes, and we want it to stop. Children are being traumatised because of the violence they are witnessing or experiencing, and we want it to stop.

For those opposite, who barely come to an election with a family violence policy and who are barely able to articulate the ins and outs of family violence, to come into this place and lecture us and tell us that we are cutting when we are not is absolutely shameful and is disrespectful. We are absolutely leading the nation, and we will continue to do so, because this issue is too important not to. As I have said in this place, we have had visitations from people from interstate and internationally who come to Victoria to see what we are doing. They have come to visit our Orange Doors. We have got 54 of them across our state that are safety hubs for people to come to when they need help in resolving a family violence issue, in dealing with family violence and in understanding what supports are there for them, but also they are helping those who are actually using violence, because that is at the heart of this problem. We have to work with those people who are using violence, who we know are predominantly men. We have a very serious challenge, and we will continue to address that challenge. We have at least 57,000 men in this state committing violence every year, according to Victoria Police statistics, and that does not include what is under-reported or what does not get reported. So we have tens of thousands of men in this state who are choosing to use violence every year.

For those opposite to say that this government is not doing anything and is doing nothing more than slogans and earrings is absolutely disrespectful. I will tell you what, it is absolutely disrespectful to that workforce, those people who are so proud of the work we are doing in this state and who are so proud that we are leading the nation and that much of what we are doing is actually world leading. They are so proud of the rigour that is being applied. They are so proud of what they do, and they have every right to be proud, because they are tremendous workers. These people turn up to work every day not knowing what trauma they need to manage and not knowing what person they will have to help rebuild their life and what they have experienced. These people listen to stories of immense pain and of immense hurt, and they keep turning up to work every single day. These people are amazing. They are wonderful. For those opposite to say that the work that we invest in, their work, is nothing more than earrings and slogans is disrespectful to this incredible workforce that deserves so much more from those opposite. It deserves their support. It deserves their investment. You will struggle to find anywhere where they are able to articulate what their investment in family violence would be. Election after election, you hear silence. This is not an issue that they are ready to address or that they are ready to put the serious money into that we have.

James Newbury: On a point of order, Acting Speaker, under standing order 118, the minister is reflecting, and I take personal offence at the comments the minister is making. The minister might be surprised what men and boys –

Vicki WARD: You might be surprised, mate.

James Newbury: Acting Speaker, I have just been attacked across the chamber while trying to raise a point of order. I am trying to raise a point of order. The minister might be surprised that people in this chamber have been victims of family violence, and to impugn people across this side of the chamber is unparliamentary. It is unparliamentary, and I would ask the minister to think about that in terms of the comments that are being made in relation to this bill.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Paul Hamer): What is your point of order?

James Newbury: 118, under which I take personal offence.

Vicki WARD: On the point of order, Acting Speaker, the member is misrepresenting me and what I said. What I was taking personal offence to was those opposite saying that what this government has done is nothing more than earrings and slogans, and that is absolutely not the case. I do not think the member has articulated what he has actually taken offence to.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Paul Hamer): On the point of order before I call the next member, the reflections that were made by the minister were not a reflection on any individual, so I do not accept that there is a point of order.

Jade BENHAM (Mildura) (11:41): Given that the member for Brighton is referring to someone who I can only assume to be me, I will address the issue. Do I take personal offence to it? Yes, I do. It has been very public that after 22 years I have finally found the voice, the courage, to stand up and say, ‘Actually there is someone in this place that does know a thing or two.’ You can talk about investment all you want, you can talk as much as you like about investment and you can talk about stats, but in Mildura we are seeing the highest rate of family violence in this state. We are not seeing results in bringing that down. So I thank the member for Brighton for raising his point of order, because when the minister refers to ‘those on the other side’ it is a collective; we are all a team. I would not be standing here today without the support of this team and without the support of my family team. So do I take personal offence? Yes, I do – I absolutely do.

I had prepared more of a comprehensive response to the Financial Management Amendment (Gender Responsive Budgeting) Bill 2024, which I may get to, but let me address some of the issues that I did want to talk about. I have spoken about family violence until I have been blue in the face for the last two weeks, and I would say that this will be the last time but I do not think it will be, because now that I have found a bit of a voice it will come up again, it really will, because of the rates of family violence and women dying. It is largely women; we know that. Of the 14,000 people in Mildura alone that are working with extraordinary organisations on the ground like Mallee Family Care and MASP, the Mallee Accommodation and Support Program, 90 per cent are women. We know that. Yes, it happens the other way, but 90 per cent of them are women. As the member for Euroa said, they are waiting up to two years – they are going into the department’s offices to seek housing and they are being given tents. Could you imagine needing somewhere safe to go and being given a tent? Come on.

So the minister can stand there and talk about any amount of investment or earrings – which, I am sorry, I do not wear; as a victim myself, I do not – and she can talk about investment all she wants, but it is disingenuous. I find it almost condescending. I find it offensive when women still, after all of this investment, are being given tents as a solution. Where is that investment ending up? That is not okay. It is never okay. Yes, she spoke a lot about disrespect. Is that how I feel at the moment? Absolutely. And she could not even stay. She could not even give me respect enough to stay until I was finished, or look me in the eye. And she knows; I have been in the Herald Sun in the last two weeks. I did a podcast with Neil Mitchell yesterday. This is not a secret. The Premier – which I was very thankful for – came and found me last week to have a quiet word. The Minister for Prevention of Family Violence cannot look me in the eye and walked out. Again, I thank the member for Brighton for taking a point of order and calling it out, because it is about time we called out disrespect in all forms and in this place as well. Just be aware of your surroundings. That is all I have got to say.

Steve DIMOPOULOS (Oakleigh – Minister for Environment, Minister for Tourism, Sport and Major Events, Minister for Outdoor Recreation) (11:46): I only came in at the last minute and it is obviously an extraordinarily difficult time for the member, but I just want to put on the record that the Minister for Prevention of Family Violence was relieving me of my chamber duties. She was not meant to be here; she had another appointment. It is inappropriate to impugn her for not staying for any reason other than the fact that she was relieving me and she had to go.

Juliana ADDISON (Wendouree) (11:46): I would like to start my contribution by recognising the member for Mildura and the work that she is doing to share her story to give voice to so many people who are voiceless. I really want to thank you for what you are doing through the press and what you are doing to empower other women to be able to talk about it and stuff like that. We are all indebted to you, so thank you very much. I really want that on the record.

I would also like to make mention of the Minister for Prevention of Family Violence, who is a fierce advocate for women in this state. Following the death – the murders – of three women in Ballarat, she came to my community and met with people, met with stakeholders. She has spoken with so many people in my community, and I want to say how important that has been for my community, for different levels of government, for her to be there and for the work that we are doing. In saying that, I would really like to say thank you to all our organisations who are working in the family violence space. The member for Eureka, the member for Ripon and I had the opportunity to do a round table with them on Monday to really talk about how we can be supporting them. We do know – and I do believe this – that through our gender-responsive budgeting we are changing the conversation and we are changing the dial when it comes to the allocation of resources for people in Victoria. We are ensuring that women and children and girls are being looked after in every budget decision because of this important bill that we have before us.

What we are doing with the Financial Management Amendment (Gender Responsive Budgeting) Bill is seeking to embed gender equality and inclusivity considerations within the Victorian budgeting process. Addressing gender equality is a hallmark of this government. We have introduced the Gender Equality Act 2020 as well as the landmark gender equality strategy and action plan called Our Equal State. If you have not looked at this document, I encourage everybody to seek out Our Equal State, because it is our road map, it is our state’s road map for action in gender equality until 2027. When it comes to gender equality – it has been said before, but it needs to be reinforced – Victoria proudly leads the nation. We are making great progress towards making our state fairer and more equal for all. In doing so it is essential that when we are allocating public resources – taxpayers money, public money – we examine the socio-economic impact on women and girls when we spend that money. It cannot be how we have done it before. We need a change. We need to put a microscope over our decisions and ask who is actually benefiting, who are we actually targeting, who are we supporting and how are we addressing gender equality in this state. That is the heart of gender-responsive budgeting, and that is what we are doing.

I would like to thank the Treasurer, who has delivered his 10th budget. Over the last decade the Treasurer has been a champion of gender equality. The Treasurer has supported our $3.8 billion investment in family violence services following our landmark royal commission, once again leading the nation, because we know that when we address men’s violence against women we are addressing gender equality. I would also like to thank the ministerial office and recognise the work of the gender-responsive budgeting unit within the department. I would also like to thank the Premier, and the Minister for Women, who has already made a contribution on this bill, for talking about everything that we are doing. Within our government, within our cabinet and within our party room we have so many incredible women role models who are changing the way business is done in Victoria and changing the way money is spent in Victoria, because we know that when you include women around decision-making tables, you not only get better outcomes for women and girls but better outcomes for everyone.

The 2024–25 Victorian budget includes over 130 initiatives which have been assessed as positively impacting gender equality. Included in the budget are multiple initiatives that will improve the health and wellbeing of women and girls. In the area of health we are addressing the pain gap, with over $18 million for preventative care, community outreach and health and education across women’s health organisations. We are also investing in the wellbeing of new mums – I am so excited we have got so many mums-to-be in the chamber. That is why we are including funding for universal as well as enhanced and Aboriginal maternal and child health services, funding for the Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies program in rural and regional areas, and funding for new facilities and services benefiting women within the Monash Medical Centre redevelopment.

We have also committed $31 million to support those living with eating disorders, which overwhelmingly impact women and girls. I would really like to recognise and honour the work of the eating disorder clinic at the Grampians Health service in Ballarat, which I am very proud got funded in last year’s budget. I would like to thank Dr Dave Tickell and the incredible team who are working with people experiencing eating disorders in regional communities. We know during COVID that our paediatric wards in Ballarat, in Geelong, in Bendigo and in regional centres were filled with young people with eating disorders. We know that this $31 million is going to go a long way to support people with eating disorders that, as we said, disproportionately affect girls and women, because eating disorders often continue through adolescence and through your whole life.

I am also proud to say that this budget includes $5.4 million for a new mental health, alcohol and other drug emergency department at the Ballarat Base Hospital, designed to incorporate the unique needs of women accessing specialist services in my community. Like so many of us, we have far too many people needing additional support for alcohol, drug and mental health issues, so I welcome this $5.4 million investment at Ballarat Base Hospital. I also thank our emergency department workers, particularly our nurses, who do such an incredible job.

On top of these investments into women’s health, we are also promoting women’s economic security. The 2024–25 budget includes investment in women’s leadership programs and mentoring programs, as well as supporting women’s representation within the startup sector. As chair of the Victorian Honour Roll of Women panel, I have the opportunity to work with incredible women to recognise and elevate the remarkable contribution of Victorian women who are trailblazers, local champions, change agents and emerging leaders. Since the establishment of the Victorian Honour Roll of Women in 2001, we have honoured and recognised close to 750 women. I would like to thank the 2024 judging panel ‍– excellent, extraordinary women – and I look forward to working with them again this year in the coming months as we induct more great Victorian women who are role models and who every day address issues of gender inequality.

We are also investing in vocational education and training, we are doing our three- and four-year-old kinder programs, we are doing outside-school-hours care programs at small and regional schools and we are doing our continued rollout of the government owned and operated early learning centres. We know that because women continue to earn less money than men, cost-of-living pressures impact harder on women, and that is why I am very proud that we are supporting families with our $400 school saving bonus as well as tripling our Glasses for Kids program.

Homelessness is another issue that is a real issue for gender inequality in this state. We know that women are particularly vulnerable to homelessness – those over the age of 40 and even more so women over 55. Significant contributors to this are the financial barriers that many women face throughout the course of their lives, which can include time out of the workforce, delayed career progression or family violence leading to economic and housing instability. So that is why we are investing $216 million in support for people experiencing homelessness.

What I want to say with the very limited time left is that when we put women at the heart of our decision-making, when we put a lens over women and the impact that our budget has on women, we make better decisions for all Victorians. We make sure that taxpayers money is being used to make sure that gender inequality in this state is being addressed. I am so proud that we are putting this into legislation. I am so proud that as a state we recognise that gender inequality is never acceptable.

Nicole WERNER (Warrandyte) (11:57): I rise to speak to the Financial Management Amendment (Gender Responsive Budgeting) Bill 2024. From the outset can I pay tribute to the member for Mildura, who shared a very profound contribution today, and also just so respect the work she has done in this space in terms of her advocacy. I was watching from my office when she did share earlier just today, and it was incredibly moving. I honestly have shivers down my spine just watching what she does, the bravery with which she does it and the courage that she has, so I just pay my tributes and my respects to her and to anyone here in this place or outside watching that has been a victim of domestic violence. It is because of you that we are here, it is you that we are fighting for, it is you that we want to legislate for so that we see progress in this area, and so to each and every one of you I pay my deepest respects. We hope that we respect everything that you have gone through, so I hope to make sure that we do that accordingly.

I am always committed to protecting women and girls and I will always fight for their protection. However, what I have to say about this bill is that, as mentioned before, it is a smokescreen for the government’s failures regarding women’s issues. I am proud in this place to stand here as the youngest woman in this chamber as well as the first woman to represent the seat of Warrandyte and the first Asian-Australian woman to be elected to the Legislative Assembly. I am proud to be a woman and I am proud to have these as firsts, so that is why whilst we do not oppose this bill I would like to raise that the government, whilst loving to grandstand about supporting women in the last budget, exposed their hollow virtue signalling by slashing funding to critical services that women do depend on.

So let us have a look at some of them. Firstly, public IVF services – in this budget the government has cut public IVF services by $42 million. This is something I have spoken about in this place before, and it was in the context of the cruel cancellations by this government during code brown and COVID lockdowns where public IVF was halted, unlike other jurisdictions. I have had so many families locally contact me, when we have put that to social media, to talk about their personal struggles, their lived experiences around IVF, and I know it is such a sensitive issue for women. It is a live and real issue to so many in our community. In fact it was the Minister for Health who previously emphasised the importance of public IVF and said that they were:

… doing what matters. We are working hard so that prospective families have every opportunity to be happy, healthy …

et cetera. In fact the Premier has expressed her past support for IVF and its positive impact on women’s opportunities for pregnancy, and she said this when she was as new to this place as I am:

There are many women, as honourable members know, who want to have children but who, because of infertility, are unable to do so. The … (IVF) program over the past 20 years has provided enormous and exciting opportunities … to become pregnant.

That is what the Minister for Health and the Premier have said. Contrast the $42 million that public IVF services have been cut by with their support statements, and it does not quite match up. Again I say this: IVF is not just a medical procedure, it is a lifeline that extends hope to countless individuals and couples who yearn to experience the joys of parenthood. I have sat with women in my community and cried with them as they have spoken to me about their challenges and about the process and the physical strain that IVF has on their bodies, on themselves, on their families and on their marriages – the challenges that they go through. I have sat there and supported them, and I have to say that cutting $42 million is not how you support women. They move virtue-signalling motions about their support for public IVF and then, at the first chance they get in the new budget, rip funding to shreds.

There is that, but the cuts to IVF are not the only way this budget has let down women. Another area in which we have seen cuts is a cut of $79 million in early childhood sector supports and regulation. That is an 11 per cent cut, stripped away from the early childhood sector. While the government are busy spruiking their $400 support payments for schoolchildren, they have meanwhile gutted their wellbeing support for schoolkids – $34 million has been cut from that and its rising mental health challenges. That is an 8.4 per cent cut.

While we are talking about this $400 support payment, which the government loves to spruik and talk about and publicise, what I have seen as the reality in my office is email after email from people who send their kids to Catholic schools who will not receive this $400 school saver bonus. Let me quote one of these emails to you. A local constituent said:

It is so disappointing to hear that once again, our decision to choose an education system that is not state funded has resulted in our young people and families missing out on financial support.

Like all families attending state schools … we too are experiencing and trying to manage the increase in cost-of-living expenses. Our choice to engage in the catholic system should not be seen as ‘we can afford to pay more’ or ‘to miss out on financial support’.

Most of us are hard working families that are doing our best to simply get by. The frequent alienation and exclusion of families who choose non-government schools is disappointing and needs to stop.

I urge you to reflect on …

this, and she goes on. Email after email I have received about this. Catholic and non-government schools are not getting this funding, and the disappointing thing is that for so many they are the people that are vulnerable in our communities. That includes people like migrant families. That includes people who are wanting to do their best and to send their kids to the best school that they can. We know that one in five Victorian students attend Catholic schools in Victoria. I know from some of my local Catholic schools, like Holy Spirit Community primary school in Ringwood North, St Anne’s Primary School in Park Orchards and Whitefriars College in Donvale, that these are hardworking families from all walks of life.

In fact the Victorian Catholic Education Authority has called this out for what it is, ‘discriminatory and unfair’, calling it out as ‘the most divisive and discriminatory government education policy in recent history’. Their acting CEO Bruce Phillips is asking why the government is ‘treating families in Catholic schools like second-class citizens’. How is that for equality, Victoria? What does this wellbeing support for schoolkids look like? It looks like deferring the establishment of 35 local mental health and wellbeing hubs for kids. It looks like failing to fund and delaying this rollout. We have also seen – and I know it has been mentioned in this place – with this budget a $29 million cut to family violence service delivery, contradicting the government’s claims of tackling family violence. Further to that, there is a cut to women’s policy funding, with continuous cuts, including $3 million last year and another $300,000 this year. There you have it, ladies and gentlemen: not only can the Labor government not manage money but they are also a government of contradictions and failures. They care more about virtue signalling than they do about tangible outcomes or providing adequate funding to these areas that matter.

If we look at this bill that we are speaking about, where future budgets will require a statement on gender equality, I hope there will be honesty in these statements, reflecting how the government is failing women and how the government voted down and opposed the coalition when we tried to introduce into this place a strengthening of bail laws. When one woman every four days was dying at the hands of gendered violence, we tried to strengthen bail laws so that we could protect women in a tangible way. Let it be on the record in these future budgets that that was opposed. Let it be on the record that the government voted down and opposed the coalition when last year we tried to pass a bill to prohibit the use of machetes so that we could again protect women from being victims of knife crime and violence.

Finally, if the Labor Party is serious about improving the lives of women, they could start by changing their own recruitment strategy in their own party before creep corner gets fuller. How about being serious in your own patch about protecting women, about making a difference and about dealing with the rot in your own party before you virtue signal with legislation? I do not need to speak about that further and I do not need to elaborate, but this is again evidence of the Labor Allan government virtue signalling and showing what they really mean. It is just tokenism, not actually doing the work of legislation to protect women and to look after women, which we will continue to do day in and day out in this place.

Daniela DE MARTINO (Monbulk) (12:06): It gives me great pleasure and immense pride in our government to make my contribution on the Financial Management Amendment (Gender Responsive Budgeting) Bill 2024. But before I proceed further, I would like to mention the member for Mildura and express my support for her and acknowledge the courage that she has displayed in talking about her own private and personal experience with family violence. It takes incredible courage to share stories like those, and I do just want to acknowledge that, as my colleague the member for Wendouree also acknowledged, and extend my condolences and love to her.

I will now continue on to discuss this bill, and it is an important bill. Much has been said about being tokenistic, but it is not tokenistic. Indeed should this bill become legislation, as noted by the Minister for Women, Victoria will once again lead our nation by being the first jurisdiction in this country to enshrine into legislation that every budget in the future includes a statement about gender equality. That is quite important. In fact, before I go into the detail of the legislation, just the understanding that it will be required by law that this be produced is important.

When I was thinking about this, I cast my mind back to the introduction of the GST. Back then it was all the talk. A goods and services tax was to be applied to what were considered luxury items, back in 2000 if I remember correctly. At the time razor blades – so that men could shave – were exempt from GST because they were considered essential. Personal grooming for men was considered essential, and therefore razor blades did not attract the tax. But women’s sanitary products were slugged with the 10 per cent GST. I can tell you it is not a luxury item. A sanitary product – be it a tampon, be it a pad or be it a menstrual cup, which you find nowadays but which really were not around 25-odd years ago – is not a luxury item. How did we manage to attract a 10 per cent tax federally on something that we all consider quite a necessity? In my mind I was thinking, ‘If there had been something like this requiring the Commonwealth government to produce some kind of gender-responsive budgeting and a statement of it, I suspect that that GST anomaly may not have occurred.’ This ensures that when we are budgeting, when we are creating legislation and when the Treasury department has to look at anything, we are putting a gender lens over it, and I think that is incredibly important. It is much more important than that little example I have given, but that is the first thing that occurred to me because it was actually the first time I went on a protest march back in the day. It was actually to protest the fact that women were going to be taxed but men were not going to be. So I will continue discussing this bill, but I just wanted to put that out there for anyone thinking about whether or not it is important to include legislation such as this, and I do believe it is.

I want to just also discuss a number of issues when it comes to the accusations flying that we really are not doing much over here in government. I have to counter a lot of what has been sent our way from some of those opposite. The member for Wendouree has actually noted a number of different initiatives that our government has done. But to distil it just to a personal example, we opened an Orange Door in Belgrave at the end of last year, and it is the only Orange Door which is actually located in the district of Monbulk and servicing the people of the hills. It was incredibly well received. Obviously – and it has been discussed at length, even having Rosie Batty here yesterday visiting – looking at the horrific deaths of women at the hands of intimate partners or former partners this year has brought to the fore how important it is that we continue the work that we are doing.

The Orange Door was opened in Belgrave, and I popped down last week because I wanted to just give them a bit of a gift because I know that they have been busy, in fact probably busier than ever. I went down to say hello, and I spoke with one of the amazing workers there, who confirmed that they were run off their feet – incredibly, incredibly busy. But there was something else she told me which was interesting. She is doing an online course to better know how to respond to victims of sexual crimes. This online course that she is doing is at night. She is one of the few from Victoria in it; it has participants from all across the country. When she started explaining what we are doing here in Victoria in terms of the programs we have and in terms of the money that we are putting behind family violence, all the participants were stunned. They could not believe how advanced we were, how progressive we were and how much not only were we talking about addressing family violence but we were really doing something tangible about it, and we have been for quite some time.

I am incredibly proud to be a part of this government. Not for one moment, though, do any of us here think that the problem is solved – no way known. We know there is so much further to go. Far too many women are dying in this country. I have stopped watching the news myself. It is heartbreaking. Someone who actually came to my shop when we were doing some work, turned out to be someone who managed to – sorry, I am not expressing this terribly well. He killed his partner as she was trying to leave him. So I have met him, and I was beyond shocked. I was shocked because I thought why? Why is this still happening? It touches all of us in one way or another. I do know that, as I said before, the member for Mildura has shared her story, but I do suspect she is not the only person in here with real-life experience, personal experience, so I am being as gentle as I can as I discuss this with as much compassion as I can. I apologise if I am not eloquent in my expression at the moment, but I am really deeply affected, as we all are at different times, by the scourge of family violence. But I am also really proud that, as a government, we have really invested in trying to address this. For a good 10 years we have been working so hard in this space. There is much further to go. We know that. No-one here shies away from that.

I just want to say that legislation like this can be brushed off by some as being tokenistic, but it is not, because our actions matter. What we decide to enshrine in legislation speaks to us, to the values that we hold. We are living our values. As I say, we know that we are not there yet. There is so much further to go. But every day when we show up, I know that my colleagues here and I know that everyone in this chamber does not want to see the perpetration of inequality, of violence against women or children. We want that to stop. We have got to start somewhere. Every time we acknowledge that women deserve to be treated equally, every time we ensure that legislation is looked at through a gender lens that drills down to see whether it actually leads to equality – every time we do that – we go one step further to embedding respect in our society, to telling Victorians this matters: that women deserve to be respected in everything we do. There is nothing tokenistic about it.

I have worn those ‘Respect women’ earrings, and I have worn them with absolute pride. They send a message out. I have seen the look sometimes from people when they see me wearing them, and I think, ‘I hope that has made your brain think about it, and if it challenges you, then maybe there is something to think about there.’ If you find that you might recoil when you see a woman wearing ‘Respect women’ earrings – I am not accusing anyone of anything – I say, ‘Stop and ponder and think about your response to it and reflect.’ We all have inherent biases, but the first, initial response we have is maybe just the way we were raised or the images or messages we absorbed when we were younger. But that reflection – that is our evolution as human beings. That shows that we have learned and we are growing and we are getting better and hopefully dealing with things with more grace and compassion, because if we were all just a little bit kinder, all of us, this world would be a much better place. We would not see the terrible things that occur.

Once again I commend this bill to the house. I commend the minister, I commend the Treasurer and I commend all involved in it.

Martin CAMERON (Morwell) (12:16): I also rise to talk on the Financial Management Amendment (Gender Responsive Budgeting) Bill 2024. Sitting in my office down below and then coming up into the chamber to listen to contributions from both sides, it is not very often that you get to speak after other people that have come before you, and I would like to point out the member for Mildura. What a gutsy effort to stand up in the chamber and speak about atrocities that have occurred over her life, baggage that she has had to carry personally for over 20 years now. To be able to stand up in the chamber under a little bit of adversity, to explain her life and what has happened in the most courageous way, I need her to know – and she does know, because we tell her all the time – that we have got her back. We will walk beside her when she needs us to walk beside her, we will support her, and we will walk behind her and carry her at times when she needs to be carried.

The member for Monbulk with her contribution just then, the same with you. It just shows that we sit here in the chamber on opposite sides and we do get a chance to dissect bills and there is a little bit of back-and-forth going across the chamber, but when push comes to shove we need to stand up as one to say how much we do respect women. I respect women on both sides, on my side in the coalition and on the Labor side, because it is a very, very hard thing for anybody to stand up, whether they be male or female, and talk about family violence that they have been through and perpetrators that most of the time get away. It is time for us to stand up and call it out, because the standard we walk past is the standard that we will never, ever reach. We need to be able to call that out. I thank the member for Mildura for getting up and being able to talk about that today.

I do take offence, as she did, at the minister who was at the table, the Minister for Prevention of Family Violence. I know the minister is passionate; I do get it. I may not get it as much as women do that have been through it, but I do get that more needs to be done, and I do take it personally, as the member for Mildura does, when they say that we are not doing enough, because we get to debate this legislation that comes through but we also get to go back to our communities and we see it on the streets on a daily basis – mums with young kids coming into our offices that are at their wits’ end because they cannot get the help that they need. They have gone through atrocities at home, they have packed up themselves and the kids and they are living in a car because they cannot live in the family home anymore. There is always more to be done. The fact is that they cannot get a roof over their head and they are having trouble accessing services, because as has been said by both sides of the chamber, the numbers are not going down; the numbers are going up of people that need to access these services. They are not only in metropolitan Melbourne but right around the state and especially in regional Victoria. The lists are long and the lists are growing. Yes, we can debate it in here, but what is the actual tangible outcome on the streets? We need to make sure there is adequate funding there, no matter what the issue is.

We are talking about the gender-responsive budgeting bill here today. It is great that we do have a lens that is going to look over the budget and taxes that are put forward by the government of the day to make sure that they are fair, they are equitable and they do not leave women behind, and that we make sure that we are all on a level playing field not only now but in the future when my daughter lives her life out. My daughter is 21 years old. She is at the stage where she is at work and living, and hopefully into the future she will get married and have kids.

While I have my time and I am able to stand up and debate bills in the chamber, I will talk about this and highlight it, because it is an issue. We all know it is an issue. Sometimes our passions, when we try to articulate them across the chamber, spill over. But we need to make sure that what we are making into law here and the amendments that we make do have tangible outcomes for the people on the street in the Latrobe Valley and the people on the street here in Melbourne and around regional Victoria. We know that domestic violence is an issue, and probably the opportunity today with the member for Mildura highlighting her circumstances allows us to stand up and talk about it. I am probably in a privileged situation with my upbringing in that I did not go through domestic violence with my family; I had a loving upbringing. But I certainly know people that have been through domestic violence either as a wife or partner or as a child growing up with it.

As I say, we need to make sure that we are doing everything we can. We turn to the budget, because in the budget – it was a very, very hard budget; we all get that – money has been pulled out of services which are absolutely critical to people that are living this life at the moment. During the 10-minute contribution I am making here there will be people that will experience domestic violence or partner abuse in that 10 minutes that I am standing up and talking, and that is wrong. That is extremely wrong. We need to make sure we are doing everything that we can. I think slashing funds from our health services and from our police – is that needed? We have got a Big Build on in Melbourne that everyone goes on about. Are our budget funds going to the right areas, or should they be coming in so we can actually prop up areas in policing, the courts and our health services, which people who are experiencing domestic violence are trying to access on a daily basis. I am sure that everybody in the chamber – I do not care what side they are on – has these people that come through their doors on their knees begging for help because they have exhausted every single avenue that they have to get help.

It is our job in here to debate these amendments, but we do need to know that the services that are required and are in high demand do have the financial backing behind them. I have some friends who are accessing IVF at the moment to start a loving family. There has been funding cut out of that. Talking to them the other day, it is nearly at the stage where they have got to take out half a house mortgage to be able to navigate through the uncertainty and to pay money to have the luxury of starting a loving family. It just goes on.

We have delays after delays now, looking through the budget, in our mental health services. Down in the Latrobe Valley we are waiting for more access for people on the streets to the mental health part of the health industry that we need. It is ongoing, and it is not only in my patch in the Latrobe Valley, it is right around regional Victoria and also through the city. Our waitlists are going up. We need to do all we can to make sure that when we do get up to speak and we do debate bills that we debate them with the right purposes and not throw barbs at each other across the chamber, because we just do not know who is sitting in one of the chairs who is being impacted. I hope this bill works out as well as we expect.

Martha HAYLETT (Ripon) (12:26): I rise today to speak on the Financial Management Amendment (Gender Responsive Budgeting) Bill 2024. This is a really critical moment in our state’s history. We were the first state to implement gender-responsive budgeting back in 2022, and now we will be the first to embed it into law. This bill will amend the Financial Management Act 1994 to secure gender-responsive budgeting into the future. It will make our government’s expenditure more transparent and accountable and allow present and future governments to shape their policies and investments to improve gender equality. This will ensure fairer outcomes for Victorian women and girls and more programs targeted at boosting respect for all Victorians.

One of the ways we are already embedding gender-responsive budgeting is by continuing to fund Respectful Relationships in schools. This is a critical program, which those opposite have criticised time and time again but which is seeing phenomenal results across the state. I have seen it in action in classrooms across the Ripon electorate and with my own nephews at their local public primary school. It is teaching the next generation about how to build healthy relationships, resilience and confidence – things that are incredibly important to improving the safety and wellbeing of women and girls and that will ultimately help prevent violence into the future.

We began publishing an annual gender equality budget statement back in 2017 and made history with the passage of the Gender Equality Act 2020. That was a landmark step in breaking down discrimination and gender barriers in the workplace. This bill today is the next step and will complement all of our hard work to date. It will ensure that consideration of gender equality remains one of the key principles of sound financial management no matter what government is in power in the future. It will ensure that gender equality is considered at every single stage of the policy process.

This is an Australian first. It provides a once-in-a-generation opportunity to influence culture, attitudes and outcomes for Victorian women and girls. No more clearly have we seen the need for more change than in the last few weeks across the Ballarat region and beyond. We have seen far too many women have been allegedly murdered at the hands of men. We are frankly sick of it, and our family violence service providers like Child and Family Services, Wrisc, the Ballarat and District Aboriginal Co-operative, Berry Street and Orange Door are working nonstop to support victim-survivors and their loved ones in our region. They are working with perpetrators as well through men’s behaviour change programs to try and end that cycle. But they are calling out for more action, including more face-to-face outreach to victim-survivors in rural and remote areas; more funding for therapeutic counselling, including for children; increasing social housing in the Central Highlands region; and expanding community connection programs. We have come a long way in the 10 years since the Royal Commission into Family Violence, but there is still a long way to go in the fight towards equality, and it will require constant focus and persistence.

That is why I was so pleased to see last week’s state budget continue that focus on building a fairer, more equal Victoria for women and girls. In this budget alone we have invested $6.1 billion to advance gender equality in Victoria. This includes delivering $657 million for health services, including addressing the pain gap in women’s health; $1.8 billion to increase women’s economic security by supporting workers in women-dominated sectors and helping women to reskill and retrain; $292 million to assist with cost-of-living pressures that disproportionately affect women; $29 million to deliver universal Aboriginal maternal and child health services to more families; $129 million to continue to deliver the rollout of the fantastic three-year-old kinder program and to support families with free kinder for three- and four-year-olds; $216 million to support Victorians experiencing homelessness into housing, including women; and $269 million to prevent family violence and support women’s safety, taking our overall spend to end violence to almost $4 billion over the last 10 ‍years, which is absolutely phenomenal.

These are critical funds that make a world of difference to so many Victorians, including across the Ripon electorate. In total more than 130 of our budget initiatives this year have been assessed as having a positive impact on gender equality. While those opposite continue to spread misinformation and fear about our state’s finances, this side of the chamber is getting on with improving the health and wellbeing of women and girls, enhancing women’s participation in the workforce, supporting more women and girls to participate in education and sport and making sure that they have the safety and security of a place to call home.

I am especially proud of our local budget investments that will strengthen gender equality and work towards ending violence across the Ripon electorate. This includes embedding a lawyer within the Maryborough Hospital and an allied health worker at the Maryborough Magistrates’ Court through the incredible ARC Justice Loddon Campaspe Community Legal Centre to provide wraparound support to victim-survivors. We are also boosting funds to the Ballarat & Grampians Community Legal Service to offer legal aid to women at maternal and child health clinics and to provide early resolution of family law and family violence matters. We are delivering $1.47 million to the One Red Tree Resource Centre in Ararat, which is funnelling provisional psychologists from Federation University into our rural schools to support more young people with their mental health needs. We are also delivering $374,000 to McAuley House Ballarat to support women who are at risk of homelessness with a secure home, and we are delivering $5.4 million for a new mental health, alcohol and other drug emergency department hub at the Ballarat Base Hospital, which will support many local women across our region. This is not to mention everything else we are doing. I cannot fit it all in a 10-minute speech. There is also delivering $7.6 million for more community-based care to new mums in rural and regional areas through the Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies program; delivering $47 million for the student health and wellbeing program within schools; delivering $31 million to support people living with eating disorders, who are overwhelmingly young women and girls; and so much more.

All of us in this place had the opportunity to hear from the phenomenal Rosie Batty in Parliament yesterday. After her son Luke died from family violence 10 years ago she turned her grief into advocacy, and she was heard by this government. She reminded us yesterday that progress is not linear and that it takes long-term commitment and focus to make change. We are doing that here in Victoria because women and girls in this state deserve nothing less than a government that wants to end violence and see real action and real change to better their lives. From Landsborough to Lamplough, Ararat to Avoca, Bo Peep to Beaufort and Wedderburn to Waterloo, women across Ripon deserve to feel safe, secure and respected. They deserve that in their homes, on their farms, at their football–netball clubs, at local bars and restaurants, on public transport and everywhere in between. This bill will help do just that by keeping Victoria at the forefront of gender equality in Australia. It focuses on dignity, respect and fairness, and I am so proud to be a part of a government that is bringing this bill to the house today. I commend the bill to the house.

Chris COUZENS (Geelong) (12:35): I am pleased to rise to contribute to the Financial Management Amendment (Gender Responsive Budgeting) Bill 2024. This is just another great initiative of the Allan government. I have to say I know in my community they are really excited about this sort of legislation – legislation that actually shows that this government listens to women, which is really important in my community. As part of this budget we have introduced legislation to require that every budget in future includes a statement about gender equality. The Allan Labor government made history with the passage of the Gender Equality Act in 2020. This was a landmark step in breaking down discrimination and gender barriers in the workplace. The new legislation will complement the Gender Equality Act 2020, allowing the Treasurer to request a gender impact assessment and ensure gender equality is given the priority it deserves.

I know in my community of Geelong when the Gender Equality Act was being developed many in my community were contributing to that consultation that occurred. There were many discussions in many forums, and there was great excitement about the possibility of actually having a Gender Equality Act. And here we are now having that gender-responsive budgeting bill in the chamber today. I know there will be many in my community that are very excited about that and the fact that both pieces of legislation are Australian firsts and both provide a once-in-a-generation opportunity to influence policy, culture, attitudes and importantly outcomes for Victorian women and girls, which again is what my community is really excited about.

We know gender inequality negatively affects women and girls and continues to be a persistent challenge, with gender gaps affecting outcomes for Victorians, including in my community of Geelong. The Allan government knows that government has a key role to play to ensure gender impacts are considered through the funding process, which is one of our most powerful tools for effecting positive change. This is an important next step in the journey towards gender equality for all Victorians. Gender-responsive budgeting is fundamental to promoting gender equality through the way budgets are constructed and funds are collected and spent to ensure that better gender equality outcomes are achieved.

In Geelong we have had a very strong focus on gender equality. As I said, my community were very much involved in the Gender Equality Bill when it was being proposed at the time. But we also have things like the early parenting centre, which we know is for families but primarily impacts on women. In Geelong that centre is about to open, and again the excitement in my community is really strong that we are focused on so many areas that support women in our community, including the women’s and children’s hospital that has been committed to in Geelong. Construction is about to start. We had the very first Orange Door in Geelong, which was amazing, and the investment into family violence, as I said, is so much more than in other states, and Geelong was very proud to be able to have that first Orange Door and to set it up so that that model was able to be put out throughout the rest of the state.

Things like respectful behaviours in schools have been really welcomed in my community. Teachers, parents and children are actually saying how much of an impact that is having in their own local communities around their schools. The women’s health clinics – we are getting one in Geelong, and again, women are really excited in my community because this is such a strong focus and we are having one of those clinics open up.

The mental health hub in Geelong soon to open will mean that people can walk in off the street and families can get the support they desperately need. My experience has been that in most families who are dealing with somebody in their household suffering from a mental illness, it is usually the mother or the sister – usually a woman – that is dealing with that situation and supporting that person with mental illness. They are the ones that contact me when they are seeking support and want to tell their stories and their experiences of how mental health has impacted on them and their family. It is very rare that I have a conversation with a man about that; it is primarily women. Same with the children’s emergency department that is almost complete at Geelong. When I have been in the emergency department it is generally women who are there with their children, and this support is really significant because they will not have to go into the general ED, where we know it can be quite challenging for families and children. Having their own ED to go to will make a significant difference, and women will feel safer and more secure in that environment.

In the budget alone we have invested $657 million for health services, including to address the pain gap in women’s health. A pain inquiry is being undertaken and is being funded through this budget. Again, there is enormous support in my community for that. We saw that when we held the women’s pain forum in Geelong last week where we had 120 women come out. We had a long waiting list of women that wanted to attend but unfortunately missed out because of the capacity of the room we were in, so I know that this is really important to my community.

There is $1.8 billion to increase women’s economic security by supporting workers in women-dominated sectors and helping women to re-skill and retrain. Free TAFE – I mean, I see it all the time through my community. Free TAFE has opened up so many opportunities for women in my community to either retrain to go into a job, particularly where there are skills shortages. Women that have never had those opportunities and have not had that education can now see that they can enrol in TAFE and not have to pay the cost that they would have had to pay in the past which has prevented that. There are barriers up against women, we know that, but for women in my community they have been very clear that free TAFE has provided them with enormous opportunities to expand their opportunities careerwise and jobwise.

There is $292 million to assist with cost-of-living pressures, which disproportionately affect women. Free kinder is now there in my community, and food relief – all those support services. I do not have time to go through all of them, but right across my community those support services are there. They are there to help to support families, but they are also there particularly for women to be able to put food on the table or to get an education and for their kids to get an education. These are really important factors for my community.

For those experiencing homelessness there is $216 million in particular for supporting women. There is $269 million to prevent family violence and support women’s safety. As I said, we have got the first Orange Door in my community, which has been widely used, as we know. We will continue to support them. Female-friendly sports facilities right across my community have rolled out over a period of time. This is a great bill, and I commend the bill to the house.

Lauren KATHAGE (Yan Yean) (12:44): I am really pleased to share some short remarks on the Financial Management Amendment (Gender Responsive Budgeting) Bill 2024. There are many people who wish to speak on this bill, and I am happy to enable that through making just a few points. Something in this bill which I think is really important is the transparency that it enables. We heard from those opposite the repeated question: where is the investment? Through the work of this government we are increasing the transparency about the investment through the gender equality budget statement, which is included with every budget prepared by this government, because we know that if it is measured it matters. Where you can have formulated and presented on paper what is actually being done, you allow civil society to interrogate the actions of government and to truly understand where the investment is. That is something that this government has done for a number of years and will continue to do. Similarly, gender impact statements, which can be requested by the Treasurer, also ensure that we are interrogating the impact of the work and how each item funded is appropriately considering gender.

That is something that this government do naturally because we are a government that is made up of men and women and because of that we are able to more accurately reflect the Victorian community in our decision-making, in our policies and in our projects. I think we have heard some of those covered here this afternoon, including free kinder, women’s pain and also women’s participation in sport. There are some really simple things. Women have different views on or a different experience of footpaths and lighting, so when we talk about women’s safety and women’s comfort in the community when designing active transport, the needs and priorities of women need to be considered as well, and that is the type of thing that our government does. We are not just doing it in an ad hoc manner, we are structurally and systematically embedding these approaches in what we do and in what the departments do in support of our ministers. That is why we are all really proud to stand up and speak to this bill.

I mentioned free kinder before, and that is something that I know people on this side of the chamber are incredibly proud of our government introducing. This is a policy that is good for children, is good for women, is good for families and is good for the economy. We are not talking about things that just suit women or that are just good for women. We know that when women are supported to achieve all that they want and to follow their potential the whole community benefits. It is not about women wanting more, more, more; it is about equality, it is about equality of participation and it is about equality of outcome. So it is somewhat disingenuous to say, as we have heard from those opposite today, ‘What about men?’ Well, I would refer people who are worried about budgeting for men to 99 ‍per cent of other jurisdictions or the history of government budgets across Australia more generally. I do not think conversations asking ‘What about men?’ are very helpful in this space, because we know that when women benefit everyone benefits.

I will just touch briefly, since we have the Minister for Community Sport here, on women’s participation in sport and what our government has done on that. Women want to play sport. There is a belief, which is wrong, that girls stop wanting to play sport. There are barriers that stop girls playing sport. That is the truth. We recognise that it is the barriers that are stopping young women, and that is why we have set about removing the barriers. It is the thoughtful approach of a government that has female ministers and female MPs and that understands and supports approaches which consider things like the colour of sports uniforms and what a difference it makes for girls not to have to wear white sports shorts and the impact that has. From the very practical right through to the transparency that is set out in the budget, from go to whoa this government is implementing gender-responsive policies and gender-responsive budgeting. I commend the bill to the house.

Kathleen MATTHEWS-WARD (Broadmeadows) (12:50): I rise to support the Financial Management Amendment (Gender Responsive Budgeting) Bill 2024. I am pleased to be standing in a place that is at the forefront of gender equality in Australia, with the member for Mulgrave bringing gender equality to this place for the first time ever. Before that Labor achieved equality in the caucus and a female majority in cabinet.

Gender-responsive budgeting was first introduced into the budget in 2021, building from the publication of gender equality budget statements since the 2017–18 budget. The gender equality budget statement is used to analyse and consider the impact of investment decisions on women at every stage of the budget process. It considers the ways in which the decisions that are made affect people differently, women in particular. GRB is a tool to identify budget measures that will close gender gaps and advance gender equality objectives. It is a way to create budgets that consider the impact of investment decisions on all Victorians to prioritise fairness and equity with every dollar spent. It also allows us to gain better insights, provide for better outcomes and share resources more fairly to address inequalities.

This bill will also amend Victoria’s primary financial management legislation, the Financial Management Act 1994, to ensure that consideration of gender equality remains one of the key principles of sound financial management going forward. Victoria has been a leader in gender equality in Australia under the Labor government. We can boast a long timeline of gender equality reforms, including the landmark Royal Commission into Family Violence in 2016, which found that we need to address gender inequality to reduce family violence and all forms of violence and abuse against women.

2016 saw the release of Safe and Strong, the inaugural gender equality statement, which put gender equality at the centre of decision-making in the public sector. 2017 saw the inaugural gender equality budget statement, now released every year and at the centre of this bill. In 2018 Respect Victoria was established as the first dedicated agency in Australia for primary prevention of all forms of family violence and abuse against women. I commend their work, the support they have provided to Victorians and their tireless pursuit to change the culture that allows family violence to happen in the first place. The Gender Equality Act 2020 was introduced to improve workplace gender equality in the Victorian public sector, universities and local councils. It contains a requirement to ensure that gender is considered as part of key revenue and expenditure decisions. 2021 saw the gender-responsive budgeting unit established, the first of its kind in Australia. It was also the year the independent inquiry into economic equity for Victorian women was established. It developed recommendations for government to progress economic equity for all Victorian women.

A key milestone in the reform of Victoria’s nation-leading family violence policy was achieved when all 227 recommendations of the Royal Commission into Family Violence were implemented. I was proud to be at that announcement of this acquittal at the Orange Door in Broadmeadows with the then Minister for Prevention of Family Violence. It was also great to recently visit Orange Door Broadmeadows with the current minister and to be at the opening of this facility with the second Minister for Prevention of Family Violence in Victoria. Our cabinet has such depth of knowledge of family violence and its drivers, and our gender-responsive budgeting has helped to fund all the services we need to address this scourge in society. I commend the support the Orange Door network has provided since its rollout.

Victoria’s gender equality statement, strategy and action plan were released in 2023 by the Allan Labor government, and it was exciting to be at its launch with the hardworking Minister for Women. This measurable strategy builds on the previous work to drive gender equality in Victoria. It has identified 110 actions through five key focus areas.

But despite our proud record and its extensive list of reforms, we know there is still much to do. In 2021, 23 per cent of women reported having experienced violence by an intimate partner after the age of 15, up from 17 per cent five years earlier. This figure compares with 7.3 per cent of men. Women and girls are disproportionately victims of family violence. One-in-three women over the age of 15 has experienced physical violence, and a 2018 national survey revealed that 39 per cent of Australian women had experienced sexual harassment at work in the previous five years, compared to 26 per cent of men.

We should all be safe from harassment, violence and abuse, at home, at work and in the street. The Allan Labor government’s budget is investing in an additional $269 million to prevent family violence and support women’s safety initiatives in prevention, support, early education and information sharing between authorities. The continued $39 million investment of the Respectful Relationships program ensures education in gender equality and respect starts at childhood. Rigid stereotypes of gender norms and masculinity play a direct role in men’s violence against women and gender-diverse people. By engaging students, teachers and carers in understanding how gendered norms affect people’s attitudes it in turn influences their behaviour and gets them to question harmful attitudes and understand the effect that these can have on others. All people should be treated with dignity and respect, particularly in their homes and by the people who love them, and helping young children benefit from knowing what respectful relationships look like helps them have fulfilling and mutually respectful relationships in the future.

I was really proud to attend the celebration of young people graduating from the Good People Act Now program at Banksia Gardens Community Services. It was so heartening in particular to hear the young men talk about how their perspectives had significantly changed after hearing the stories of women in the room – stories of limitations and unfortunately some stories of fear, abuse, coercive control and violence. Sharing stories in safe places always helps broaden perspectives, and walking in another’s shoes helps build empathy and can be the catalyst for change. Our young change-makers and active bystanders are changing attitudes and making the world a kinder and safer place. I thank GPAN for the pioneering work they do, and our gender-responsive budgeting ensures that they can continue to do this work. Unfortunately the City of Hume consistently records some of the highest rates of violence against women in metro Melbourne compared to other local government areas. In 2020 it ranked second. GPAN was established in response to these alarming statistics and since 2014 has trained hundreds of young people to be gender equity champions and active bystanders in their communities.

Women continue to face segregation in Australia’s labour market. Stereotypes of male and female careers are still influencing students; for example, women are often less likely to work or study in STEM after leaving school, which is reflected in low rates of women in trades and technical roles. This budget invests $1.8 billion to increase women’s economic security by supporting workers in female-dominated sectors and helping women to reskill and retrain. Seventy per cent of workers in the education sector and 80 per cent in the healthcare sector are women, and this budget is creating better workplaces and investing in retaining our most important workers, who have historically been underappreciated.

We are investing $755 million to improve our hospitals and operate expanded services and $109 million to support our hardworking paramedics and nurses by improving patient flow in emergency care and supporting paramedics on the road. And for our teachers we are investing $80 million to expand the workforce and support flexible working for teachers and an additional $64 million to support the mental health and wellbeing of our teachers as they educate the minds of the future.

Labor is also investing $394 million to deliver vocational education and training, including free TAFE, which removes tuition fees for students and provides opportunities for women, including women returning to work. I am so proud of Labor’s investment in the $60 million Health and Community Centre of Excellence at Kangan Institute. It was very exciting to visit recently with Minister Tierney and see the incredible progress. As part of the rollout of our nation-leading and life-changing free kinder and Labor’s record investment in early education and care, building these workforces is critical. The Kangan Institute will upskill locals to take on these rewarding jobs, and our huge investment will deliver state-of-the-art lavatories and high-quality flexible learning spaces that are the pride and joy of Broadmeadows. A further $38 million will improve students’ access to VET through their schools. This includes a new VET taster program, which will provide access to a variety of short courses and the experience of studying in a TAFE. With my daughter having recently completed her year 10 week of work experience at a local school, having a small taste of an industry without having to fully commit can be crucial in deciding your career for the future. It can either ignite the spark to pursue it further or save time and money if it is not what you imagined it to be.

Much research has shown that being active improves mental health and physical health. Participation levels in sport have long shown boys are more active than girls, and I am pleased to say many steps have been taken to change these statistics. I was part of the 2010 introduction of Moreland – now Merri-bek – City Council’s groundbreaking sportsground and pavilions allocation policy, and I would like to thank former councillors Alice Pryor and Jo Connellan, who supported that policy, and other councillors at the time – Enver Erdogan too. The policy requested that clubs be inclusive of women, juniors, people with a disability and people from culturally diverse backgrounds or risk losing allocation of their ground. Merri-bek was the first council in Victoria to attempt to achieve this outcome through the policy, and the response proved to be exceptional, with female participation nearly doubling within the first two years alone. It has paved the way for Australia’s Fair Access Policy Roadmap, which was launched in Victoria in 2022. The Allan Labor government are further investing in girls’ and women’s sport with the Change Our Game grants program to inspire even more women and girls to take part, as well as the extension of the eighth round of the Get Active Kids program opening in spring 2024.

Women report severe levels of pain more often and for longer durations. Despite this, women often receive less treatment for pain than men. From chronic pain, period-related conditions, endometriosis, menopause, pregnancy and birth complications, the list goes on. Thankfully these issues are being acknowledged as normal now, with a $657 million investment into the health services, including addressing the pain gap in women’s health. Gender equality grows and intersects with ageism, with older women experiencing it at a higher rate. I support the bill.

Sitting suspended 1:00 pm until 2:03 pm.

Business interrupted under standing orders.

The SPEAKER: I welcome to the gallery delegates from the Fiji Parliament. Members and staff are visiting us this week principally to observe the Public Accounts and Estimates Committee’s budget hearings, as well as meeting with members and staff on a range of topics. We welcome the delegates here and express our support for the twinning relationship with the Fiji Parliament under the pacific parliamentary program. Welcome.