Can I begin by acknowledging the Ngunnawal and Ngambri people on whose land we meet here tonight and extend my respects to elders past, present and emerging.
Now I know that there are so many colleagues and members of Parliament here.
I don't want to miss anybody. So you can all put a hand up and wave and stand up and just show how many members of Parliament are here.
This dinner has become such an important part of the Budget week. You can see that by the number of members and senators who have attended this dinner, just how important it is.
And credit to Future Women and all the team that put this on, which gets bigger and bigger every year.
It started down at the Portrait Gallery, or one of the first ones when we came to government and there is no way it would fit in there now.
Can I say it's a real privilege for me to speak with you one night after Jim Chalmers tabled the Albanese Government’s fifth budget, as I have done in previous years.
And friends, a lot has happened since we last met in this room.
March 2025 seems like a lifetime ago with so much happening around the world and here at home.
To quickly recap and place us where we are now, since the May 2025 election, Australia has returned Australia's first gender balanced parliament.
It’s just under 50%, but it is gender balanced.
Also, we have Australia's first gender equal cabinet, and we have Australia's second majority women government as well.
In the Senate - and I only worked this out today - women lead all of the parties represented in that chamber.
We've also had really important appointments made.
Jenny Wilkinson, who is here tonight, my loss was the Treasury's gain. Let’s just say that I'm getting over it, but Jenny is so capably running the Treasury.
We've also had Meghan Quinn appointed as the first woman to lead the Department of Defence.
And Lieutenant General Susan Coyle, who is here tonight, is the first woman to lead the Army and head up an arm of the ADF.
I’d also like to acknowledge Mary Wooldridge, who has led WGEA, the Workplace Gender Equality Agency, in the most amazing way. I've had the privilege of working with Mary since 2022. You have really led the reforms that are changing gender pay and the way we understand gender pay gaps in this country, and she's leaving us. But I just wanted to acknowledge you, Mary, again tonight.
Now we have women cabinet ministers leading the government in foreign affairs with Penny here, my friend and colleague, in finance with me, in law with Michelle, in social services with Tanya, critical minerals and resources with Madeleine, communications and sport with Anika, housing with Clare, infrastructure with Catherine, employment and workplace relations with Rishie, agriculture with Julie Collins, Indigenous affairs with Malarndirri McCarthy and Anne Aly small business and multicultural affairs. And we are ably supported by a truck load of amazing women in assistant minister roles and indeed right across our caucus.
When I sit back and look across our caucus room, it provides a picture that the women who came before me could have only dreamed about, and this is something to celebrate for sure.
Now I've spoken at dinners like this before and I know no one’s after a really long, dense Budget speech tonight, so I will try and keep it short and punchy.
But we in the Labor team are so proud of the Budget that Jim tabled last night.
It's big, it's ambitious, it responds to current pressures and priorities, but it also tackles some of those big challenges facing the country, particularly when it comes to housing.
There is so much in this Budget; relief to help with the cost-of-living, resilience to deal with volatility and uncertainty coming at us from a conflict far away.
A productivity package focused on approvals, compliance, regulatory reform and competition policy.
A tax reform package to address some of the imbalances we see in the housing market and its interaction with the tax system.
Tax reform to provide tax relief to working Australians.
And business tax relief to help reward investment and innovation.
And in my patch, getting the Budget in better shape, so saving, spending restraint, lower deficits, lower debt, improvements across the forward estimates and across the medium term.
And whilst that's the overarching Budget in about 90 seconds, let me quickly take you through the work we've also been doing and some of the Budget announcements since I last had the opportunity to address you under my portfolio as Minister for Women.
Now it's not all of them, but I'm trying to cover off the major ones.
Since we released our Working for Women Gender Equality Strategy, we've been focusing on five key priority areas; women’s safety, care, economic equality, health, leadership and decision making. I think I've covered off leadership and decision making pretty well already.
Now across MYEFO and Budget, we have invested in all of these areas. They guide our thinking and our decision making.
We've invested almost $550 million in additional resourcing to respond to violence against women and children, including importantly in Our Ways, Strong Ways, Our Voices, which is Australia's first dedicated safety plan for First Nations women and children. And I acknowledge the incredible work of Amanda Rishworth and Tanya Plibersek in finalising that really important document.
We're also starting the overdue but important work to address system abuse in the Child Support system with almost $200 million to make a difference and make the system work better for the people it's meant to protect. And I'll come back to that right at the end.
We're reforming LISTO as part of our superannuation reforms, something women in super in particular have been advocating for, for a long time.
We're investing in programmes that support migrant workers and ones that drive gender equality in gender segregated industries.
We're making additional investments in maternal health, perinatal mental health, birthing on country. All important areas in addition to our Women's Health Package from the previous Budget.
And, starting this year, we've abolished the activity test with a new three day guarantee in early education and care.
Paid parental leave is extended to 26 weeks from the 1st of July this year, making it six months. And super will finally be paid on PPL at the same time.
These new reforms have been in addition to the work we started in 2022, and we've been building upon every Budget since.
I guess that's the point I wanted to make tonight. You see it reflected in the Women's Budget Statement. I'm not sure if the authors of the Women's Budget Statement are here - but I just want to acknowledge the incredible work of the public servants who work on that document and make it such a substantial piece of analysis.
Something you see in the Women's Budget Statement and the message I wanted to give to you tonight is, you can't see any Budget or Budget update in isolation of the work that comes before it.
Where we are now, and some of the progress we're seeing now, is because of the investments we made in 2022 that are continuing on through this Budget.
Women's labour force participation reached a record high in 2025.
The gender pay gap is at a record low.
Women's full time average weekly earnings have grown by $291.60 since May 2022 - that's over 18%.
And Australia has reached its highest ever international ranking for gender equality at number 13, up from 43rd in 2022.
Now these gains reflect deliberate choices to put gender equality at the centre of our decision making. Every budget document has sought to meet this goal.
In investments in early education and care to make the system work better for women.
In paid parental leave to expand the entitlement to encourage men or the second parent to take leave, and of course to pay super on it.
Investments in women's safety, to work across the country to do everything we can to reduce violence against women and children.
In work in workplace relations and pay.
The Women's Budget Statement includes $21 billion to make sure that aged care workers and early educators are paid properly and valued for the work that they do. This ensures that we are reducing the gender pay gap along with all the important work that Mary has been doing.
In pensions and payments, rent assistance, single parenting payment, and in getting rid of punitive programs like Parents Next.
In tax cuts, ensuring that women get a fair share of reductions in income tax.
In housing investments, specifically responding to the needs of women.
In historic investments in women's health.
In cheaper contraceptives and menopause treatments. Since we have added new contraception and new menopause treatments to the PBS, 71,000 menopause health assessments have been undertaken - that's just since March last year.
2.3 million scripts, 700,000 women saving a total of $106 million since those contraceptive and menopause treatments were listed on the PBS - and that's just in 15 months.
And of course, our 33 endo and pelvic pain clinics are all open and running now.
I did a podcast today with the Prime Minister with She's On The Money. Some of you probably listen to Victoria Devine.
We did a podcast today and there was the PM proudly talking about endometriosis clinics, contraceptives, pelvic pain, UTIs - probably a first I reckon.
As I sat there listening to him, he talked about how shocked he was when he found out that new contraceptives hadn't been listed on the PBS for 30 years until it was brought to his attention.
But this is the story of this government. We have prioritised delivering for women from the beginning of this government and it will continue in every Budget ahead.
I wanted to step this out tonight because achieving this has only been possible because of the work of many of the women in this room and in our caucus and it's an honour to work with every one of those incredible women every day, but right across the sector. It's work that Future Women do, incredible life changing work.
But also to the individual women who run campaigns for fairness and change.
Women like Anne Summers, who never takes a step back and constantly keeps us accountable.
To Terese Edwards, who I know is here tonight, who campaigned on the single parenting payment and then once we had resolved that campaign, she wrote a book about how the child support system doesn't work for women.
And importantly to the women, young and old, who come and bravely share their stories with me.
I will finish on this and it is about child support because that's a big part of our commitment in this budget.
There's approximately $2 billion in unpaid child support owed by more than 229,000 paying parents in this country.
The average debt is nearly $9,000, with women making up 83% of recipient parents.
And so when you meet a young woman, who just turned 18, who asked to meet you as Minister for Women to explain about how her dad kept her mum in poverty after the marriage broke down as pay back, which meant that she too grew up in poverty.
When you hear those stories, you know that the system isn't working as it should.
And when a system shares personal information that can be weaponised and used to hurt, you know the system isn't working.
And when you meet a mum struggling to look after her kids and she tells you how her life has been changed forever because of the failure of the child support system to work and how the system can be avoided without consequences, you know the system isn't working.
So that is the work before us to continue on.
To build upon each Budget, Budget by Budget, to cross items off the list and add new ones to it.
Our work is important.
And I deeply appreciate the partnership that exists across the women's sector to get the job done.
Thank you.