I'd like to begin by acknowledging the traditional lands of the Lenape people. I'm a Yanyuwa Garrawa woman from Borroloola, a small town in the Northern Territory of Australia. And I come here as Senator for the Northern Territory and as Assistant Minister for Indigenous Australians and Indigenous Health.
I'm proud to represent a government committed to implementing the Uluru Statement from the Heart, which is the generous invitation to reconciliation from Australia's First Nations people. We are committed to a constitutionally enshrined First Nations voice to our national Parliament through a referendum later this year as the first step in our journey of Voice, Treaty, Truth.
I represent a new Australian Government. We have put women at the centre of our efforts and named gender equality is a core economic imperative. We're energised and ready to take on the hard work needed to achieve the change necessary for women and girls. I'm proud to welcome civil society representatives into our 2023 official delegation and recognise the hard work of these organisations in driving progress and pushing all governments like ours to strive higher.
We know that to build societies that are positive, productive and fair, we must achieve gender equality for all women, no matter where they are. Gender equality is at the heart of the Australian Government's vision for a better future, and we are introducing a national strategy to achieve gender equality. We are, however, realistic about the challenges we face in achieving this vision.
In Australia, one in three women has experienced physical violence since the age of 15 and one in five has experienced sexual violence. An Australian woman dies on average every ten days from violence in our country. This is unacceptable.
In the workplace, women's workforce participation also lags behind men and women who do work, earn less than men from the day they start work to the day they retire. This landscape of inequality holds Australia back from being the best that we can be. It is a reality that constrains us economically and socially and one that ultimately means that we are leaving women behind. With the COVID-19 pandemic, we saw the heavy reliance on technology for connection.
But with this, we also saw the seriousness of the digital divide. Throughout the pandemic, digital technology allowed social connection and provided people with new ways of working and accessing services. But the benefits were not shared equally by everyone in the world, reminding us that we must be intentional and ambitious in ensuring inclusion, equality and access for all. The fastest emerging skills across Australia are in data and digital, and demand for these skills is fast growing across all sectors.
Yet in 2021, the proportion of women in STEM qualified occupations was just 15%, and the gender pay gap for full time workers in STEM industries was 18%, and this is not good enough. Recent research has shown that if we increase the proportion of women in the technology workforce, the Australian economy would grow by $1.8 billion a year over the next 20 years and we are investing in 1000 digital traineeships in the Australian Public Service, which is specifically targeted to those who are usually excluded from this sector, including women and in particular First Nations women.
First Nations women, women living in remote and rural areas and older women are among the most digitally excluded Australians, often lacking a device to connect through a stable, reliable and affordable Internet connection and sound digital literacy.
Back home in the Northern Territory, disruption to phone and internet services has a huge impact on day-to-day life in remote Indigenous communities. A mobile service outage doesn't just mean a day without scrolling on social media. It means you can't call the local health clinic or the local police in an emergency. It means you can't use your EFTPOS card to buy food or petrol at the only shop in town. And it means you can't call family who might live hundreds of kilometres away.
We saw this issue very recently in the remote indigenous community of Yarralin that had mobile service disruptions for two weeks during a flooding event. This followed severe floods from over the border in the Kimberley region. And its a reminder of why bridging the digital divide is so important.
Women and girls are also disproportionality affected by online abuse in Australia. A recent survey of women's digital experience showed that 1 in 3 women surveyed had been abused online in a work context. To address this reality, the Australian Government is investing $31.6 million over five years to address technology-facilitated abuse and to improve online safety.
Australia's CSW delegation includes Australia's e-safety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant. She leads the world's first government agency dedicated to keeping its citizens safer online.
We know that affordable and accessible digital technology offers opportunities to governments across the world to advance and strengthen social and economic development.
We are also prioritising gender equality in our international development, foreign policy and multilateral engagement. Through our aid program, Australia invests $65 million annually to a dedicated Gender Equality Fund which addresses sexual and gender-based violence, women's leadership and in women's economic empowerment in our region of the Pacific and Southeast Asia.
From 2022 to 2025, Australia will also invest $31.16 million in UN Women, working together to achieve gender equality domestically and internationally.
And in the Pacific, we have invested in programs that address harmful social and cultural norms, including through supporting feminist funds to lead social change. Australia is very serious about achieving gender equality for all. Thank you.