Women

Having a majority women government makes a difference. Labor is committed to advancing women's rights and achieving true gender equality. Recognising the systemic barriers and discrimination faced by women, we have already implemented several policies and legislative reforms including the biggest investment in women in 40 years.

I am deeply committed to joining the fight for gender equality, not only because I am a father of a daughter, but because it is the right thing to do. Our parliament, our community, our economy, and our workplaces all benefit from women's participation.

We’re investing $430 million over four years to deliver three days of subsidised childcare for every child who needs it.

The 3 Day Guarantee replaces the punitive Activity Test, which excluded children from the system because of their parents’ work or study activity.

Under this scheme, 96% of families are better off - that’s 1.26 million families.

As of 1 July 2026, we've expanded the Paid Parental Leave Scheme to 6 months, giving families up to $30,000 plus super.

Since the expansion of the Paid Parental Leave Scheme began, parents of more than 46,000 children have already benefited.

We’ve also boosted the Family Tax Benefit for over 1.2 million families to help with the cost of raising their children.

We’re making Medicare work better for women with:

• The first PBS listing for new contraceptive pills in more than 30 years
• The first PBS listing of new menopausal hormone therapies in over 20 years
• $49 million towards expanding care for endometriosis and pelvic pain with 33 Endometriosis and Pelvic Pain Clinics open nationwide
• Women undergoing IVF receiving earlier and more affordable access to fertility treatment
• Menopause health assessments now covered by Medicare and new national clinical guidelines for perimenopause and menopause
• Higher Medicare rebates for specialised gynaecological care, IUDs and birth control implants

Since we came to government, the gender pay gap has been closing.

The median gender pay gap is now 11.2%, down from 14.1% in May 2022, with women than ever in high‑paid roles. We have also now reached record high women’s workforce participation at 63.2%.

We’ve also funded pay rises in women-dominated industries, including a 23% pay rise for aged care workers and a 15% pay rise for early childhood educators.

These figures show excellent progress, but they also show how far there is to go in addressing gender pay inequality in this country.

Labor is dedicated to ending family, domestic and sexual violence against women. Since coming into government, we have passed the Respect@Work legislation and launched the National Plan to End Violence against Women and Children, and invested more than $4 billion in tackling family, domestic and sexual violence. Already, we’ve delivered:

• 10 days of paid family and domestic violence leave
• 72% funding boost for frontline family, domestic and sexual violence workforce, with 500 workers in every State and Territory
• $925 million to make the Leaving Violence Program permanent
• $253 million to continue funding for 1800Respect
• $1 billion for crisis and transitional accomodation for women and children