Motion – Gender Responsive Budgeting

**Check against Hansard for final version**

Ms WEBB (Nelson) – Mr President, I move that the Legislative Council notes-
(1)
(a) The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and Council of Europe defines gender responsive budgeting as: “Gender
budgeting is an application of gender mainstreaming in the budgetary process. It means a gender-based assessment of budgets,
incorporating a gender perspective at all levels of the budgetary process and restructuring revenues and expenditures in order to
promote gender equality”.

(b) In 2019, the International Monetary Fund stated, “Gender equity, achieved through gender responsive budgeting, is more than a human
rights issue. It’s an economic imperative”; and

(c) Gender Equity Victoria defines the three key areas of gender
budgeting as:
(i) gender-informed resource allocation whereby individual policy decisions and/or funding allocations take into account the impact of the decision on gender equality;
(ii) analysis at the sectorial level of the impact of decisions on gender equality within that sector or industry; and
(iii) assessment of the impact of the budget as a whole is subject to some degree of gender analysis.

(2) That the Legislative Council further notes:
(a) Australia was recognised as a pioneer and global leader in developing an analytical gender lens to evaluate economic infrastructure and
outcomes, by including the nation’s first Women’s Budget Statement in the 1984- 85 federal budget;

(b) The National Gender Budget Statement stopped being produced in 2014, but was reinstated by the federal government in the 2021-22
Federal Budget Papers;

(c) Victoria has produced a Gender Budget Impact Statement as part of its state budget papers since its introduction in the 1986-87 budget year; and

(d) Gender responsive budgeting would provide another tool within the state legislative and policy framework to facilitate improved economic
security for, and economic participation of, Tasmanian women and gender-diverse communities.

(3) That the Legislative Council calls upon the Tasmanian Government to:
(a) Develop genuine whole-of-government gender-responsive budgeting processes; and

(b) introduce an analytical Budget Gender Impact Statement as part of the 2022-23 State Budget papers.

Mr President, I rise to speak to the motion under my name, No. 7 on the Notice Paper.

This motion focuses upon the role of and the need for gender-responsive budgeting and a gender budget impact assessment – a public policy tool that I and others here have previously called for and raised on many occasions in this place. However, this debate might be the first opportunity provided to this Chamber to consider formally such an initiative and its potential contribution to our state.

As luck would have it, the parliamentary sitting schedule has provided the opportunity to have this important debate today, on 8 March, which is, in fact, International Women’s Day, a very appropriate alignment for us to be considering this motion.

Ms Forrest – I note you are wearing all the colours – the violet, white and green: give women the vote.

Ms WEBB – Indeed.

Ms Forrest – Colours of suffrage.

Ms WEBB – Indeed, I am wearing the suffrage colours with pride today. A very appropriate alignment, Mr President. The 2022 International Women’s Day theme here in Australia is #BreakTheBias. This campaign theme is further developed by the International Women’s Day organisers on their website as follows: Imagine a gender-equal world. A world free of bias, stereotypes and discrimination. A world that is diverse, equitable and inclusive. A world where difference is valued and celebrated. Together we can forge women’s equality. … Collectively we can all #BreakTheBias.

The campaign then asks us to consider taking responsibility every day for breaking the bias in our communities, workplaces, schools, colleges, universities and communities.

Taking responsibility means taking action. When it comes to breaking the bias in the structures of our governance, it means implementing purposeful, evidence-based, effective initiatives within the mechanics of our policy-making and resource allocation.

We would all agree that we have come a long way in many key aspects of society since the earliest celebration of an International Women’s Day, which was in 1911. The pace of progress has certainly picked up since International Women’s Day was first celebrated on this particular date by the UN in 1975. Despite this progress, there remain some fundamental aspects where we have simply not come far enough, not yet.

In this regard and within the context of the motion before us, it is useful to revisit and reconsider the original goals behind the establishment of this international day. Its inaugural year as a United Nations celebration, 1975, saw a world conference on women held in Mexico City, from which evolved the UN decade of women and a world plan of action agreed to by UN member states. This action plan aimed to eliminate discrimination and promote the status of women globally, and specifically to integrate women into the development process and increase women’s involvement in political life.

One specific acknowledgement was the agreement that there needed to be national machinery to advance the equality of women. By the end of that UN decade for women, Australia and Canada were recognised as groundbreakers in developing such national machinery. Key to that here in Australia was the pioneering development of gender-responsive budgetary processes in the 1980s. This recognised that any public policy proposals, whether to do with transportation, taxation, education, health services, tariffs or whatever it may be, could not be assumed to be gender-neutral.

It acknowledged that public policy could be better understood in terms of gender impact through a formalised process of review as part of the policy development process overall. A leading Australian academic, Marian Sawer, described it at the 2005 UN expert group meeting on the role of national mechanisms in promoting gender equality and women’s empowerment, as follows:

Previously [to the 1975 World Conference on Women] public servants had assumed that policies [that would benefit men would also benefit women] a presumption most blatantly displayed in overseas aid policies where development policies targeted at men notoriously increased the workloads of women left behind in the subsistence farming sector.

That is an example that was provided at that time and we have seen an internationally celebrated day, a decade focused on women’s equality and the elevation of awareness globally of the need to structurally tackle discrimination experienced by women play out.

However, despite all of that recognition and action, where do we find ourselves in terms of continuing progress? Moving forward or losing ground? It is broadly recognised globally and nationally here, and even locally, that women have been disproportionately affected during COVID-19. Many warned over the last two years that the pandemic risked seeing social cracks and divisions calcify and become entrenched. I note that we are also hearing similar warnings in the context of climate change and its likely equity impacts.

Last year, the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report for 2021 assessed areas that included economic participation and opportunity, educational attainment, health and political empowerment. It found the influence of the COVID-19 pandemic the preceding year meant that the time it would take to close the gender gap had increased by 36 years, from the previous projection of 99 years to achieve equality to 135 years hence. Effectively, globally, under COVID-19 in one year, we lost a whole generation of equality.

Let us just pause to absorb those figures. By that estimate, gender parity will not only not be seen in our lifetimes but our children will not see it in their lifetimes, nor perhaps their children in theirs when we look at a horizon of 135 years hence. That breaks my heart.

Despite those goals and aspirations of recent decades, some gender-based inequalities remain entrenched, stalling our progress and keeping us vulnerable to not just not progressing but in some cases to going backwards. When it comes to a lack of progress or a vulnerability to losing ground, we have to ask ourselves if it is by design, the result of complacency or continued, misplaced assumptions of gender-neutral public policy. Maybe it is all three to some extent.

Today’s International Women’s Day theme, #BreakTheBias, demands that we bear witness to and recommit ourselves to tackling those ongoing challenges we have before us in a meaningful way. We are prompted to ask ourselves, have we the best tools in our toolkit? And are we employing world’s best practice when we are seeking to meet this challenge?

There are many ways that the current Government and previous governments of this state have sought to make progress in tackling discrimination faced by Tasmanian women and girls, through structural reform, targeted investment and public education. We can point to a very positive history of action and leadership in this space, and I want to acknowledge the work that has been undertaken by previous and this current state Government towards levelling the gender playing field in that sense.

It must be acknowledged that improvements in equality for Tasmanian girls and women, and also more recently for non-binary identifying members of our community, have not been accidental nor incidental over the years. I acknowledge the work undertaken in the Tasmanian Women’s Strategy 2018-2021 and reported in its 2019 progress report. I also acknowledge the Leadership and Participation for Women Action Plan 2021-2023, which, among other things, seeks to ensure the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic upon Tasmanian women are addressed.

Clearly, there have also been gains in women’s representation in the private and public sector. This Government can and, I am sure, will note today too, the good progress that has been made in appointing women to government board positions and encouraging women’s leadership. We have seen a great deal of progress in political leadership in this state, including two female governors of our state and a state parliament where female representation sits well in excess of 50 per cent. Genuine efforts have been made by all governments over the years. It does not undermine any of those achievements or ongoing efforts, to pause, to reflect, and to agree that more can be done and that there are additional

Government levers which could be pulled, particularly in ensuring our machinery of governance has gender equity built into its design. Policy development and budgetary processes, as the fundamentals of our machinery of governance, a ripe opportunity for more progress.

Some may ask what would a gender budget impact assessment and statement do? In a nutshell, a gender budget impact statement is a formal reporting of a gender responsive budgeting process.

In 2017, the OECD report, Gender Budgeting in OECD Countries, introduces gender budgeting as:

the application of gender mainstreaming in the budgetary process.

Given that the budget process is the gateway for resource allocation as well as a key determinant for the standards and qualities of public policy formulation, it is natural that the budget be considered for its likely impact on gender responsive public governance.
An established definition of gender budgeting from the Council of Europe 2009 refers to:

…[a] gender-based assessment of budgets incorporating a gender perspective at all levels of the budgetary process and restructuring revenues and expenditures in order to promote gender equality.

That was from that OECD report, Gender Budgeting in OECD countries.

This tool, and this description, recognises that every policy initiative in the budget, has the potential to impact men, women, and non-binary people differently, even if the policy is intended to be gender-neutral.

It further recognises that these unintended consequences can mean that a policy may result, inadvertently, in worsening the gender gaps that government, in other ways is striving its best to close.

A 2021 report prepared for the Queensland Council of Social Service, QCOSS, by Dr Leonora Risse, described it as thus:

Gender responsive budgeting involves analysing all policy measures to identify the ways in which the policy can either advantage or potentially disadvantage different cohorts of the Queensland population on the basis of gender.
These gender-based differences arise, not necessarily by intent, but because of the different industries, different occupations and different roles in the household, organisations and wider community that men and women tend to take throughout their life path.

The QCOSS report then goes on to say:

Gender impact analysis involves asking the following questions and arriving at answers that are informed by data, evidence-based insights, and objective analysis. Who is likely to benefit most from this policy? Who is most at risk of being disadvantaged by, or overlooked by, this policy? How do particular cohorts of women stand to benefit from, or potentially be disadvantaged by, this policy? Ultimately, is this policy contributing towards closing gender gaps?

That is from the QCOSS report and while it applies in the Queensland jurisdiction we can equally recognise it as applying here.

Adopting gender responsive budgeting and producing a public annual gender budget impact statement would ensure Tasmania’s policymakers and legislators are reliably and factually informed on how proposed budgetary measures will impact all Tasmanians.
Such an annual piece of governance infrastructure will also ensure key indicators are developed against which actual progress, or regress, can be identified and measured consistently. There will be scope to evaluate and identify any potential policy contradictions or risks of perverse policy outcomes.

Let me provide an example that demonstrates such a risk where we can consider how a gender-responsive approach to policy, may have assisted in averting some negative outcomes.

I am sure we would all recall that as part of the initial COVID-19 support initiatives, the federal government allowed people whose finances were adversely impacted by COVID-19 to access up to $10 000 of their superannuation between 20 April to 30 June in 2020 and then a further $10 000 in the second application period from 1 July to the 31 December 2020. Indisputably, many Australians regarded this early access scheme a lifeline during those early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic.

However, at the time, concerns were raised by commentators and advocates that the positive and/or negative ramifications of this scheme would be inflicted inequitably across the population due to gender. In particular, it was raised that it held a potential risk for further widening the gender gap in retirement incomes.

A recent report by the Grattan Institute entitled, Women’s work the impact of the COVID crisis on Australian women, indicates that although the full impacts of that scheme remain unclear and are yet to be fully assessed, the concerns raised were justified.
Specifically, the Grattan Institute report highlights the following:

Men had a higher take up than women across all age cohorts and men withdrew more from their superannuation in dollar terms than women through the scheme but women withdrew a higher proportion of their total savings because of their lower starting balances.

We know that currently women generally have lower superannuation balances than men.

Ms WEBB (Nelson) – Mr President, picking up where we left off prior to lunch we were discussing examples of opportunities for gender analysis of policy with early access to the superannuation scheme at the beginning in the early stages of COVID-19, and some of the gender related differences in impact that we saw as a result of that scheme. We were noting the Grattan Institute which had reported that women had withdrawn high proportions of their total savings. We know that women generally have lower superannuation balances than men, leading to lower retirement incomes which the Grattan Institute also warned causes and I quote:

…the increased risk of poverty in retirement for low income and otherwise vulnerable women especially single parents and those renting in retirement. There are also more women in poverty and financial stress in retirement than men.

It may be that had the federal Treasury at the time been required to produce a gender impact assessment of the proposed fiscal policy, including those emergency provisions such as the early superannuation access scheme, it is possible that different decisions may have been made. Possibly active monitoring mechanisms may have been put into place as well as additional short, medium or longer-term remedial or assistance schemes to mitigate any entrenching or calcification of pre-existing financial gender inequalities.

While we do not know what may have eventuated in an alternative scenario where gender impact assessments were undertaken as a routine element of public policy, we do know that despite the short-term benefits, one outcome from this particular policy decision has seen women who took it up use a higher proportion of their retirement savings and leave themselves at higher risk of falling into poverty by the time they reach retirement age. In fact, in another aspect of that same initiative, to continue the example with it which has relevance in terms of the opportunities in a gender impact assessment process for policy, is the intersection that it had with another issue experienced largely by women, and that is family violence.

We know from local and national research that there was an escalation of family violence during the COVID-19 pandemic. We know that a common aspect of family violence is financial abuse and control and at the time the initiative was rolled out consumer groups warned of the danger that providing early access to superannuation lump sums would create a new opportunity for financial abuse through perpetrators forcing or coercing partners to make withdrawals and then taking control of that money. In fact, data released just recently by the Australian Institute of Superannuation Trustees (AIST) just last month has looked at the uptake of that early superannuation access initiative and cross-referenced it with data that we have about the prevalence of the financial abuse during COVID-19.

Their estimate is that it is likely about 70,000 Australian women may have been coerced or forced into the early withdrawal of their superannuation through that scheme by an abusive partner. A gender impact analysis of that proposed policy at the time it was being formulated would likely have revealed risks such as these and provided the opportunity at that point to respond to and to mitigate and to attempt to minimise those risks as part of the planning.

Without a structural approach of a gender analysis built into the process we continue then to play catch-up. Instead of being forewarned and forearmed, we are left trying to manage and to fix the negative consequences after the damage has been done. A proactive structural approach is sensible, effective policy making.

Part (1) of the motion before us lists recent national and sub-national examples of gender budget impact statements. As mentioned, Australia was once recognised as a global pioneer in developing this sort of tool. Hopefully, the re-emergence of the federal Budget Gender Impact Statement for last year’s 2021 -2022 Budget was not a one-off, but will continue as a pattern.

Members may be interested to know that currently the Women in Tasmania website provides information regarding the benefits of gender analysis and gender budget statements. It also discusses and provides details of international models that are in place, including those in place in Canada, and the Netherlands, as well as some interstate models, including Queensland and South Australia.

It is rather ironic and it is a distinct shame, in my view, that the state government website cannot yet point us towards our very own Tasmanian gender analysis and responsive budgeting model, as a best practice example. In fact, on that side it relies on referring back to the Tasmania Together goals from times past as the main example of the Tasmanian Government’s commitment to furthering the implementation of gender analysis.

The Women in Tasmania website also details the fact that New Zealand cabinet papers follow a template which includes a gender impact statement. In fact, currently, along with a general legislation impact statement, New Zealand’s cabinet document template also includes a requirement for a gender impact statement, a human rights assessment, and a disability impact statement.

Unlike most Australian jurisdictions, our trans-Tasman cousins have a culture of proactively releasing cabinet papers, minutes and decisions, so examples of the template that I am referring to here are readily available on the New Zealand Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet website.

Let us bookmark for another day a broader discussion of such laudable public transparency and accountability practice from an executive government, such as we see in New Zealand, and return now to the matter at hand.
A gender impact assessment statement applied to policy proposals brought to the Tasmanian Cabinet for consideration and approval would fit really well alongside the current requirement for an economic impact assessment, and would complement an annual state budget gender impact statement.

To recap, the role of budget gender impact statements is to interrogate and test any assumptions of gender neutrality in the policy and budget process in a systematic and formal manner and to report on the findings and any recommendations derived from that examination.
Should a proposal proceed despite there being acknowledged gender impacts, the decision to do so would be done knowingly, and hopefully with additional safeguards and mitigation measures. It will help render the too often invisible ramifications, to be visible for the active consideration of our decision-makers. How can that be anything but a good thing?

Crucially, another fundamental goal of gender responsive budgeting is to work towards ensuring consistency and cohesion across economic and social policy. Too often, it is realised after the fact, or warnings were deliberately ignored at the time perhaps, that policies may have perverse outcomes on women or girls or others who identify as non-binary genders.

While nothing is a panacea in a complex, shifting sand environment of public policy, gender responsive budgeting and gender budget impact statements will at least give pause for decision-makers to double-check whether there are serious contradictions between social and economic policies proposed and our aspirations for positive change when it comes, particularly to gender equity.

If we could turn to the text of the motion before us, what I have attempted to provide in section (1), is a series of succinct summaries of the role and the contribution of gender budget reporting. These statements in section (1) (a) and (1) (b) speak for themselves, but are notable for being made, not by any of the perceived usual suspects necessarily or indeed certainly not by radical activist organisations but instead by conservative and pragmatic entities.

Nobody could call the OECD or the IMF radical or militant feminist activists, generally. This tells us that gender-responsive budgeting is considered a mainstream responsible budgeting process to the degree that this process not only makes human rights sense, it also makes economic sense.

In section two of the motion, I have detailed a quick timeline of key Australian actions at both national and sub-national levels. As outlined, Australia has a track record of utilising this equity tool to some degree. Gender-responsive budgeting and policy impact assessment processes have also been adopted across a range of corporate and NGO organisations, as well as departmental and local government arenas across the nation.

The Queensland Office for Women provides a gender analysis online platform that equips organisations to apply a gender lens to their own activities, which is an incredibly useful tool for the community.

It is interesting to note that the Women Tasmania website, under the heading, ‘Why use gender analysis?’, states that ‘the use of gender analysis helps planners in being aware of historic and current differences in order to produce more effective gender-inclusive policies and programs for both women and men’, as well as pointing to examples nationally and internationally. The site also has a page that outlines a stage-by-stage approach for a typical gender-inclusive model. Our state Government, through that website, clearly expresses the value of this approach for progressing gender equity. What we have there is the knowledge and resources we need to implement this form of national governance machinery.

While both parts one and two of the motion present statements and factual matters, part three could be described as the pointy end, or ‘ask’. This component provides the Chamber with the opportunity to send a request to the Government to enshrine gender impact statements as an integral component of this state’s legislative and budgetary policy framework.

Some of you may wonder whether the proposed timeframe of including such an impact statement in the 2022-23 State Budget is too tight. I do not believe so. This proposal and idea has been raised with Government on many previous occasions by me and others. Indeed, it is pointed to as a best-practice process on the Government’s own Women Tasmania website.

The Grattan Institute report I referenced earlier says: ‘Governments should make gender analysis part of their budget development processes to reduce the risk of women being overlooked or suffering unforeseen consequences from policy decisions.’
Section three of the motion articulates an analytical budget gender impact statement as well as a genuine gender-responsive budgeting process.

It may be useful to reiterate what gender-responsive budgeting is not, for the purposes of clarity. It is not unusual to see governments collate any women-specific intiatives and policies into a women’s economic statement, or a budget list of matters relating to women, or to highlight how a particular budget invests in programs specific to the needs of women and girls. These sorts of lists, statements and groupings of policy initiatives, while laudable and valuable, are not the same as a gender-responsive budgeting process or an analytical gender budget impact statement. They do not provide the same outcomes that are being called for with those mechanisms.
For example, while welcoming the Queensland Government’s 2020-21 Women’s Economic Statement, as part of that jurisdiction’s state budget process, commentators such as QCOSS stressed that this was not a gender impact statement, nor an example of gender-responsive budgeting, laudable as it was to include it.

This is clarified further for us by the UN, which states:

Gender-responsive budgeting is not about creating separate budgets for women or solely increasing spending on women’s programs. Rather, gender-responsive budgeting seeks to ensure that the collection and allocation of public resources is carried out in ways that are effective and contribute to advancing gender equality and women’s empowerment. It should be based on an in-depth analysis that identifies effective interventions for implementing policies and laws that advance women’s rights. It provides tools to assess the different needs and contributions of men and women, and boys and girls, within the existing revenues, expenditures and allocations, and calls for adjusting budget policies to benefit all groups.

I would add into that ‘men and women, boys and girls, and people of other genders or non-binary genders’.
It is also important to note that genuine gender-responsive budgeting and gender budget impact statements must also be an analysis for men and boys, for people of diverse genders.

Parental leave for fathers is an example of a belated policy recognition of an inequitable assumption about caregiving. More broadly, gender-responsive budgeting also facilitates breaking down traditional stereotypes and notions such as masculinity that may constrain men and boys, and redressing some of that. In turn, tackling those stereotypes may help address other systemic social problems, such as violence against women and girls.

Lastly, on this point of what constitutes genuine gender-responsive budgeting, I echo the view of public policy and academic commentators that attempts to provide only self-congratulatory PR-style party political policy highlights packaged up as a gesture towards budget gender impact statements will simply not cut the mustard. Any such eventuality would not be in good faith and would not honour the sentiment and tenor of this motion and its call to action, and certainly would not meet community expectations.

To conclude, I once again revisit today’s 2022 International Women’s Day campaign, which challenges us to take the necessary action, stating:

Whether deliberate or unconscious, bias makes it difficult for women to move ahead. Knowing that bias exists is not enough; action is needed to level the playing field.

The current State Government is very open about its intent to be aspirational for our state. Gender budget impact initiatives, as proposed by this motion, are a key tool to delivering on that aspiration in a way that puts gender equality and the advancement of all Tasmanians on an equal footing. This proposal is consistent with State Government objectives in this public policy space, and its stated aims and goals on inclusion and equality.

To borrow QCOSS’s assessment of Queensland’s efforts at ensuring policy gender equity:

There is immense scope for the Government to lock in and consolidate the progress it has already made on gender equality initiatives by establishing a formal process of gender-responsive budgeting in its policymaking. Taking this step to legislate gender-responsive budgeting and invest in the capacity to undertake this process in subsequent budgets would not only strengthen the Government’s prospects of achieving its gender equality goals; it would also preserve this current Government’s legacy.

That was put forward in relation to Queensland but it would equally apply here in this state to our Government and its legacy. As stated in the Government’s Tasmanian Women’s Strategy 2018-2021, ‘A person’s gender should not be a barrier to opportunity or participation’.

Formally committing to implement gender-responsive budgeting and the provision of a formal budget gender impact statement is consistent with the Government’s commitment as stated in that strategy, ‘to making Tasmania a state where all people have equal opportunities to participate in Tasmania’s social, political, economic and cultural life’.

I also note that one of the welcome recommendations made by the Premier’s Economic and Social Recovery Advisory Council in its final report last year was for the Government to adopt the United Nations’ 17 sustainable development goals (SDGs) as a policy framework. As members may be aware, SDG number 5 is gender equality. Hence, the recommendations detailed in part three of this motion would be both consistent with, as well a tangible mechanism by which to deliver that particular SDG in accordance with the PESRAC recommendation, which we are given to understand the Premier has accepted in full on behalf of his Government.

Mr President, it would be very fitting for this Chamber on International Women’s Day to collectively do our bit to #BreakTheBias by taking action that is available to us here and now, by voting for this initiative to call for the establishment of a quality focused machinery of governance. Such a vote would, in good faith, encourage further action by the Tasmanian Government to deliver Tasmania’s own state-based, gender budget impact assessment process and statement. Let us put the building blocks in place to support our aspirations for this state and the people of Tasmania, and vote for meaningful action and structural reform. I commend the motion to the house.

Motion agreed to.