Tasmanian Government produces its first gender impact statement for this year’s budget

Treasurer Michael Ferguson has defended the content in the state budgets first gender impact statement in about 20 years – a seven-page document.

The Legislative Council earlier this year voted in favour of an analytical gender impact statement to be included in the 2022-23 stack of budget papers.

Nelson independent MLC Meg Webb, who moved the motion in March, said it appeared as if the government had ignored the call for genuine and rigorous responsive budgeting processes to underpin the new gender budget impact statement.

“The government was warned it was on-notice that merely rolling out a women-targeted spending highlights list will not cut it,” she said. “Yet that is all that has been delivered.

“A meaningful gender budget impact statement is not a glossy good news list of expenditure announcements.”

Mr Ferguson said the government had worked through Womens Minister Jo Palmer to pioneer the document.

He said it provided documentation of the initiatives and the funding the government had proposed through the budget to encourage gender equality in the state.

“It’s our first time of doing the gender statement and no doubt it can be refined in the future,” Mr Ferguson said.

He said the budget papers showed there had been an 11-per-cent increase in the amount of women in full-time work in Tasmania compared to two years ago.

“As we continue to gather intelligence around these matters and evidence, we’ll continue to add them to the gender statement in future,” he said.