Is this the most Sustainable Australian Budget?

It’s all about women, climate, and immigration

Change is afoot across the world as citizens call for action – more transparency, parity, equality, and a determined focus on saving our planet.It’s clear from the Albanese Government’s first Budget that they have responded to their mandate from Australian voters on the key priorities for immediate change, and it has a strong social and climate agenda:

1. Gender equity and equality for women – improving female workforce participation
2. Renewables and environment – support for clean energy and environment
3. Economic impact of skills shortages and productivity challenges – key focus to assist business

This is clearly a Budget that focusses on what really matters to Australians. 

Health and Wellbeing equality with Australians across all age groups and regions standing to win:

• $185.3 million allocated as part of a Rural Workforce package, which aims to attract and retain more doctors and allied health professionals in regional areas which have seen a substantial increase in migration across the pandemic 
• Reduced medicine costs: the maximum co-payments of $42.50 will drop to $30 ($787.1m) from 1 January 2023
• $315 million over five years has been pledged to support initiatives aimed at closing the gap for Indigenous Australians’ health and wellbeing, a much-needed move to drive healthcare parity
• $164.3 million investment in modern health clinics in areas with large and growing Indigenous communities
• $54.3 million to deliver up to 500 traineeships in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander primary health care
• $45 million for 30 new and upgraded dialysis units 
• $450 million for two new comprehensive cancer care centres in Australia 
• $3 million will be spent on scoping out an Australian Centre for Disease Control, similar to the US Centers for Disease Control.

Gender Equality and Women at Work will have a big net effect on businesses and the economy with increased workforce participation of women and helping fill gaps on productivity and jobs:

• Increase the paid hours worked by women with young children by up to 1.4 million hours a week in the first year alone. That’s the equivalent of 37,000 extra full-time workers
• Sweetener for pensioners to enter or stay in the workforce longer which could potentially boost productivity as well
• Review of the immigration policy to try to address job skill shortages and productivity

Budget response to the climate emergency:

• A Green Budget with $2.3 billion to be spent on the environment financial year alone. That’s about the same amount spent on skills and workforce development
• Cuts to taxes on electric cars, improving electric vehicle charging network infrastructure and providing community batteries and solar banks
• Small and medium enterprises hoping to invest in energy efficient upgrades will be eligible for Commonwealth grants as part of the Budget

The Budgetary measures to ensure more women participate in the workforce, review of immigration to tackle skills shortages and the focus on environment should be a clarion call for any business to sharpen up their DE&I and sustainability agendas. Included in the Budget was commitment to full implementation of the recommendations of the Australian Human Rights Commission’s Respect@Work report and $3.1 million for the Office of Women to develop a national strategy to achieve gender equality and support the Women’s Economic Equality Taskforce  – no matter where you are on your sustainability journey, it’s never too late to step up your focus here and it will result in many positive dividends including: reputational; work culture, staff attraction and retention and financial.

It’s worth noting that the Albanese Government’s Budget, for the first time, contained an 85-page ‘women’s budget statement’ – hard to ignore that women are firmly at the centre of this government’s concerns, and also worth noting was Senator Gallagher’s hopes that in future there may not need to be a ‘separate women’s budget statement’. https://budget.gov.au/2022-23-october/content/overview/index.htm

We are keen to hear your thoughts. Email us on hello@the6amagency.com.au