Unfinished Business: The Albanese Government and Gender Equality Policy (2022–?)

This chapter focuses on Australian government policy but also provides relevant international examples. Labor’s Anthony Albanese came into office committed to making Australia a world leader in gender equality policy again. Labor pledged to complete some of the Gillard government’s agenda. The government has a particular focus on improving wages in, and training for, the “care economy”. Improving gender equality is also seen as beneficial for the economy in general. The government has made significant progress in areas such as pay equity, childcare, parental leave, housing for those fleeing domestic violence, skills and training. It is a social democratic framing that recognises issues of structural disadvantage and inequality and aimed to address them. However, the government has also been constrained by trying to bring in reforms in difficult economic times. Furthermore, the government has lacked imagination when it comes to challenging the limitations of a conventional social democratic policy framing. The experience of the Albanese government has useful lessons for governments internationally that are attempting to address the impacts of decades of neoliberalism on gender equality policy. The government also unsuccessfully tried to enshrine an innovative Indigenous Voice to parliament that would have included a gender equal representative structure.