Labor

In the last parliament Labor committed to critical systemic changes including a national gender equality strategy, and gender responsive budgeting.

In the last parliament Labor's national platform included commitments to close the gender pay gap, Close the Gap, and address insecure work. They have announced funding commitments to increase child care subsidies, and a major investment in the female dominated industry of aged care. These are important positive gender equality commitments and structural changes, however Labor are yet to make a commitment to expand parental leave.

Positively, Labor has made a significant commitment to resource safe and effective implementation of respectful relationships in schools nationwide, and have also indicated they will maintain the Coalition’s commitment of funding for Our Watch. But Labor has not yet made specific commitments to develop the workforce needed to drive prevention work at scale. (View the full analysis here)

In the last parliament Labor committed to match the Coalition’s funding commitments for the National Plan. The small number of additional service funding commitments in the area have been positive, but they fall well short of what is needed.

Current levels of commitments leave massive gaps in the service response framework that victim-survivors require for their safety and ongoing recovery.

In particular, Labor are yet to make meaningful commitments to address needs in the perpetrator intervention space. (View the full analysis here)

In the last parliament Labor voted for key changes needed to improve the safety of legal and institutional systems.

Labor put forward a private member’s Bills to reform the Family Law Act in line with the recommendations of women’s legal services. In the 2019 election, Labor committed to safety advocates calls for an independent, expert-led Taskforce on sexual violence at universities - and made additional commitments to require data sharing about complaints of sexual violence, and to impose severe penalties for inadequate action by institutions. Labor supports 10 days paid family and domestic violence leave for all workers. Labor also voted against abolition of the Family Court, in line with the recommendations of key women’s safety advocates. (View the full analysis here)

In the last parliament Labor voted in support of the Coalition’s legislation enacting some changes from the Respect@Work report. They also voted for amendments that would have implemented additional recommendations - introducing a positive duty on all employers to eliminate sex discrimination and harassment, providing the Commission with new inquiry power; allowing unions and other representative groups to bring representative claims to court; introducing a cost protection provision; reviewing the Fair Work system to expressly prohibit sexual harassment; and introducing a ‘stop sexual harassment order’ into the Fair Work Act. (View the full analysis here)