STATEMENTS ON SIGNIFICANT MATTERS

Mrs McINTOSH (Lindsay) (09:11): I rise to respond to the Women's Budget Statement. I rise with a conviction shaped not only by the women of the electorate of Lindsay but by the women I have worked with across the world, from the sidelines of the G20 to community housing, from global policy tables to kitchen tables. The truth is this: the condition of women is not just a domestic issue; it is a global economic indicator.

It tells the world who we are, what we value and how seriously we take our nation's future. Right now, too many women in Australia feel less secure, less supported and less hopeful than they did four years ago when Labor took government. This budget does not change that; it confirms it.

Around the world, nations are grappling with inflation, housing shortages and the rising cost of living. But strong governments respond with discipline, clarity and delivery. Australia has not.

After 15 interest rate rises, families are paying $29,000 more a year on a typical mortgage and they are paying more across the board, and that is hurting them financially and emotionally. These are not isolated pressures. They are the signs of an economy that has lost its anchor due to a government that has lost its way.

When an economy loses its anchor, women, especially single mothers, older women and women in essential care roles, are the first to feel the pull. Across the OECD, housing affordability is one of the greatest threats to women's economic security, but in Australia the crisis is sharper. Women now make up 55 per cent of social housing occupants.

Older women are one of the fastest growing groups experiencing homelessness. This is not accidental; it is a predictable outcome of an economy where housing supply has not kept pace with demand, where planning systems are clogged and where government investment is announced with great promise but not delivered. Since coming to office, the Albanese Labor government has pledged more than $1.3 billion for crisis and transitional accommodation, yet only $321 million has been spent and only 30 dwellings have been delivered.

Seven in 10 women fleeing violence leave behind their home, their assets and their financial security. When a woman escapes violence, she should not step into homelessness; she should step into safety. Across all our suburbs and our cities, women are sleeping rough in doorways and on benches.

Every single one of us in this place has seen it. Behind every woman we see, there are many we do not, couch surfing, living in cars or staying in unsafe homes because they have nowhere else to go. We know that older women over 55 are facing homelessness in Australia despite having worked their whole lives.

Women who spent decades caring for others now face limited super, rising costs and nowhere affordable to live. They also experience unacceptable levels of loneliness. Let me tell you about 92-year-old Glad, who told me the hardest part of ageing is not the frailty that comes with it; it is loneliness.

Her words echo the voices of older women I have met across the country—women who fear becoming invisible in the nation that they helped build. In my office hangs a painting called Leap of Faith. It reminds me that every woman, at every age and at every stage, takes that leap—a little girl imagining who she might become; a young woman finding her place; a mother holding her family together; and women like Glad still hoping to be valued, to be heard and to be seen.

At the heart of this is women's health, where the reality of the situation is that, when we make progress on medications, on treatment and on access, it becomes an announcement when it should just be a given. Women's health in Australia is not where it should be. One in seven Australian women will be diagnosed with endometriosis, and it takes on average 6½ years to receive that diagnosis.

Heart disease is one of the leading causes of death for Australian women, yet women are far less likely to receive timely diagnosis or treatment. Women in regional and remote areas face significantly worse health outcomes across every measure, and my colleague the member for Mallee knows this firsthand. When we were in government, the coalition delivered the first national women's health strategy, expanded Medicare funded mental health services, invested in endo and pelvic pain clinics, improved access to breast cancer screening and funded lifesaving ovarian cancer research.

We strengthened perinatal mental health supports, expanded telehealth and invested in rural and regional women's health access. Women's health is not a side issue. It is a productivity issue.

It is a workforce issue. It is a dignity issue, and, as I said, it is a national economic issue. A strong economy must embed women's economic participation in its foundations.

In Australia alone, increasing women's participation is not just for the top end of town. Helping women transition from social housing to economic and housing independence transforms lives. Women who have experienced intergenerational welfare, women escaping domestic violence and women who have aspiration—they just need opportunity.

That is the coalition way: dignity through work, independence through opportunity and aspiration backed by action. It is the coalition way to have choice, especially when it comes to decisions for families. Child care is not simply a social service.

It is an economic lever—one recognised by the IMF, the World Bank and the OECD—but it only works when it is affordable, accessible and aligned with family choice. Childcare fees have risen 27 per cent under this government. Almost 40 per cent of services now charge above the rate cap, and, in Western Sydney, there are 2.5 children for every childcare place.

This is not a system enabling women to work and genuinely increasing workforce participation. It is a system forcing women to choose between work and affordability. Women's safety is the most urgent economic issue of all.

Protecting women also means protecting their biological rights as women. In recent times, we have seen biological male offenders identifying as women in order to be housed in women's prisons. These biological men have committed abhorrent acts of abuse and sexual violence, and our justice system has allowed them to continue this pattern of violence once they have been placed amongst female inmates.

Only last year, we heard about the most atrocious case in Victoria, where a man sexually abused his five-year-old daughter and was convicted but placed in Victoria's largest women's prison after he later identified as a woman. Since the court accepted that this man committed the abuse in part to be validated as a woman, his crimes were recast as a woman's and led to a drastically reduced sentence of only four years and nine months, with eligibility for release in just 2½ years.

In another case, a biological male who had committed murder transitioned while serving his 20-year sentence. He was moved to a minimum-security women's prison, where he went on to sexually assault a female inmate. You cannot stand up in this place and claim you champion women's rights while allowing this to happen.

These decisions that continually place women at risk aren't confined to our justice system. We also see examples of the continued encroachment on safe spaces for women with the push to have more gender neutral toilets and change rooms right across communities—in our shopping centres, in our gyms, in our schools, in our hospitals and in our sporting clubs. We have seen women and girls miss out on opportunities, including those on the sporting field, so I was pleased to see the International Olympic Committee make the commonsense decision to protect women's sports by only allowing biological women to participate in the female category events.

Keeping women safe cannot just be a slogan. These actions and decisions have real consequences. Violence against women is not only a moral crisis; it is an economic one.

The number of family and domestic violence offenders increased by eight per cent last year. The cost of violence against women is measured not only in trauma but in lost productivity, lost wages, lost opportunity and lost futures. And the nature of violence is changing.

Technology facilitated abuse is rising: tracking devices are hidden in cars, spyware, on phones; there is financial abuse through digital banking; and deepfakes are used to threaten women and girls. Frontline services tell me they are fighting a battle on two fronts now: the old forms of violence and the new ones, which follow women into their homes, into their workplaces and on their phones.

These services are exhausted. They are underresourced and they are holding the line for women who have nowhere else to go. A woman who is unsafe cannot participate fully in the economy.

A woman who is trapped cannot contribute her potential. A woman who is rebuilding needs stability, not uncertainty. And this budget does not meet that test.

Condoleezza Rice once said, 'The empowerment of women is not only morally right; it is also practical in the positive impact it has on so many social ills,' and she was right. A nation that sidelines women sidelines its own future, and a nation that empowers women strengthens its global standing. Women deserve an economy where hard work is rewarded.

Women deserve a government that understands the pressures they face. Women deserve safe communities, affordable housing, accessible health care and real opportunity, not rhetoric. Women deserve a government that lives within its means so Australians have the means to live.

Right now, this is not the Australia women were promised, and it is not the Australia that women deserve.