![\"BudgetBeforeAfter\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nofibs.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/BudgetBeforeAfter.jpg?resize=1023%2C589\")
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It\u2019s hard to fully comprehend, but just eight months after being elected, the Coalition-friendly News Limited broadsheet \u2018The Australian\u2019 ran with the headline, \u2018Coalition in World of Pain<\/a><\/b>\u2019 emblazoned across its front page early this week.<\/p>\n Sure, it was selectively quoting Prime Minister Tony Abbott, who had used the expression in justifying why the Government needed to make \u201ctough\u201d decisions in handing down its first budget, but nonetheless the Oz chose the headline to correspond with a story reporting the dismal Newspoll results in which voters declared it to be the worst budget in 20 years, and which gave Labor a 10 point two-party preferred lead over the Government.<\/p>\n In examining Nielsen polling (also released earlier this week), The Conversation\u2019s\u00a0Michelle Grattan<\/strong>\u00a0warned ominously<\/a>:<\/p>\n \u201cAbbott\u2019s [approval] rating is in the territory of Gillard\u2019s in her dark days.\u201d<\/b><\/p><\/blockquote>\n The Nielsen polling revealed that two thirds of respondents deemed the budget \u201cnot fair\u201d. The significance of this, as Grattan wrote<\/a>, was that\u00a0\u201ca question on fairness was asked after some eight of 19 budgets since 1996\u201d, and \u201cthis was the first time a majority said the budget wasn\u2019t fair.\u201d<\/b><\/p>\n Fairness is key to the unprecedented negative response to this budget the Government is now receiving.<\/p>\n Ross Gittins<\/strong>\u00a0surmised <\/a>in Fairfax newspapers:<\/p>\n I give Joe Hockey\u2019s first budgetary exam a distinction on management of the macro economy, a credit on micro-economic reform and a fail on fairness.<\/b><\/p>\n Although Hockey has laboured hard to ensure few sections of the community escape unscathed, the truth is most of us have been let off lightly.<\/b><\/p>\n Only those people right at the bottom of the ladder have been hit hard \u2013 unemployed young people, the sick poor and, eventually, aged and disabled pensioners \u2013 but who cares about them? We\u2019ve been trained to worry only about ourselves, and to shout and scream over the slightest scratch.<\/b><\/p><\/blockquote>\n The\u00a0Saturday Paper\u2019s editorial<\/strong>\u00a0also touched on the issue of fairness<\/a>:<\/p>\n \u201cBut what is most striking is that this is a budget that offers a brief discomfort for the very rich, and sustained punishment for the not rich at all. It is the young who will suffer and the elderly poor.\u201d<\/b><\/p><\/blockquote>\n And,<\/p>\n \u201cHockey created a budget emergency and deficit fetish into which he launched this budget. In the chaos of emergency, and with a tabloid press telling the very people worst affected by this budget that they had been saved, much has been forgotten. Fairness, among other things.\u201d<\/b><\/p><\/blockquote>\n So how fair is the budget for women? Don\u2019t expect the Abbott Government (and Minister for Women) to apply a gender lens to these new initiatives. Fortunately, we have other organisations, commentators, and political parties who are providing some analysis.<\/p>\n According to feminist\u00a0Anne Summers<\/strong>, \u201cget thee to a workplace\u201d was \u201cessentially the message to women from Treasurer Joe Hockey in the budget.\u201d<\/p>\n Summers said she was \u201csurprised<\/a>\u201d at some of the measures announced last Tuesday, in relation to the impact on women and workforce participation and changes to family tax benefits:<\/p>\n \u201cThis is the side of politics that had made the stay-at-home mother an ideological cornerstone, that introduced the dependent spouse rebate and the baby bonus [under the Howard Government].\u00a0<\/b>\u201cNow they are the ones who are abolishing these inducements to be a stay-at-home mum,\u201d<\/b><\/p><\/blockquote>\n she wrote<\/a>, at the same time questioning how some of Hockey\u2019s announcements last Tuesday will actually encourage women back into the workforce:<\/p>\n \u201cIf you wanted women back at work, you would not be cutting $230 million from childcare subsidies as Mr Hockey did on Tuesday.\u201d<\/b><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Summers\u2019 piece also argued<\/a> that<\/p>\n \u201cIf you want to encourage women into the economy, it would make sense to acknowledge and address the pay gap as well as some of these less tangible obstacles to women being able to enjoy employment parity with men.\u201d<\/b><\/p>\n The gender pay gap was also on the mind of YWCA Executive OfficerCaroline Lambert<\/strong>, who with a team of Y colleagues joined the budget lock-up in Canberra last week to analyse the impacts on women.<\/p>\n Reporting on the experience for website Mamamia, Lambert explained<\/a> that the group approached the task with the question,<\/p>\n \u201cWill this policy have a different impact on women? Key to answering that question is the fact that women in Australia still only earn 71.6% of the average weekly earnings of men in Australia.\u201d<\/b><\/p><\/blockquote>\n On the whole, Lambert labelled the budget a \u201cmixed bag\u201d for women. She listed the encouraging signs as:<\/p>\n Lambert also noted the policies to address violence against women were also \u201cmixed\u201d. Fifty million dollars will be redirected into infrastructure, including the introduction of more CCTV cameras and street lighting.\u00a0\u00a0As Lambert wrote, \u201cthere were no announcements of funding for primary prevention\u201d. (And lighting and CCTV cameras don\u2019t count \u2013 as US violence prevention expert\u00a0Jackson Katz<\/strong>\u00a0has explained time and time again, such measures are really about addressing risk reduction, than actually being about primary prevention).<\/p>\n Writing for Fairfax,\u00a0Marie Coleman<\/strong>\u00a0echoed<\/a> many of the concerns Lambert raised. She also noted:<\/p>\n \u201cWomen concerned about the well-being of women in developing nations may be distressed by the savings of $7.6 billion over five years from development assistance, and reversing decisions to join the African Development Bank and the International Fund for Agricultural Development.<\/b><\/p>\n \u201cAnd, finally, the very modest funding for the Office for Women\u2019s Leadership and Development Strategy will have to achieve savings of $1.6 million over four years. The decision on where the cuts will fall is left to the Minister for Women (who fortuitously has declared himself to be a feminist).\u201d<\/b><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Indeed, there was no such critique or refection from the Government\u2019s \u2018Minister for Women\u2019 in terms of framing the policy announcements in terms of their impact on women, but both the Labor Party and the Greens have provided some insight into policy impacts on women.<\/p>\n The Greens looked at the impact<\/a> on changes to HECS:<\/p>\n The Greens have released fresh modelling of the impact of the student loan scheme changes, focusing on how the interest amendments could affect women who take a year out of the workforce, and then spend two years working part-time, to have a baby.<\/b><\/p>\n Male nurses would take 33 years to pay off their debt, with an interest bill of $38,400 above the existing indexation arrangements, the Greens\u2019 calculations indicate. By comparison they say a female nurse who had a break to look after her child would take 39 years to pay off the debt and have an extra interest bill of $50,300.<\/b><\/p>\n The woman\u2019s interest would be about 31% higher than the man\u2019s, as a result of the longer time to take off the loan and compounding interest.<\/b><\/p><\/blockquote>\n And Labor released a paper<\/a> looking at various policy announcements and their impact on women. Overall, the paper notes:<\/p>\n \u201cThis budget of broken promises makes savage cuts to pensions, hospitals, family payments, superannuation, education and services and more taxes will impact on all Australians, but will have a deep impact on women who have lower economic security.\u201d<\/b><\/p><\/blockquote>\n The PDF document can be downloaded\u00a0here<\/a><\/b>.<\/p>\n What\u2019s driving all this? The Government\u2019s motivation to slug low income earners, including pensioners, students, and indeed women?<\/p>\n\n