Women’s Budget 2025

If you read the Labor Government’s Women’s Budget Statement 2025 you would be forgiven for thinking that in Australia, women cease to exist once they pass menopause. This Budget, presented as part of the Federal Budget 2025-26, targets working women below the age of 50. There was little in it for women aged 50 plus, even though this demographic represents a third of the Australian female population. Astonishingly, they remain invisible to the Australian Government.

You may ask, why does this demographic need particular attention? Because after the age of 50, Australian women are more likely than any other demographic, to become impoverished. Statistically they already represent the largest and fastest growing cohort of homeless Australians. We are reaping the consequences of institutionalised economic and social discrimination against women.

This systemic discrimination forces women onto JobSeeker. Then age discrimination keeps them there. Older women are the first to be fired and unlikely to be rehired, which is why they form the majority of those long-term on JobSeeker.

In the Labor Government’s 2023 Budget, there was, for the first time, a nod of recognition that women aged 55+ on JobSeeker had little chance of finding work. Nevertheless, Treasurer Jim Chalmers chose to award them only $6 p.d. extra in their JobSeeker payment.

Presently, JobSeeker is just $56 a day which is only 43.5% of the minimum wage and around 38% below the poverty line. Linkage to the CPI continues to shrink the value of JobSeeker. There are no affordable rentals for someone on JobSeeker.

The Labor Government has failed dismally to provide adequate social housing and support for homeless older women.

And even though the cost of living and rent have never been higher, those on JobSeeker got no increase in the 2025 Budget.

Instead, the Government in election-mode, chose populist policies of handing out $150 energy relief and tax cuts.The tax cuts alone cost the Government $7.7 billion.

If the Government had really wanted to offer tangible relief to older women who have no home, no work and little food, they could have done so and saved money too. Had the Government increased JobSeeker by $200 per fortnight, it would have only cost them $5 billion – a saving of almost $3 billion. There would also have been a $71.8 million long-run investment-related benefit from an increase in JobSeeker to 90% of the age pension, according to the Economic Inclusion Advisory Committee 2025 Report to Government.

The disproportionate number of older women dependent on JobSeeker constitutes only part of the magnitude of the crisis. There are hundreds of thousands of women facing destitution, homelessness, neglect and isolation due to lack of savings, super funds, or due to divorce or death of a partner. Women who have higher education, professions and skills who have  been part of the workforce for decades and also worked in the home, are now sleeping in cars and tents. 

On this scale, we are not talking about individual tragedies, but a significant social phenomenon.

Unquestionably, as women age, many enter a social and economic maelstrom. This is indeed a feminist issue. And  therefore it is disappointing that despite having a Women’s Budget ostensibly dedicated to women, this Budget fails to address this crisis. Finance Minister and Minister for Women, Katy Gallagher, overwhelmingly focuses on preventative action to improve the economic security of younger generations of women.

This is commendable, but not sufficient. 

It in no way absolves the Government from the obligation to tackle the cluster of issues that affect current generations of older women.

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