Last Thursday I had a great time moderating a webinar on Women and the Budget hosted by the Griffith Department of Accounting, Finance and Economics. Presenters included Dr Leonora Risse of RMIT who has been a visiting fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School, Dr Tracey West from Griffith, and Sally Moyle from ANU who was once head of the Australian Government Office for Women. The speakers argued that our budgets and government policies would look a lot different if we fully considered their impacts on women.

For instance, Leonora argued that government responses to the COVID-recession have disproportionately benefited the male-dominated industry of construction. The federal government introduced HomeBuilder to stimulate the building industry and federal and state governments have boosted infrastructure spending. At the same time, the federal government excluded the female-dominated childcare sector from JobKeeper halfway through the first round of the program. Check out more of what Leonora, Tracey, and Sally had to say via the YouTube player below.