Good practice Imported

Women's Budget Statement and Gender-Responsive Budgeting (Australia)

Australia · Canberra · See the Australia profile · See the Canberra profile

Top 75% 44/100 · Ask Evidence Copilot about this practice

Australia's 1984 Women's Budget Statement was the world's first, later copied by 90+ countries. Scrapped in 2014, it returned in 2021-23 with a AUD 1.9bn package, though evaluation shows only awareness gains so far.

Women's Budget Statement and Gender-Responsive Budgeting (Australia)

Details

Promoter: Australian Government Office for Women; Department of the Treasury; Victorian Department of Treasury and Finance
Period: 1984–present (discontinued 2014–2021)
Keywords: public sector, budgeting, fiscal policy, gender equality

Description

Australia produced the world's first Women's Budget Statement in 1984 under the Hawke Government, itemising how each year's federal budget measures affected women — a practice later adopted, in some form, by more than 90 countries.

The statement was discontinued in the 2014 Budget. It was partly revived as a 'light-touch' statement in the 2021-22 Budget, alongside AUD 1.9 billion in targeted spending on women's economic security, safety and workforce participation, and then fully reinstated with ex-ante gender impact assessment of budget submissions from the 2022-23 Budget onward.

At state level, Victoria's Department of Treasury and Finance funded a two-year rollout of gender-responsive budgeting (AUD 1.039 million) and published a formal evaluation in 2023: it found the process raised awareness among budget-submission owners of gender impacts, but did not yet demonstrate measurable effects on gender-equality outcomes.

Read the full analysis: https://budget.gov.au/content/womens-statement/index.htm

Implementation

Implementation detail (cost, timeline, staffing, conditions for success) is not yet available for this practice.

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Data sources

Where this practice's information was retrieved from, and when.

C-NAPSE web research — accessed 2026-09-12
Australian Government Office for Women; Department of the Treasury; Victorian Department of Treasury and Finance — accessed 2026-09-12
Australian Government — Women's Budget Statement — accessed 2026-09-12
ABC News — The women's budget statement signals a massive shift in how federal budgets are formulated — accessed 2026-09-12
Victoria DTF — Evaluation of Gender Responsive Budgeting (Jan 2023) — accessed 2026-09-12

Attachments

Source image

Quality score: 44/100

How is this calculated?

Top 75% in this catalogue (1040 scored practices)

Scores cluster high, so position within the catalogue is often more telling than the number alone.

Evaluation

Evaluated by C-NAPSE

Score profile — the dimensions behind the score — how it's computed

Transferability / replicability3/3

The world's first national gender budget statement (1984), explicitly cited as the model later adopted in some form by more than 90 countries.

Impact on gender equality0/1

No independent study links the statement itself to measured gender-equality outcomes; its 2014 discontinuation shows it can be reversed without evaluated consequence.

Effectiveness0/1

Victoria's 2023 evaluation found the process raised staff awareness of gender impacts but stopped short of demonstrating effectiveness on outcomes.

Efficiency0/1

The AUD 1.039 million, two-year state rollout has not been assessed for cost-efficiency against results achieved.

Evaluated outcomes1/1

Victoria's Department of Treasury and Finance commissioned and published a formal evaluation of gender-responsive budgeting in January 2023.

Sustainability0/1

The federal statement was discontinued for seven years (2014-2021), showing continuity depends on political will rather than institutional lock-in.

Achievement / evidence1/1

Reinstated with a concrete AUD 1.9 billion women's economic-security package attached to the 2021-22 Budget and full ex-ante gender assessment from 2022-23.

Gender-mainstreaming embedding1/1

Puts an explicit gender lens on the federal budget process, with ex-ante gender impact assessment of budget submissions.

Curator validation0/1

Not yet reviewed by a human C-NAPSE curator; based on official government, evaluation and journalism sources only.

Cite this

Evidoria. Women's Budget Statement and Gender-Responsive Budgeting (Australia). Persistent ID: ad8b044e-954c-4852-b98c-15a15cf16d1e.

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