Federal Budget 2022: Kate Emery ponders whether Josh Frydenberg had done enough to woo Australian voters

If you have ever been faced with an ex begging you for a second chance, the Federal Budget might have given you a case of deja vu. The pre-election Budget, with all the crowd-pleasing sweeteners that implies, had the hallmarks of a love letter from a dumped paramour pleading to be taken back. The bid to woo women voters turned off by Canberra’s sexual harassment and assault scandals, a perceived boy’s club mentality and lack of reform on paid parental leave and childcare is on in earnest. Treasurer Josh Frydenberg might not have said the words, “Baby, I’m sorry, I know I did you wrong”, when he delivered a $2.1 billion pitch for just over half of Australia’s population but the subtext was there. But some of what’s on offer is less sweeping reform than the equivalent of petrol station flowers and a promise never to treat you like that again. Take changes to the paid parental leave scheme, which gives new parents 20 weeks of paid leave at minimum wage to replace a system that splits it between 18 weeks for primary carers (usually mum) and two weeks for secondary carers (usually dad). Fairer? Yes. Major overhaul? No, although single parents will welcome the recognition they deserve the same as two-parent families. It will also be easier to qualify for parental leave if you’re a breadwinning woman. The income test will be lifted to $350,000 a year for families instead of a cap that meant a woman earning more than $151,350 could not qualify, even if her partner spent their days playing Halo and contributing nothing to the family finances. The expanded criteria will open the door to an extra 2200 families — a trickle rather than a flood, given about 260,000 access it annually. This is tinkering around the edges: welcome tinkering but tinkering nonetheless. Your ex got a haircut, not a personality overhaul. Nor is there much new on child care: $19.4m more for the community childcare fund, say, is small change down the back of the couch in the context of the Government’s $10b-plus annual spend on child care. The bigger ticket item is women’s safety, with a $1.3b price-tag for a grab-bag of treats that includes expanding national prevention organisation Our Watch, a national consent campaign and more cash for intervention programs and financial help to escape domestic violence. No ex begging for another chance would dream of turning up without presents to show they no longer take you for granted. So there’s $16.6m over four years for a new phone service for “women and children experiencing technology-facilitated abuse”. Presumably men who experience such abuse get the dial tone? Good luck to you, guys. And, gags aside, $23m for the national stillbirth action plan is needed and welcome, as as is a previously flagged $58.3m for sufferers of endometriosis and pelvic pain. Going after the women’s vote was always going to be a big part of the Budget, from a Government that knows it has a woman problem. Unfortunately the pitch comes at a time when an uncertain global environment, with war in Europe and the ongoing pandemic, coupled with a debt pile that’s rising faster than sea levels makes it difficult to contemplate expansive or expensive reform. Whether the love letter succeeds will depend on whether voters interpret the Budget as a sign the Government really has changed and is trying to course-correct mistakes of the past, or as a cynical attempt to woo back someone who probably had a good reason for breaking up with them in the first place.