Support for National Women’s Alliances
19 May 2011 at 10:29 am
The Minister for the Status of Women, Kate Ellis announced the new funding at the annual National Women's Alliances forum in Canberra.
The Alliances are the Australian Immigrant and Refugee Women's Alliance, National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Women's Alliance, Australian Women Against Violence Alliance, National Rural Women's Coalition and Network, Equality Rights Alliance and Economic Security4Women Alliance.
Minister Ellis says the National Women's Alliances are made up of passionate and hard-working women, who are helping to change the face of Australia and their role is to bring together women's organisations and individuals from across Australia to share information, identify issues that affect them and build solutions.
The Alliances also engage actively with the Australian Government on policy issues as part of a better, more informed and representative dialogue between women and government.
The Minister says up to $300,000 of the new funding is set aside for special policy projects responding to new and emerging issues that the Alliances identify.
The funding allocation also includes $45,000 to enable Alliance members to undertake training the help them learn new ways of engaging strategically with the Government to ensure effective progress toward gender equality.
Ellis says that the decision by Fair Work Australia in the Social and Community Sector equal pay test case showed that challenges of gender equality still remain a real issue in Australia.
She says each of the Alliances plays a critical role in the Australian Government's commitment to engaging women's groups and bringing the perspective of women to policy making across government.
The Government says the new funding comes over and above the $200,000 each Alliance receives annually to ensure government policy takes into account the experience and perspective of women.
For more information about the National Women's Alliances visit:http://www.fahcsia.gov.au/sa/women/progserv/equal/Pages/engaging_womens_org.aspx
