Thank you everyone for being here.
Thank you, Aunty Violet, for welcoming us to country. I also acknowledge the traditional custodians of the Canberra region, the Ngunnawal and Ngambri people.
It's wonderful to see the Prime Minister and my ministerial colleagues, and I want to particularly acknowledge my friend, the Minister for Women, Katy Gallagher.
Welcome to my parliamentary colleagues as well, including the Leader of the Opposition and Senator Waters, and officials including my departmental secretary Jan Adams and Australia's Ambassador for Gender Equality, Michelle O'Byrne.
Thank you Alison Terry, Simone Clarke and everyone at UN Women Australia, for hosting this annual breakfast.
To Christine Arab and Alison Davidian at UN Women, thank you for joining us here today and for all the work you do to support women in our region.
As the Prime Minister said, this year's call to 'Balance the Scales' reflects a world where we still see discrimination against women written into law.
Two and a half billion women are denied equal economic opportunities.
Women are more likely to live in extreme poverty and face food insecurity, and nearly a third of women globally have have experienced partner or sexual violence in their lifetime.
And as climate and humanitarian crises continue to intensify, women and children are 14 times more likely to die in a natural disaster, and four times more likely to be displaced.
And rather than achieving progress, much of the world is backsliding.
Global aid cuts make it harder for women to overcome poverty.
The United Nations is in crisis, and a growing number of international actors suggest that gender equality should take a back seat.
Resisting progress, on every front.
Or arguing that we must choose between equality and prosperity.
All the evidence indicates that this trade-off is false.
We know that gender equality reduces poverty and conflict, and strengthens social cohesion and wellbeing.
It unlocks economic productivity and drives development, investment and opportunity for current and future generations.
And if we allow progress on gender equality to be rolled back and undermined, we pay the price of a world that is more dangerous, more divided, less stable, and poorer.
Australia has a better vision of our world.
Today marks one year since I launched Australia's International Gender Equality Strategy.
The Strategy is anchored in the understanding that gender equality benefits all.
It is built on the understanding that more equal societies are more stable and more resilient.
And that resilient societies in our region are in our national interest.
Through the Strategy we are deepening partnerships in the Indo-Pacific, supporting women's health, rights, safety, economic participation, and women's leadership.
Our programs are working to expand access to essential health services, including family planning, testing and treatment of sexually transmitted infections in the Indo-Pacific.
We are partnering with Legal Action Worldwide to establish a world-first Global Gender Justice Practitioners' Hub, to advance accountability for conflict-related sexual violence.
And in October 2025 we launched the Southeast Asia Gender-Based Violence Prevention Platform.
This project brings together civil society, women's rights organisations, governments and international partners to build capacity, share knowledge and drive collective action to prevent gender-based violence.
We've also reinstated targets to ensure gender equality is better integrated throughout Australia's development program.
More than 80 per cent of our development investments now incorporate gender equality.
In the face of backsliding and resistance elsewhere, Australia is committed to persevering for progress.
Because balancing the scales makes communities, countries, and our region more inclusive and more resilient - and makes us all more secure.
Thank you.
