Women With Disabilities Australia welcomes the release of the Status of Women Report Card 2026 and the attention it brings to the state of gender equality in Australia. We’re pleased to see Australia achieve its highest ever ranking for gender equality internationally and the governments ongoing commitment to progress on gender equality.
The report card points to important areas of progress. More women are participating in the workforce, more women are in leadership, and there have been improvements in education and healthcare. These gains matter. They reflect years of sustained advocacy, policy work and collective effort by women, communities and organisations across the country, and real progress under the Working for Women: A Strategy for Gender Equality, the Government’s 10-year plan towards achieving gender equality.
At the same time, the report card is a reminder that progress is uneven, and that too many women are still being left behind.
For women with disability, and for many women across the communities represented through the National Women’s Alliances, that reality is all too familiar. First Nations women, LGBTQIA+ women, migrant and refugee women, women in rural, regional and remote communities, women on low incomes, older women, women with caring responsibilities, and women facing multiple and intersecting forms of exclusion know that national progress does not always translate into safety, access, dignity or equality in everyday life.
That is why this report card matters. It gives us an opportunity to recognise the progress that has been made, while being honest about how much more remains to be done to improve the lives, rights and safety of women and gender-diverse people across Australia.
The report card highlights ongoing gender-based violence, continued inequality in unpaid care, persistent economic insecurity, and systems that are still not responding well enough to the realities of women’s lives. These are not separate issues. They are deeply connected, and they shape whether women and gender-diverse people can live safely, access support, participate equally, and exercise real choice and control.
For women and gender-diverse people with disability, these barriers are often intensified by discrimination, inaccessible systems and policy settings that continue to overlook our experiences. Too often, women and gender-diverse people with disability are expected to navigate gaps between disability, health, gender-based violence, housing, income support and care systems, with the burden falling on individuals to make broken systems work. Too often, structural barriers are treated as exceptions rather than as evidence that reform is needed.
A credible national story about progress for gender equality must be able to account for that.
Gender equality cannot be measured by headline improvements alone. It must also be measured by whether progress is reaching the women and communities who have historically been excluded from policy design, reform and investment. It must be measured by whether those facing the greatest barriers are experiencing meaningful change in their daily lives.
This is why an intersectional approach to gender equality is essential. Women are not a single, homogenous group, and policy will continue to fall short if it does not reflect the way inequality is shaped by disability, race, geography, culture, income, age, migration, caring responsibilities and access to services and infrastructure.
It also requires governments to move beyond broad commitments and ensure that gender equality strategies are informed by the evidence, expertise and lived experience of the communities most affected by exclusion.
WWDA recognises the importance of working constructively with government to support that work. As part of the National Women’s Alliances, we have an important role in working with the Office for Women by providing evidence-based advice to government to inform and support implementation of the Working for Women Strategy. That role is critical to ensuring that national policy is responsive to the realities of our lives, and that it reflects the breadth and diversity of women’s experiences across Australia.
WWDA welcomes the report card as an important contribution to the national conversation on gender equality. We also see it as a call to keep pushing for change that is genuinely inclusive, grounded in evidence, and shaped by the women and communities most affected.
Progress on gender equality should not be judged only by how far we have come. It should also be judged by whether that progress is reaching those who have too often been excluded from it.
A fairer Australia depends on that.
The following organisations have endorsed this statement:
- Women With Disabilities Australia
- Australian Multicultural Women’s Alliance
- National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Women’s Alliance
- National Rural Women’s Coalition
- Working with Women Alliance
