Does the experience of Australian gender equality policy have any lessons for Europe (or the UK)?

Australia was once a world leader in gender equality policy. Australia pioneered appointing expert feminist bureaucrats (femocrats) and gender responsive budgeting amongst other innovative measures. However, years before Blair’s “Third Way” or Schröeder’s “Neue Mitte”, Australian Labor Governments also attempted to meld neoliberal market economics with social democracy (influencing Blair in the process). That neoliberal influence increased under successive socially conservative Coalition governments with major negative impacts on Australian gender equality policy. In 2022 and again in 2025, Australians elected a social democratic Labor government that is addressing some long-term impacts of neoliberal policy and has pledged to make Australia a world leader in gender equality policy again. The government has pressed ahead with key policy reforms in areas ranging from employment, wages and the care economy to gender education campaigns but faces major challenges, some with European links. Right-wing opponents have flirted with European/US anti-gender and anti-trans populism. A difficult international economic environment (exacerbated by factors from Ukraine to Trump) has financially delayed some reforms. Securitisation of public discourse (including over refugees and China) has had potential gender implications. However, France and Australia are also potential collaborators in pursuing not just security but gender equality aims in their respective foreign policies in the Pacific. Meanwhile, Australia is facing challenges in reconciling with its own Indigenous peoples and the legacies of European colonialism, including addressing Indigenous women’s issues. So, this paper builds on earlier research in my 2024 book, The Politics of Gender Equality: Australian Lessons in an Uncertain World (Gender and Politics Series, Palgrave Macmillan) to ask a key question. Australian gender equality policy still remains behind key European countries’ policies in some respects and Australian governments continue to look to Europe, amongst others, for policy suggestions. Nonetheless, are there any relevant gender equality policy lessons for Europe (or the UK) in the experience of this multicultural, but still predominantly European settler-colonial society, situated in the Asia-Pacific, that once was a pioneer in gender equality policy but then suffered from decades of neoliberalism that it is now partially seeking to address?