Women's groups have lobbied Treasury after being blocked from the stakeholder budget lock-up, finding a compromise where four groups will be represented by one economist, but other groups are still locked out.
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The National Foundation for Australian Women, the Women's Electoral Lobby, National Women's Alliances and the Equality Rights Alliance will now be represented in the stakeholder lock up by Professor Helen Hodgson. In previous years the groups have sent representatives individually.
Women's, children's and Indigenous organisations have been joined by disability, youth and student organisations in speaking out about being barred from the lock-up.
The National Foundation for Australian Women and Equality Rights Alliance thanked the Office for Women for its assistance in gaining a partial back-down from Treasury.
"Women must have a seat at the budget table. At least one” chair of the National Foundation for Australian Women Kate Gunn said.
Every Australian Counts, the organisation that campaigned for the National Disability Insurance Scheme, has also been told there's no room for them in the lock-up, a decision that has created extra concern as the government prepares to launch a royal commission into disability abuse.
The Council of Australian Postgraduate Associations was not invited to the lock-up this year, after other student unions and student media have been barred in previous years.
"This government has lacked transparency when it comes to research funding - as came to light with the Great Barrier Reef Foundation scandal, and the Australian Research Council funding scandal," the association's president Natasha Abrahams said.
"By failing to invite CAPA and others to the lock-out, they are continuing this poor track record of obscuring their harmful decisions on research funding."
Katie Acheson, chairwoman at the Australian Youth Affairs Coalition said the peak body had been denied space, along with the Benevolent Society and UNICEF. The Youth Affairs Coalition hadn't attended every year, Ms Acheson said, and was also barred last year.
"Young people aren’t at the table and they’re not in the room. If we’re being honest, this government has made sure they’re not even in the same postcode," she said.
Some organisations like Mission Australia, the Australian Council of Social Services and the Combined Pensioners and Superannuants Association have been told they can attend but with fewer people than in previous years.
