Creating more jobs in female-dominated sectors and accelerating the roll out of free universal childcare for three-year-olds is at the heart of a Greens party plan that puts women at the centre of Canberra's coronavirus recovery.
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The Greens will also push for more flexible working arrangements for ACT public servants if they again hold the balance of power in the Legislative Assembly following October's election.
The party has unveiled its so-called "Gender Led Recovery" package, which includes a suite of policies designed to stimulate the territory's virus-struck economy through programs and initiatives that support women.
The Greens said the COVID-19 pandemic had exacerbated existing gender-based inequalities in society and the workforce, which needed to be tackled now to ensure women didn't continue to be worse off in the future.
They argue that government assistance rushed out during the pandemic has been targeted at male-dominated industries, such as the construction sector. At the same time, the female-dominated early childhood education sector was the first to lose access to federal government JobKeeper wage-subsidy payments.
The Greens package contains about $124 million worth of initiatives, $95 million of which is tied to an already announced strategy to boost housing and homeless services.
The funding boost to community services will help create extra jobs for a sector in which more than 80 per cent of workers are female.
The party will also push the next ACT government to allow more flexible working arrangements for public servants, including options for four-day working weeks and more freedom to work from home.
It also wants to provide 15 hours a week of free childcare to all three-year-olds in the ACT as soon as next year, by accelerating the roll out of the Labor government program.
The initiative would cost about $20 million per year, according to Greens costings.
The Greens are also keen to see more women working in trades, construction and in the fields of STEM and renewable energy. They are proposing to fund scholarships for Year 9 and Year 10 students to gain experience in those sectors.
Greens candidate for Murrumbidgee Emma Davidson said the pandemic presented an opportunity to address some of the long-standing challenges facing women in, or seeking to enter, the workforce.
"Things have been really difficult for women in the ACT for a long time," she said.
"Now is a really good opportunity to hit the reset button and make life a lot easier by providing more flexibility, more options for people in where they work, how they work and what kind of jobs they do and how they combine jobs and family."
Chief Minister Andrew Barr has repeatedly acknowledged the disproportionate effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on women and young people. He spoke of the need to support those two demographics as he last month flagged the government's intention to further expand its public sector employment scheme.
Asked on Tuesday if the ACT government had done enough to support women through the crisis, Ms Davidson said: "I think there are opportunities for us to do a lot more to support people who are having a tough time at the moment".