Women's Agenda Daily — Thursday, 8 October 2026

From birth, Serena Schembri’s child required ongoing medical care, and ended up seeing multiple specialists, attending clinics and many appointments with surgeons. Despite this frequent contact with health services, Serena’s own needs as a new mum in recovery were not factored into the system.

Today, she’s issuing a call for better recognition of maternal health support beyond the immediate postpartum period. It comes as submissions to the Senate inquiry into women’s health close tomorrow.

We’ve spent much of this year speaking to new mums about the isolation they have experienced since having children. Thanks to our partner Medibank, we’re sharing more today on the key policy solutions that are in reach and could make a difference in helping mums feel connected and well. This is much bigger than an individual problem.

To the US, where Christa Pike’s botched execution has raised questions about the continued use of the death penalty. Pike’s lawyers say there is a long road to recovery ahead for the 50-year-old who survived a lethal injection last week and now has pneumonia and no function in her arms.

How much longer will we tolerate gender inequality? This is the key question and official theme for next year’s International Women’s Day. It couldn’t be more pressing, as new data reveals we are not on track to meet a single global gender equality target by the 2030 deadline.

Migration is the hot topic in politics this week. But how will the proposed changes affect the long-term population of regional and rural Australia? Left unchecked, we could see major declines with fewer workers where they are needed most.

Mentoring gives you advice. Sponsorship gives you advocacy. In our 2026 national survey, 63% of women said their employer doesn't offer adequate mentoring or sponsorship. Cultivate built Australia's first sponsorship program, grounded in research. We pair high-potential women and First Nations talent with senior leaders who can open doors. Sponsorship is infrastructure, not a program that gets cut when budgets tighten. Explore Willow and Warra.

We’ll be back tomorrow.

Madeline Hislop

Partnerships Editor

UN Women Australia CEO Simone Clarke

UN Women have announced the 2027 International Women’s Day theme, ‘How Much Longer?’, a question that asks governments, companies and communities to reflect on how long we will tolerate gender inequality as progress slips further out of reach. This announcement comes after new data shows not a single global gender equality target is on track to be met by 2030. 

The amount of pharmacies across Australia that stock abortion pills, almost double from 2228 in 2023, when restrictions changed. A study published in the medical journal JAMA Network Open examined the impact of changes by the Therapeutic Goods Administration in 2023 which meant the medication, MS-2 Step, could be prescribed by any GP. The number of postcodes with a pharmacy stocking the medication rose from 915 to 1,292 two years after the changes, nearly half of Australia’s postcodes.

Polish activists have established an abortion-pill locker to bypass strict bans in the country

Painted pink and framed by zebra-striped curtains, the 22-compartment “AbortOmat” in Warsaw allows women to access the pills swiftly and anonymously using a six-digit code. The locker offers a novel way to challenge these restrictions, said Jelinska. “It’s a little bit of a hack on the law,” she said. “The law is about directly giving to someone. So here we have a machine in between, which makes the legality of everything much more vague.”