Senator Jane Hume speaks at Warrnambool women in leadership forum

Ms Hume said the forum, hosted by South West Coast MP Roma Britnell, wasn't about hearing from women in leadership but acknowledging other women's leadership potential and the leadership they were already showing in their communities.

"How you can bring other women along behind you and blaze a trail," she said.

With Warrnambool and the south-west electorates typically an area where most vote conservative, women were well represented in political leadership - including the mayors of Warrnambool, Moyne and Corangmite councils as well as the three locally based state MPs.

South West coast MP Roma Britnell said women were really striving for the south-west.

Business owners and farmers to stay-at-home mums and women who had lost partners attended the function on Friday, September 15 at City Memorial Bowls Club where childcare, mental health, small business and taxation, and superannuation were hot topics.

Ms Hume said women's issues were community, economic and financial issues.

"You can talk about women in leadership and women's issues, but with more than 50 per cent of the population we do a lot of the heavy lifting in most communities and certainly in most families," she said.

Ms Hume left her career in financial services behind for federal parliament and went on to serve as superannuation minister.

In opposition she has a finance portfolio, and cost of living pressures are high on her agenda. In May she visited Warrnambool for a forum on the topic.

"That was only a few months ago but actually the cost of living crisis seems to be getting worse for people," Ms Hume said.

"The statistics are showing inflation's coming down but in fact the cost of living is still going up."

Ms Hume said the cost of living went up by about 9.6 per cent in the past 12 months - electricity itself up 15 per cent and gas 14 per cent.

People with an average mortgage were having to find between $15,000-$20,000 more to pay it off than a year ago, she said.

"It's not the kind of money you find down the back of the couch," she said.

Ms Britnell said it was "crunch time" for people.

"People are really feeling the pinch with their electricity and gas bills at the moment. I'm hearing every day about that," she said.

With housing and lack of childcare big issues, real solutions were needed, Ms Britnell said.

Ms Hume said just handing money out could actually make the problem worse, and it was about governments managing expenditure.

"When I left university, I walked into the recession 'we had to have' back in the early 1990s," she said.

"Cranes on the skyline hadn't moved for years, youth unemployment was around 30 per cent and I couldn't get work."

Ms Hume said she feared her university-aged children could find themselves in a situation that is "not that dissimilar".

"That's because of decisions that governments make," she said.

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