The dual-code international star makes her eagerly anticipated return for the Breakers on Saturday against Western Australia at Blacktown International Sportspark, her first game since NSW announced earlier this month that it had lifted the minimum wage for female players to $35,000.

As a Southern Stars international, Perry's earning power through cricket now exceeds $100,000 per season making her and her fellow Australian teammates some of the best paid women's athletes in the country.

The Breakers are three weeks into their new full-time training program, and head into Saturday's game needing a strong win to keep the pressure on ladder leaders Queensland.

But despite the increased pay, Perry said money was still not a motivating factor for Australia's female athletes.

"I think there's still certainly a real sense of innocence in women's sport if I can say that, in the sense that we play because we love it and the financial factor certainly isn't a motivator," Perry said.

"To have it, and I guess to facilitate becoming professional cricketers and basically reaching our potential and being the best that we can, it's a wonderful factor."

Less than 20 years ago, Breakers coach Jo Broadbent returned to Australia as part of a World Cup-winning squad, only to be billed for her travel.

And while that is no longer the case for most sportswomen in Australia, there's still not nearly enough financial incentive to allow the majority of female athletes to pursue their talents full-time.

"I don't think anyone would ever contemplate giving it up even if we weren't paid because firstly, we all recognise that we're in an incredibly fortunate position to do something that we love at a high level and have a lot of fun doing it," Perry said.

"To then have the opportunity to be paid for something that we do and that you love doing, and potentially not having to supplement that with other forms of work or being pressured to study full-time, you feel incredibly fortunate given a lot of the players that have come before us who either recently retired or a number of years ago didn't have the same opportunity.

"Big steps have kind of been announced and happened in the last couple of years but I think that's been a build-up of momentum over a longer period of time.

"The sky's a little bit the limit in that sense. If we can have fully professional competitions in this country for women whether that's the WBBL or the one-day domestic competition, those kinds of things I think only strengthen the sport and make it more viable at a domestic level and also for the Australian team as well."

Broadbent said the Breakers were quickly adapting to the new set-up.

"There's one player that's left her ... job, that gives us more time with her. There's a group of them that have moved out now, so they're renting, and they wouldn't have had perhaps those opportunities before going semi-professional," Broadbent said.

"It's been a really good change around the place and a really good feel."