The Rudd Government has asked the Productivity Commission to examine ways the federal government can provide improved support for parents and their newborns. This involves several facets but most significantly opening up the case for paid maternity, paternity and parental leave. (Terms of reference here).
We must keep the momentum going, there will be lots of counter-arguments that we can’t afford such a scheme even though all other OECD countries can (bar the United States of America which is as slow as us). Public hearings are being held and submissions are being sought. The Sex Discrimination Commissioner, Elizabeth Broderick is supporting, as a minimum, a government-funded 14 week paid maternity leave scheme paid with two weeks paid paternity leave, at the level of the federal minimum wage. She has a post on her campaign here, it might be worth adding a comment of support.
I’ve talked about maternity leave before, so to quote my lazy self:
I know maternity leave can divide some mothers because there are lots of expenses faced by parents in addition to maternity leave but remember this –
- we as a society have children, but it is women and only women who have to leave the workforce to give birth and provide the baby’s first nurturing and who consequently suffer that loss of income and workplace entitlements;
- Australia and the United States are the only two OECD countries left without a national maternity leave scheme (so you know, other countries are managing to provide this scheme without their economies falling apart or mass sackings of women by discriminatory employers);
- not all working mothers are well-paid mothers, some are working poor and they are most likely to be without paid maternity leave;
- birth and caring for a baby are extraordinarily exhausting (but also special) experiences and all working women, not just the ones in a good negotiating position deserve the right to recover from and enjoy these times.
blue milk 
I couldn’t agree more. Every woman should have the choice to take time off and not have it come down to finances.
Next up, can we talk about women’s pathetic ability to save for retirement if they decide to stay at home with their children? In the U.S., it’s absolutely shameful — $3,000 a year is all you can sock away, provided your spouse doesn’t make more than $100,000 a year. Because $3,000 a year will set you up for a peachy retirement? Because upper class women’s husbands never divorce them or die without life insurance?
Oooh… sorry about the tangent. As a SAHM who used to work and has her own retirement account, maternity leave and retirement savings are my pet peeves.
Your comment about women who are not well-paid and their maternity leave options is what really gets me. It’s so easy to look around at my friends and family and how their jobs/partners’ jobs and situations allow them to make maternity leave, staying home, working part-time, etc. work out somehow. But every time I think of those mothers without resources to get them through mothering and working and childbirth and all that comes along with it, my outrage that there is nothing in place, not even basic help for them, grows. And no one seems to give a damn. What does a woman do who is, say, single, badly-paid, with limited or no health insurance, a little kid or two, no family, no friends to help…what does she do? And how shameful is what you note above–that the US and Australia can’t (no, refuse) to figure out a national maternity leave scheme. (OK, sorry, I’m going on and on…)
I think the national maternity scheme for Australia is a great idea, but it needs to be worked out differently. It does seem unfair to make all workers pay for this as many may not be able to have children and some also decide (for whatever reasons) NOT to have children. This type of scheme would be ignoring this minority, taking money that they will not benefit from later. Maybe one idea to improve this is to offer people that aren’t having children a few months of general paid leave (sort of like long service leave). Then if people who have taken this leave ever change their minds and have children, they will not get the offer of this maternity scheme and need to do it on their own. Does this suggestion make it a fairer scheme for everyone? What are your thoughts?
[…] something straight about maternity leave A person called Ellie left a comment this week on a previous post of mine calling for universal paid maternity leave in Australia. Ellie has raised some questions, and […]