A bun in the oven or a Cherry Ripe?
The issue of paid maternity leave (or lack thereof) has been back in the news this week and I have to say, as a woman without kids, I have only just looked into what all the fuss is about.
Surely a civilised, developed country like Australia has adequate paid maternity leave provisions? (I should remind you here that I’m a Pom). I try to avoid saying this as much as possible but WHERE I COME FROM, we do, and I think it’s only right.
I’ll also risk offending my fellow Brits (but what use is a blog if not to provoke a little controversy?) by being very unpatriotic and saying there’s not much that I think the UK does better than Australia. I’m not just here for the weather (especially not this week); I actually agree with the way a lot of things are done here compared to at home (these include immigration policy, compulsory superannuation contributions, public holidays and Cherry Ripes, among others).
So, when I actually read up on it I was about as stunned as when I read that, until last year, abortion was still a crime in Victoria.
Now the unions fear that the Federal Government could shelve its plans for a $500 million paid maternity scheme because of the global financial crisis (we’re blaming it for just about everything these days, after all). And while the easy argument is that this should have already been introduced decades ago, as a country of small businesses, there are a lot of people out there who would struggle to pay their contribution towards a part-taxpayer and part-employer-funded scheme.
COSBOA (the Council of Small Business Organisations of Australia) continues to back the scheme however.
What do YOU think?
I think the issue is one of workforce participation. Don’t forget that we’ve just come off a period of labour shortage, so if employers want women to work, they will have to consider maternity leave as a potential part of that package, just like they need to consider the future labour force that those offspring will become. (This is me being purely employment-focused).
There’s simply not enough men to fill positions, even now that rising unemployment is a possibility, so this is not an argument about *whether* we should have maternity leave but rather what type of scheme would serve both parents and businesses and how we should implement that scheme.
Disclaimer: fellow Pom….
I am staggered by the lack of maternity provision in a country that does its best to encourage immigration from people under 30.
I just posted on my own blog looking at whether feminism is still relevant today, and it is exactly issues like this where we can prove we are not yet where we need to be.
Surely a country with a population growth problem (i.e. it isn’t growing) should understand even better than the UK (where the population is too large) the value of the work these women are doing in their “time off” from work?
I for one am growing increasingly frustrated by this notion that every single thing our government does should be for the benefit of families. There are other productive members of society in Australia and – shock, horror – some of them don’t have children! Don’t they also deserve thought and assistance in these tough times? With our economy in such dire straits – and things predicted to get much worse – I don’t think it’s at all outrageous to prioritise expenditure for the greater good rather than solely for those who choose to procreate. The government is right to put paid maternity leave on the backburner for the time being. (By the way, it may not be a legal requirement yet but most companies offer some paid maternity leave anyway.)
Sally is your real name actually Tony Abbott…?
But I definitely agree with you. What about the struggling white collar workers who continue to be slugged with a 40% tax rate?
I have to say I am utterly flabbergasted that Australia does not provide any sort of paid maternity leave. When I had my son in 2006, I took 26 weeks maternity leave from my job with London Underground – on full pay.
Now while I realise I was very lucky to still receive my full salary during this time (statutory maternity pay in the UK is 90% of your salary for the first six weeks with no upper limit, then for the remaining 33 weeks it\’s 90% of your weekly salary or £117.18 a week, whichever is lower)- I cannot begin to imagine how we would have coped had I received nothing (mortgage, bills, food).
If you employ women of child-bearing age you simply have to factor in that the chances are they will need to take time off work to have a baby. How are women supposed to develop a loving bond with a baby that they have to leave at 6 weeks old to go back to work, simply because they cannot manage financially any longer?
An average read, once you get half way through the article past the whole “I’m a Pom” nonsense.