Paid parental leave will soon be law in Australia but the delay in passing the bill is causing our potty-mouthed PM to sound distinctly fractious. “We have a very simple message for the Senate, ‘Get out of the road, guys; Just get on with it’, said Mr Rudd. But the question is not about getting out of the road but is it the right road in the first place?
Currently, many large employers already offer a paid maternity entitlement from 6 weeks to six months (British American Tobacco Australia). The new legislation will provide 18 weeks paid maternity leave at the federal minimum wage for those on a salary below $150,000 pa. This will be in addition to any employer scheme already in place. But employers will surely scale back their current schemes to take into account the government funding otherwise their employees will, in effect, receive a pay increase of $544 per week (pre-tax) to stay at home. As female executives are discriminated against, the employer will have to increase their maternity provisions to maintain equality. After all these are the women whom executive recruiters will be retained to replace should they fail to return to the workforce and therefore the asset the company is most loathe to lose.
On the issue of paternity leave the policy seems totally confused. Whilst paternity leave is not included in the current legislation, the Families Minister, Jenny Macklin, said the scheme would be transferable between two parents – in other words it can be shared between a mother and a father. This may cause a boom in contract recruitment which is healthy for the executive recruitment company but it is ruinous for the SME.
It seems to me that both parties are following the wrong road. Leave current employer arrangements alone, look beyond the birth and concentrate on the return to work. Over and above the monetary value of any maternity leave payment is the cost, suitability and availability of quality childcare. To work to your optimum you must be assured that your precious baby is being cared for adequately. Therefore, surely it is more valuable to focus on suitable childcare and return-to-work policies rather than the confusing and inequitable paid parental leave provisions. Tax breaks, subsidies for child care, facilities close to schools or places of employment and flexible working hours would be far more palatable.
Why does no-one ask the mothers?
Helen Fisher is the Communications Manager at www.carmichaelfisher.com
