Family Futures

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universal system of paid parental leave was finally intro-

duced. The scheme is designed as a workplace entitlement

to 18 weeks of leave paid at the national minimum wage.

Since 1979, female employees have been entitled to 52

weeks of unpaid maternity leave. In 1990 this right was

extended to all parents – both men and women – with the

guarantee of employment protection. It was then extended

to 24 months in 2009.

The introduction of a paid scheme

signalled a significant shift in the approach to parental

leave in Australia. Public sector workers and some private

sector employees had for many years enjoyed increasingly

generous paid parental leave benefits, but it was only with

the introduction of the new government scheme that the

right to paid leave at the birth or adoption of a baby was

extended to all workers.

The new scheme has been a boon to women working in

small business, and as casual and contract workers who

previously had no entitlements of this sort. Initial evalua-

tion of the programme showed that half of the applications

for paid parental leave were from mothers who earn less

than $A43,000 per year. This suggests that the scheme is

providing support for those least likely to have access to

employer-paid parental leave.

This is a positive develop-

ment that supports gender and socioeconomic equity. In

January 2012 two weeks of Dad and Partner Pay (DaPP),

paid at the national minimum wage, was added to the

scheme. This is provided on a ‘use it or lose it’ basis and is

not transferable. Initial research shows that uptake of the

DaPP scheme has been slow.

All major political parties now support paid parental

leave making it a subject of policy debate. In early 2013 the

centre-right Liberal-National coalition party proposed a more

generous parental leave scheme: a full replacement wage for

24 weeks, including superannuation, funded from a levy on

the biggest 300 businesses. Announcement of this alternative

scheme made paid parental leave a major battleground of the

2013 election. Having won the election, the new government

is due to implement what will be one of the most generous

schemes in the OECD in 2015.

Concerns about the gener-

osity and equity of the scheme have been raised by both the

political left and right, and in December 2013 the Government

indicated some willingness to negotiate the details of the

scheme in order to have it passed by the parliament.

Paid parental leave in Australia has developed rapidly, but

there are still improvements to be made. There is a strong

case for increasing the period of DaPP. This would support

other efforts towards gender equity in the workplace and

home and provide a formal acknowledgement that parenting

is a cooperative task shared by both parents. Attention must

also be paid to the strength and enforcement of the right

return to work guarantee after parental leave. The failure to

provide superannuation under the current scheme is a weak-

ness with long-term negative consequences for women’s

retirement savings, although this is due to be addressed by

the new scheme. While Australia has been slow to develop

a system of universal access to paid parental leave, recent

policy action has made it a fundamental feature of the

national work/care infrastructure.

Childcare

High quality, affordable and accessible childcare is argu-

ably the most important part of the work and care regime

of a modern economy. In Australia, regular reports on the

cost of childcare and long waiting lists in the mainstream

media reflect the high profile childcare policy now has in

public debate. As women have increased their participation

in the labour market the use of formal childcare services

has increased. In 1991 around 250,000 children used

Concern about the cost, quality, accessibility and flexibility of childcare has been high on government agendas over the past decade

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