Elizabeth Broderick is a woman on a mission. “A national scheme of paid leave for parents is no longer a question of whether, or how, but when,” said the Federal sex discrimination commissioner at a recent speech at Sydney Girls High School. “There is no question that legislated paid maternity leave is a basic human right.”
Yet Australia and the United States of America are the only OECD countries who do not provide any legal entitlements to paid parental leave.
Broderick hopes to change that. She has a five-point plan to achieve equality for Australian women and paid parental leave is a key part the strategy.
If anyone can gain traction on the issue, it’s Broderick. A mother of two, she is former Telstra NSW Business Woman of the Year, Australian Corporate Business Woman of the Year and fast gathering headlines for her bold approach to gender relations.
Prior to her September 2007 appointment as Sex Discrimination Commissioner, Elizabeth was a partner at one of Australia’s leading law firms and developed the firm’s business case for flexibility in the workplace. Her efforts contributed to creating a workplace where more than 20 percent of the law firm’s workforce now uses flexible work arrangements.
Her appointment as Commissioner was timely — In April 2008, the Federal Productivity Commission began a public inquiry into paid maternity, paternity and parental leave.
Broderick was quick to bring together industry and union figures to agree on a consensus for the inquiry. Sharan Burrows from the ACTU and Heather Ridout (Chief Executive of the Australian Industry Group) joined Broderick in an open editorial piece for The Age, urging for a minimum 14 weeks paid maternity leave. They wrote:
“Paid maternity leave is not about being nice to working women, it is about addressing the inequality experienced by women workers relative to men as a result of childbirth. Nor is it a question of the baby bonus versus paid maternity leave: Paid maternity leave is not a bonus, it is about a right to paid leave for working mothers recovering from childbirth to help establish breastfeeding and for all-important bonding to occur.”
Getting business on board seems an imperative in achieving paid leave. While small businesses might balk at the prospect, there is plenty of evidence larger corporations are saving money — and staff — by offering paid maternity leave to their employees.
Westpac introduced six weeks’ paid maternity leave five years ago and lifted their return to work rate by 30 per cent, which saved the company $6 million.
The National Australia Bank (NAB) has a flexible parental leave policy, offering 12 weeks pay, which can be distributed in a lump sum, or over a six-week, 12-week or 24-week period.
Helen Ormond, NAB’s Head of Organisational Capability, said of the policy, “While this is a substantial investment in our people, we have done sufficient cost-analysis to know that we reap the dividends in terms of employee productivity, job satisfaction and retention”.
Length of the paid leave is another contentious issue. Yesterday, family and pregnancy support groups mounted a new campaign to urge the Federal Government to introduce paid maternity leave for a minimum of six months, rather than the 14 weeks proposed by Broderick.
More than 12 organisations including the Australian Breastfeeding Association (ABA) have joined the campaign. With exclusive breastfeeding recommended for six months, the ABA fears that many working women will be tempted to switch to formula if forced to go back to work earlier. The groups also claim that 14 weeks will still leave Australia behind the international standard.
Such a figure would bring Australia in line with Japan and New Zealand, but is well behind the 39 weeks given to British women.
So where to from here? Judging by the submissions on the Productivity Commission’s website, a majority of interest groups are so far supportive of a paid maternity, and to a lesser extent, paid paternity scheme.
In all likelihood Broderick will be able to tick one thing off her list — even if it is only the most basic of paid maternity leave entitlements.
Those bright young women from Sydney Girls’ don’t know how far we’ve come.
I agree that Australia needs to have some sort of paid maternity leave. As an Aussie living in the UK I was lucky enough to get 6 months full pay from my employer. The current government policy over here is paid leave for 9 months, 90% of your salary for 6 weeks then £117.18 for the remaining 33 weeks. That is just the basic and for many their companies top up the government contribution. Having this time off also allowed me to breastfeed my daughter until she was 10 months old. An experience I will always treasure.
I really don’t see why this is such a political nightmare in Australia. Other countries do it well, we could just copy one of those, surely?
There are so many models to choose from out there. All Australian policy makers would have to do is to flip through the OECD database on maternity leave arrangements (many with the accompanying cost-benefit analyses to keep the sceptics happy) or look at the ILO’s Maternity Protection Convention. It would be ideal to have 6 months of paid leave but if that’s not going to fly then why not start with a minimum of 14 weeks and build from there. Once the detractors see that a system of paid maternity leave will work then they’ll be more willing to accept a longer period.