Leslie Cannold

I clicked on the link to this article with some hope that it would offer some concrete suggestions about what a family-friendly society might look like, let alone recommend how how we might achieve that in Australia through policy.

I was pretty disappointed to say the least. Are you saying anything other than we should aim for better than what we've got but not forget our past when forming policy? Seems to be a bit trite otherwise. This country needs its academics to actually use their space in the ideas domain to make concrete suggestions to be debated by the public - particularly if we're ever going to come up with something better than the ridiculous "baby bonus" scheme.

As a young professional female, I'm fairly aware that the balance between work and family responsibilities has been raised as an issue in the media ad nauseum (including constant critique of how much of a problem it is, and will continue to be if left unremedied). However, very little is actually changing. Perhaps this is because we have a the dearth of positive policy proposals being aired in the media. How else can we start to debate some solutions?

Hopefully your book has more to say on this subject ... if so, I wish you had offered that in your article instead.