I wish all of those who are against paid maternity leave, the author and commentators, would re-write their article or comments replacing "maternity leave" with "long-service leave."

Why should business be forced to pay for this unfunded liability? If there were no long service leave in Australia today and some body (oh those terrible nasties from the left) tossed out the trial balloon about it, oh what a stink the right would raise over it.

If you are against paid maternity leave, then come clean and admit being against long service leave...then try to run an election on that platform.....

http://martynemko.blogspot.com/2008/04/i-truly-believe-men-need-to-be-wary-of.html

"My guest today on my radio show was Carnell Smith, an expert on paternity fraud. He claimed that 30% of men who went to blood banks for paternity tests found that they were not--as the child's mother claimed--the father. Smith went on to say that in most states, DNA evidence, in many cases, is inadmissible. He estimated that, currently, one million men are paying child support for kids they did not father.

Of course, it's outrageous that 30 states would enact such unfair-to-men laws. But why would a woman falsely claim that a man is the father of her child when he isn't, thereby forcing him to unfairly pay many thousands of dollars in child support, and manipulate him into spending 18 years involved in raising a child he didn't father? Smith says that these are the major reasons:
-- He had the deepest pockets among the men she slept with
-- She was trying to chain him to the relationship
-- She thought he'd make the best father
-- She was trying to lash out at the man"

I think that our society is totally stuffed.We are over taxed,over regulated,over worked and really,just over it.

We have all the halmarks of decay,from drug abuse,corruption,crime,political correctness,lack of respect,too much aggression etc.

Only large corporations and the Public Service can afford paid maternity leave.If you want to lose more of our small businesses,just implement another dose of insanity that will put another nail in the coffin of our struggling industries.

Our plentiful resources in a way have been a curse,since the excesses of fanciful people in Govt have destroyed personal responsibility and innovation in this country.We are the stupid little rich bitches,paving the way to our own destruction.

I can see good reasons for large companies to provide paid maternity leave.

>>All this is certainly not to say that paid maternity leave which is voluntarily funded by employers is a bad thing, or should be prohibited. Recently, some very large companies, such as Westpac, News Ltd and Woolworths have decided to provide paid maternity leave to female employees who have been with them for a while.<<

It is a competitive advantage that big business enjoys today, and one that smaller businesses cannot afford to match. The latter are therefore already disadvantaged in the job market against the big players.

To make the payment of PML mandatory would increase costs relative to the big guys, who have alraedy factored these is, and further disadvantage them in the marketplace.

The media are so totally besotted with the aura of government and big business, they see small businesses through their lens.

Australian small businesses do not have the clout in the media, or with government.

The media are inundated, daily, by the PR announcements from major companies, all promoting a posture that will ultimately make them their business the most money. It's their job. It's what they do.

And the government puppydogs follow along, seduced by everything from photoshoots with Bill Gates to a private boxes at the footy.

Paid Maternity Leave is just another nail in the coffin of those pesky fruitflies, small businesses. They are a nuisance to Big Business, and provide no value to politicians, so stuff the lot of them.

Declaration of interest: for the past twelve years I have invested my own after-tax earnings, run up a six-figure overdraft, foregone any semblance of a decent salary, in four small businesses. All have survived, and employ between them a couple of dozen people. And it's stuff like this that makes me realize that at some point I am going to have to give in to the rising tide, sack all the people so they can go and work at Woollies, and simply say sod it, I tried.

I'm pretty sure I'm not alone.

"If you are against paid maternity leave, then come clean and admit being against long service leave...then try to run an election on that platform....."

Unless you are arguing paid maternity leave should only be available after 10 years and that it should only last a couple of months, like long service leave, your comparison is bogus.

The comparison, grn, is not bogus. It is all about an unfunded liability that is expected of businesses. No business today would be happy with having that forced upon them, and yet it is a part of the Australian way of life that no dares to ask to be removed, now that would take courage.