If it is to be argued that "...A scheme that intends to signal such normalcy should be structured like other normal leave arrangements, such as those for recreation, illness and long service leave..." then paid materniy leave ought not to be publicly funded but self-funded such as the scheme posed by Jessica Brown.

Some assert that annual leave is paid by employers to employees for not working. For the most part, annual leave is a part of the total salary package and is more or less "earned" and is paid to the employee at a later period.

This is evidenced by
a) the pro-rata nature of paid recreation leave (i.e. one usually "earns" recreation leave time commensurate with time spent working) and
b) that casual workers' "loaded rate" includes annual leave in the hourly rate of paid.

Furthermore, sick leave and rec leave can be accessed by all workers whereas paid parental leave is accessed by only a few. A childless wage earner/salary earner will understandably be miffed that they will need to be productive for a six years to earn six years' pay whereas a mother can be productive for as little as two years to get six years pay. Essentially the mummy can get four years pay for not working. Paid parental leave is not "gender equity" issue. Not all women are mothers.

I am of the opinon that time off work to raise a child is no different from a surfing holiday or a sojourn around Europe.
The childfree should not be expected have their income redirected to the child-burdened through the tax system merely because children are arguably expensive. An expense alone does not justify a subsidy. Indeed, that children are (arguably) expensive and yet people still have them is probably a demonstration that children are a private good and not a social good. After all, it is parents alone who enjoy the pleasure that that their children provide. As such, self-funded parental leave is fair to parents and fair to the childless.

Othello Cat, where do you get the 4 years from? "Essentially the mummy can get four years pay for not working." I've not worked out what you mean by that.

I wonder how much the family friendliness varies across professions. My impression is that our workplace is pretty good for most of the non-management staff but not so good for the upper levels. They seem to be expected to spend long hours in the office and often be away from the home in other locations. At my level the issue is people who insist on scheduling late afternoon meetings and it's rare that I can't decline or leave early on the basis of parenting responsibilities.

In a previous job (some time back) which was a trade based one and with an almost entirely male field workforce there was a lot less flexibility. Never an option for working from home (which I can do sometimes in my current role). No flexibility about start times and turning down an extension to the day's work with stuff which needed to be finished that day outstanding was difficult. Different roles have different needs, it would have been almost impossible to do prime care of a child from that role but with a change of jobs it's not all that hard. I changed jobs around the time my son was born.

R0ber

IF you want to increase the gap between costs per labour hour in Australia and cost per labour hour in our competitor nations,

make these leave payments mandatory.

If you want to see jobs go offshore,

make these leave payments mandatory,

if you want to deepen the looming recession,

make these leave payments mandatory,

If you want to improve the employability of post-menopausal women, at the expense of fertile ones

make these leave payments mandatory.

If you want to increase the rate of business failures

make these leave payments mandatory.

if you want parity with other nations,

check out how many of them have employee deducted social security payments, as well as income tax and

how many have Long service leave schemes

Ms Cox said:"male parenting is assumed to be primarily as provider"

This is interesting. Ms Cox clearly has a view that in intact families equally-shared parental responsibility should be the norm, yet the same Ms Cox is on record on many occasions criticising the changes to the Family Law and Child Support that made an assumption of equally-shared parental responsibility part of the law. The main consequence of those changes was to remove the "male as provider" model that she apparently criticises here.

It seems that Ms Cox is trying to have 2 bob each way.

Ms Cox said:"This current proposal is a modest one, with most of its costs coming from other payments, and only offers an average of $3,300 extra per recipient."

At present, according to the CSA, the total amount of CS transferred annually is approximately $2.6 billion, which is derived from 1.5 million "customers". Approximately half are payers. Therefore the average amount transferred is about $3,500 per payer, or approximately $260 per taxpayer ($5 per week). Surely, if Ms Cox regards the $3300 per baby worth of paid maternity leave to be "modest", she would also consider the amount of child support transferred to be modest, as the sums are similar.

As CS is overwhelmingly disadvantageous to men in this "gender segregated workforce" of ours, leading to massively disproportionate unemployment among nominal CS payers, why is Ms Cox not agitating for the abolishment of the CS scheme in favour of a more equitable scheme funded by the public purse?

I personally think that a paid maternity leave provision is not a bad idea, but only if there is a commensurate change in the way that men are penalised by the CS scheme for having fathered the children that make the maternity leave necessary. A good start in funding a more equitable CS arrangement would be abolition of the CSA and the 4000 staff currently consuming much-needed resources fomenting trouble among separated parents. Children need parents that aren't in conflict.

Whilst Australia continues to not provide paid maternity leave we will continue to dumb down our gene pool as only the stupid, poorly paid and uneducated women can afford to have children. Australian women are forced to find their life partner before getting pregnant if they don't want to rear the child in the crushing poverty of a single parent pension. Women who have studied and established a career might not have found their life partner before their fertility wanes.

Not sure this stacks up, billie.

>>Whilst Australia continues to not provide paid maternity leave we will continue to dumb down our gene pool as only the stupid, poorly paid and uneducated women can afford to have children.<<

Is this suggesting that for all these years when we have been without paid maternity leave, the gene pool has been dumbing down?

Sadly, the only logical conclusion of that train of thought is that sometime in the future we will become sufficiently stupid that we decide to introduce paid maternity leave.

Because until then, when we were smarter, we decided it was a bad idea.

>>Australian women are forced to find their life partner before getting pregnant if they don't want to rear the child in the crushing poverty of a single parent pension<<

Hasn't this always been the case?

Surely the choice to do without a partner is much less daunting these days than it was, say, fifty or a hundred years ago? Or have I missed something?

>>Women who have studied and established a career might not have found their life partner before their fertility wanes.<<

Surely that's simply a matter of personal choice and individual priorities? What business does the government have interfering with or manipulating those decisions?

The part that is still missing is the impact on business, as outlined by Col Rouge.

Big business loves it, of course, as they can simply screw the extra money out of the punters at the checkout, or the check-in counter, or out of your bank account in "fees". Small and medium sized businesses will be hardest hit, because they won't be able to afford to take on the responsibility that results from hiring fertile women.

It is not "about time" for anything except thinking past the emotional soundbites, and working out the consequences of these semi-random handouts in real life.

Pericles I was just extrapolating from some women who I am aware of

The women who worked whilst their partners played in a band, as soon as they suggested children the fellas ran away and got other women pregnant.

The women who established their career then looked for a mate to discover the available men were not as well presented, earning as high incomes as they were or not their intellectual equals.

I know of a 28 year who works from 8am to 10pm to establish her career and her cousin aged 35 wants to downsize her career to get a life. Another 2 to 5 years puts her very close to infertile.

About 52% of university students are women who have HECS debts to repay like the blokes do. 60% of Australian women under age 30 are childless. About a quarter of all women will remain childless.

I have no answers to Col Rouge's thoughts on who pays as I am sure that employer paid maternity leave will be just another tool to persecute prospective women employees - who will in all probability find that only temporary and casual positions are available for them. After 20 years of this girls and women will reset their sights to view "a good marriage" as a worthwhile career choice.

The family court, domestic violence are still major barriers to reaching these goals. Domestic violence services funding was cut severely whilst mens groups funding has been on the rise. There are numerous services out there not meeting the "No To Violence" service standards. How can we work or even think about having babies when these things are still a huge issue. The more domestic violence continues, the less women will be able to do anything unless more drastic action is taken. Considering that "family violence is the Core business of the family court" and the revenue they get from further systematically abusing women so that they are so severely traumatized and degraded that they end up living in poverty anyway. Its a lose - lose situation if everybody keeps looking for Band-Aids instead of getting to the root cause of women's issues. Homicide rates have gone up since the family law reform and the focus is on educating women? Its a waste of time considering how much disability, death and trauma that does not get addressed. I have watched two generations being severely affected because they were court ordered, coerced and blackmailed into continuing the cycle of family violence. Does there really need to be another generation?

We have a generous leave scheme already. It's currently called the 'baby bonus'.

The bonus has been condemned as an example of ‘middle class welfare’ - yet paid maternity leave - a much more expensive and complicated scheme - is being welcomed with open arms.
Why?

The bonus could be made essentially equal to eighteen weeks payments… or more.

In its previously non-means-tested form, as a payment made directly from government to family, many women were able to negotiate ‘top-up’ maternity leave payments with employers, with no tax penalties.

All women have up to a year unpaid leave. With eighteen weeks pay, the time for them to return could be at their own discretion.

According to the Australian newspaper, about half of Australian women already have access to employer maternity payments!

The simplicity of the bonus scheme allowed employers to control costs associated with maternity leave, but encouraged them to participate in paid maternity arrangements because of the bonus's 'one-size-fits-all' policy. Why should the taxpayer provide what many employers are already paying for?

The big end of town will in all likelihood cut back their maternity arrangements.

On the flip side, for small business the need to keep a position open for up to a year already involves significant costs such as training, and paying higher wages for temporary staff.
But because there are no on-costs associated with a non-worker, marginal businesses were not really that inclined to avoid hiring women. There was no survival imperative to do so.

Having businesses responsible for the payments of the wage upfront, in addition to super, to be reimbursed by government - is absolutely alarming!
What happens to the other requirements of business, such as capital reinvestment in equipment and training, so necessary for longer-term business survival?

And all to create a false impression that the business is paying a government hand-out! There is no indication that an employee would feel obliged to return to the employer that paid out this government money.

Maternity leave is a must for bringing forth a healthy baby at the end of pregnancy.Both man and woman should be free from harmful influences much before the couple decides to have a baby.This is much more important in the case of women.Pregnant women doing all sorts of hazardous work is commonplace nowadays.But it is dangerous for the baby in the womb.Medical opinion says so.Therefore women should be given long maternity leave in the interest of the baby.Who pays is altogether a different matter.If we want to create better progenies, adequate maternity leave is a must.The society cannot expect women to bear and deliver a healthy baby and also bring income for the family. Only one thing can be done properly at one point of time. The society should ensure a harmless environment for the pregnant mother and it is the duty of a civilised society.