A S I think you understand why we have the current baby bonus, many will disagree but it is to reverse the falling birth rate.
Or at least that is what I think it is for.
And it is what I think you want this for is that true?
For the above reasons I think it is a good idea but no, sorry no not for non working mothers.
Yes Col it will cost us as child welfare does and much more but it could be worth while if we in time replace our selves at least in a rise in birth rates.
However to put your whole wish list as a union one AS is counter productive.
Unions have a retention problem , it is true to recruit you must first retain those you have and policy's that are not the wish of most are wasted.
Working women should and will get paid leave under Labor watch this space.
Some social engineering however is not union work in my view.

To enable women to combine work and motherhood is more than some warm and fuzzy utopian ideal: it makes sense.

Pru Goward, architect of a maternity leave scheme so far ignored by both sides of politics, argues that it is not just the "right"
thing to do, but the economically and socially rational choice.

First, it is not about who pays - clearly, it should not be a direct cost to employers, but accepted as a national responsibility.

Taxpayers who paid for maternity leave would ultimately benefit because they would retain vital members of the workforce and allow them to produce the next generation of Australians at a time when fertility rates are low. It makes sense to subsidise women to have families, rather than to penalise them for what comes naturally.
If a generation of working women sacrifice motherhood to preserve jobs and careers, it will cost us all.

Studies show that women who leave infants too early to return to work
are more likely to suffer depression and related illnesses (I know,
I was one of them - and my marriage almost broke up as a result), at huge cost to employers. As Goward writes, if the rejection of maternity leave was part of a "war against so-called radical feminism" then it wasn't feminism that lost, it was our women and children.

Foxy,

'To enable women to combine work and motherhood '
Women (and men) are already enabled to combine work and family, and many are doing just that.

' allow them to produce the next generation of Australians at a time when fertility rates are low'

Again, my problem is with the word 'allow'. It's a lazy assumption that women are not having babies because they cant 'afford' to. People generally afford what they want to afford. If people really want children they will have them.

'It makes sense to subsidise women to have families, rather than to penalise them for what comes naturally.
'
Why does it make sense? Where are they being penalised? Nobody penalises them, they just have to make sacrifices if they want children. As do men.

'Studies show that women who leave infants too early to return to work
are more likely to suffer depression and related illnesses (I know,
I was one of them - and my marriage almost broke up as a result), at huge cost to employers.'

See this emotional argument shows where you are coming from, but has no relevance. It was your (and your partner's I assume) choice to go back to work.

While we are at it, why don't we have a week off for women every month who are menstruating?

Additional information

Maternity Protection Convention, 2000 - ILO

MATERNITY LEAVE

Article 4

1. On production of a medical certificate or other appropriate certification, as determined by national law and practice, stating the presumed date of childbirth, a woman to whom this Convention applies shall be entitled to a period of maternity leave of not less than 14 weeks.

2. The length of the period of leave referred to above shall be specified by each Member in a declaration accompanying its ratification of this Convention.

3. Each Member may subsequently deposit with the Director-General of the International Labour Office a further declaration extending the period of maternity leave.

4. With due regard to the protection of the health of the mother and that of the child, maternity leave shall include a period of six weeks' compulsory leave after childbirth, unless otherwise agreed at the national level by the government and the representative organizations of employers and workers.

5. The prenatal portion of maternity leave shall be extended by any period elapsing between the presumed date of childbirth and the actual date of childbirth, without reduction in any compulsory portion of postnatal leave.

According to Barbara Pocock associate professor

"Sakiko Tanaka has analysed the effect of paid parental leave on child health in 18 OECD countries between 1969 and 2000. This study shows increasing paid maternity leave significantly reduces infant mortality. A 10-week increase in paid leave - we have none - could result in a fall of between 2.3 and 2.5 per cent in infant mortality. A 10-week increase in paid leave reduces the mortality rate among babies aged 28 days to one year by 4.1 per cent. "
http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/infants-cry-out-for-paid-maternity-leave/2005/07/07/1120704490601.html

Gentlemen,

According to an article in, 'The Age,' 23-03-8 - this issue was first
raised 30 years ago. Thirty years later the issue still provokes heated debate.

Supporters, including many academics and the Business Council of Australia, see it as a step towards what they believe is inevitable.
The Productivity Commission will look at the economic and social costs and benefits of paid maternity, paternity and parental leave and report back to the Prime Minister in a year's time.

The terms of reference include exploring what employers now pay; it will also identify pay models and their interaction with social welfare systems; assess the cost and benefits to business; examine women's workforce participation, employment and earnings; invetigate post-birth health of the mother and development of children from newborns to two years; and analyse financial pressures on families.

International studies link an early return to work to increased health risks for women, such as chronic tiredness, failure to fully recover from the birth, and the higher incidence of postnatal depression. There are greater risks to the baby's health and breastfeeding generally stops.

According to Dr Sara Charlesworth, senior research fellow at the Centre for Applied Social Research at RMIT University, Australia could learn much from Britain. British mothers get 39 weeks' paid maternity leave, with six weeks at 90% of their previous wage and the 33 remaining weeks at a flat rate equivalent to $270 a week. The British Parliament intends to extend that to 52 weeks by May 2010.

The Swedes receive 18 months' paid parental leave; Italians get 47 weeks, and Russia 140 days.

According to women's groups and many academics, Australia's inability to pay its mothers is rooted in historical male workforce domination and sexism. Motherhood, they say, still means a substantial loss of earnings, demotion and insecurity in the workplace for many women.

"The current system is a result of a long history of male-dominated industrial relations and politics," said author, and director of Centre for Life and Work, Barbara Pocock, "Boys don't push out babies; if they did we would have Rolls-Royce maternity leave."

CONT'D -

Part of Australia's lethargy is explained in a Monash University study co-written by Dr JaneMaree Maher, director of the Centre for Women's Studies.

The study found that most women believed they were entitled to maternity leave and only found out about their entitlements after they fell pregnant.

Many also found when they returned to work that the nature of their jobs had changed, their clients had been taken from them or, worse still, they were made redundant while on leave.

Dr Lyndall Straazdins, a social scientist at the Australian National University, believes part of Australia's problem is that we view family life as somehow not linked to work life.

"There has been a devaluing of what it means to care for children and what it really requires and that's very connected to a gendered view of what's important and what's not - what's work and what's family,"
Dr Strazdins said.

The Australian Institute of Family Studies has found financial uncertainty contributes to women delaying motherhood and reducing the number of children they have.

Dr Deborah Brennan, NSW Social Policy Research Centre professor, paints a picture of two classes of mothers in Australia: those in the public sector, in large workplaces or in unionised occupations;
and the rest.

"Scientific knowledge about babies in their first months of life should also be driving Australian policy, but my sense is that it is not - not yet," she said.