Additional information

Paternity leave
is leave offered to new fathers around the time of the birth of their baby. The idea behind it is to allow fathers to play more of a role during the crucial first weeks after a baby's birth.
Iceland 3 months paid paternity leave
Slovenia 90 days paid paternity leave
Norway *(Outside EU) 6 weeks paternity leave ("use it or lose it")
Finland 18 days paid paternity (proposing to raise it to 25 days)
Denmark 14 days paid paternity
Estonia 14 calendar days

Parental leave (additional to maternity+paternity)
is time a mother or father can take off work in order to be with a young child,usually father's leave starts the third month after birth, either paid or unpaid.
Sweden: 16 months on 80 percent of salary, until child reaches eight years old. Can be shared between father and mother, with an incentive specifying at least two months for father. the cost being shared between employer and State.
Germany: 12 months, up until age of three. Paid 67 percent of salary, to a limit of 1,800 euros (2,730 dollars) a month; incentive for fathers to take at least two months.
France: 12 months, renewable twice up to child's third birthday. Some parents can claim a basic monthly allowance, currently 536 euros (815 dollars) per month.

Maternity leave: Prior to and after the birth.
According to Maternity Protection Convention, 2000 - ILO, MATERNITY LEAVE Article 4. 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. In most countries Maternity leave: Prior to birth is minimum 4 weeks.

According to Public Health Association of Australia

4.Latest statistics show that Australian women have on average 1.75 babies, which is below the population replacement figure of 2.1 (Australian Social Trends 2005 in Australia Now).

5.Leaving paid maternity leave to the market and obliging employers to cover the cost makes women less attractive to employ and this creates a barrier to female employment and may influence women’s reproductive decisions.

you really have to be kidding

I do believe the public service still has maternity leave,

oh hang on labor and the unions have been selling that off.

So really you want to cut the public service and to save state governments being responsible for maternity leave we all should be.

You lot in the unions are really out of touch with reality.

Stuart Ulrich
Independent

What do you say Stuart ?
I want paid maternity leave for Australian mothers, pay parental leave for Australian parents (mother. father) I wrote this information about parenting and parental paid leave to show what happened in other countries, mainly in Europe and what in Australia, I wrote it to show how behind of the world we are.
What happened with us? Are we lazy, unskilled or irresponsible ? What is our problem Stuart? Is Australia poor, small, non developed country and it can not afford to pay maternity leave?
How all other countries afford to pay maternity leave except from Australia and USA?
NO, we are not lazy or unskilled or irresponsible, WE ARE IDIOTS WHO HAVE ACCEPTED NO PAID MATERNITY LEAVE!
"So really you want to cut the public service" What is this? Why do you think I want to cut the public service? Sure I want more respect to taxpayers money but not less public services.

You will find that it is labor selling off our public services

that is something you cannot deny
Electricity for starters.

Dont forget rudd is cutting public servants as well.

So it is not people like me cutting these payments as you lot are so far up the backside of labor you have no idea what you are supposed to do.

People like me dont take your crap but fight for representation not a dictatorship and follow the leader but stand and fight.

We know what is important and that is to stand and fight for the people, and that is my word unlike labors or the unions as we see with the budget.

Nothing more than a CLAYTONS BUDGET.

You may speak big but all that comes is a wimper

Labor and the unions are just fear mongerers just like the others.
I know how unions should be but hey people like me wouldnt touch you lot with a 40 ft pole.

Who can trust people that stand by the unions and labor or even the others as they just stood and watch what you lot did and are still doing.

Heiner
The justice project

Stuart Ulrich
Independent

Pericles "So let's have the decision made at the ballot box, like any self-respecting democracy"
Did you read ALP's program before elections? If yes then you know that we elected ALP because it promised us better working conditions for women, for mothers.
Do you know any country in the world which had a referendum for paid maternity leave? This is a very basic right, all other countries,big or small, rich or poor, developed or non developed pay maternity leave and they do not pay only 14 weeks as we want but more weeks plus many other benefits as paternity, parental leaves etc.

Col Rouge
"I start from where we are and look forward to what, among many other objectives, we might become." I did the same thing and I found that Australia is the only country in the world which do not pay maternity leave, paternity or parental leave. (In USA many states pay maternity leave). Why Col Rouge, why?
"No system can ever protect all children from irresponsible parents, that is another fools errant." Sure but there is huge difference from system to system. We try for the best we can do, we try,try, try...

BOAZ_David,
What happened with you? do not worry, the first, top priority is the government (taxpayers) they will pay the money, later will come your turn to ...take money for your grandchild! Every one, every where do it. let's extent our basic rights, let's make new parents with less stress!

Antonios Symeonakis
Adelaide

I thought I was being very clear, ASymeonakis. Obviously not clear enough.

>>Did you read ALP's program before elections? If yes then you know that we elected ALP because it promised us better working conditions for women, for mothers.<<

"Promising better working conditions" is about as vague a commitment as you can get. Think about it another way - would you expect them to put in their manifesto that they would promise to make them worse? Of course not. It was just the usual verbiage that fills these programmes.

What I very specifically asked was this:

If a political party were to put to the Australian public a precise proposal on this matter, spelling out in detail what it would cost, and who would pay, do you think for one moment that they would be elected?

Of course they wouldn't.

Which is why none of the parties placed it in their manifesto, and why any legislation will have to be enacted deceitfully, in the full knowledge that the majority of voters would not agree with it.

This is not democratic.

>>Do you know any country in the world which had a referendum for paid maternity leave?<<

It doesn't need a referendum. Just to be a clear component of a party's strategy. Then we would either vote or not vote for that party.

That's democratic.

The reality, as you well know but are unable to admit, is that no political party would be elected if it included these kind of anti-business policies in their formal commitments to the Australian people.

So it can only be achieved by deception.

Legislation by deception is not democratic.

Incidentally, don't think for a moment that big business supports these moves because they love their staff. It's because they can more easily pass the costs onto the public than small businesses can.