Mum’s the Word in the Modern World

A MUST READ for Australian women who want to be able to care for their baby while retaining their skills and their job!

FEDERAL Sex Discrimination Commissioner Elizabeth Broderick used this Mother’s Day to urge a greater push forward. As Mum’s over are being showered with love and recognition, ways to help nurture the work-family balance will be put under the spotlight in a Productivity Commission inquiry into paid maternity leave.

“The demands of family life seem to be the biggest obstacle to female advancement,” says co-secretary of the NSW Women Lawyers Society, Georgina Gowland. With the law’s approach to the work-family balance only going so far, Industrial legislation and anti-discrimination legislation is limited and it is the modern day woman who is bearing the cost.

Commissioner Broderick said that “with nearly 70 per cent of women of child bearing age in the workforce and only one third of women able to access paid maternity leave [it] is a pressing issue.”

For years now lobby groups have campaigned for the introduction of fully funded minimum term maternity leave followed by optional extended unpaid leave and flexible return to work arrangements. In a media release this March, Australian Women Lawyers President, Fiona McLeod SC said “the discussion should no longer be focused on whether we introduce these supports but on how we do so and do so quickly.

The referral to the Productivity Commission should not be used to delay the introduction of these important measures,” McLeod said.

The productivity Commission is holding public hearings and is accepting submissions up until 2 June 2008.

If you support the need for paid maternity, paternity and parental leave, make your voice heard:

Email your submissions to the Productivity Commission to parentalsupport@pc.gov.au or to read existing submissions go to www.pc.gov.au/inquiry/parentalsupport. A draft report is expected by September.