The need for small business to get behind paid maternity leave
Speech Delivered by Pru Goward, Federal Sex Discrimination Commissioner
29 May 2002
COSBOA National Small Business Summit
Rydges Lakeside, Canberra
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Ladies and Gentlemen: thank you for inviting me to partake in today's panel discussion.
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Thank you for your support.
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How wonderfully encouraged by the Prime Minister's comments last night and Minister Hockey's comments this morning.
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First let me say categorically that I have not and will not recommend that employers should pay for maternity leave.
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It is one of the mysteries of politics that this vital issue should have gotten so tangled up with a red herring.
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Australian small businesses need to get behind paid maternity leave.
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Why?
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The cynics would say "to fit the bill".
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Lets look at the facts.
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Fact one, no where in the developed world is paid maternity leave funded a scheme mandating employers to directly pay employees taking maternity leave.
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This scheme of paid maternity leave is a third world scheme. It exists in Bahrain and Burundi - not countries with similar economic, cultural and social structures as Australia; not countries Australia would be looking to as 'best practice' examples.
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Fact two, women would suffer under an employer pays scheme. Employers, especially small business, keep tell us they would stop employing women of child bearing age to avoid paying for maternity leave.
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That's a view shared by the Industrial Labour Organization - not usually supportive of business.
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Any scheme which would result in women being further discriminated against in the workforce is obviously unacceptable and must be avoided.
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Fact three, without a national scheme of paid maternity in place, it is business- large and small - that currently fits the bill for paid maternity leave.
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It is true that the unions are mobilising for a paid maternity leave campaign. The absence of overt government support for a national scheme, who can blame them?
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Perhaps the Prime Minister's comments of last night go some way to meeting union concerns.
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The introduction of a government funded, national scheme of 14 weeks paid maternity leave represents a small percentage of total tax revenue.
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In fact, it has the potential to reduce costs incurred by businesses currently providing employees with paid maternity leave.
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Small business therefore needs to get behind paid maternity leave because it is a cheap and effective way of providing women with support as they work and mother - as they perform the juggle of contributing to society as the bearers and carers of children and valued members of the workforce.
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Let me explain.
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A basic model of paid maternity leave will cost around $300 million. That's paying 12 weeks up to the minimum wage.
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Governments are there to support the choices people make when those choices are of benefit to the rest of us. When there is a national interest. We spend millions of dollars on would-be sporting stars at the Australian Institute of Sport, because we all like to see Australia excel at international sporting contests, for example.
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But there can be no greater national interest than the preservation of our families, the continuance of families. That's why taxpayers spend $16 billion a year on families.
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What we need right now is a national response to our declining fertility rate; changing families where two income earners are now the norm; we need to become a nation that provides women with the entitlements received by their global counterparts; and we need to support women as they contribute to our society by performing two crucial, life-bearing, society and economy sustaining functions.
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Paid maternity leave alone cannot do this, but it certainly helps encourage those many women who will only have children if they can look after them themselves.
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Currently 46 per cent of all tertiary graduates - that includes TAFE and private college graduates - are women. Many continue to accumulate qualifications, as do young men, throughout their twenties.
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This education and training represents an enormous investment of taxes as well as a significant private investment by each young woman and often her family.
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These young women graduates of today are the mothers of tomorrow.
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But if we tell them there is no support for them when they have their children, or that there will only be support if they elect to stay home full time for five years, then we are telling them - and ourselves - that the enormous investment Australia has made in their education is a waste of money. And while some young women are prepared to cop that, others say, as they have said to me "why should I have children, I have given up too much for this."
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These women aren't rocket scientists and rich lawyers, they are pedicurists, policewomen, pastry chefs.
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No wonder the birth rate is at a record low. All over the developed world, including in strong family values catholic countries like Portugal, Italy and Germany, women are choosing not to have children.
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Young women know, as you know, perhaps better than anyone, how quickly qualifications get out of date. You know the first question you ask a would-be employee is "when was your last job?" If it was five years ago, I don't like their chance of that being taken on.
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A national scheme of paid maternity leave accepts that women want to stay home for 14 weeks at least, but also want to return to work at least part time.
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Paid maternity leave at least means she can afford to take off those first precious months. Good for her, very good for her baby.
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Since employers cannot prevent women from returning to work, even one week after birth, it means employers are dealing with women workers returning to work in early weeks, when they are vulnerable and not ready.
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Naturally we could be more ambitious - we could give them six months paid, like the French and British do, we could give them a year like Canada and Sweden do, or we could match the Uruguayans and the New Zealanders, who give them three months. We could give all Australian mothers the same 12 weeks at full pay that Australia's Federal public servants have enjoyed for 30 years!
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As leaders of a vital part of the Australian economy, as the employers of 50 percent of the workforce, your support for paid maternity leave is important.
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Of course you are entitled to say it should not be funded by individual employers but by the community at large - you would not get much of an argument with that.
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But it is also important that you publicly acknowledge, by supporting paid maternity leave, that women are a vital part of the workforce, valued as much for their skills, training and experience as men.
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Most important of all, we need to accept that if these young women are to continue to work and to have children - our future tax payers, employees, employers and consumers - then we can no longer expect them to carry this vital social responsibility without acknowledgement of their career or financial responsibilities.
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Paid maternity leave says to Australian families - we want to support Australian families, we always have - we know Australian families have changed, so now, the way we support them must change also.
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Paid maternity leave has arrived - you can work with it, and win, or you can work against it and we will all be the losers.
