"A Good Beginning"
Speech delivered by Pru Goward,
Federal Sex Discrimination Commissioner
Good Beginnings Macquarie Bank Foundation National Awards for Philanthropy
and National Spirit
Sydney 2000,
20 August 2002
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It is a great honour to have been invited here tonight to present the Good Beginnings Macquarie Bank National Foundation Awards for Philanthropy and National Spirit.
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The importance of giving children a good beginning in life cannot be underestimated.
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Children are our future.
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Apart from being our next generation of students, teachers, law makers and politicians, the children of today and tomorrow will be the ones feeding us jelly, amusing us on television and administering our medication when we take up our positions in old age homes - ensuring their health and welfare is therefore VERY important for us!
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A good beginning for babies and young children, is crucial to the health and welfare, of the next generation of older children, adolescents and adults.
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Although I don't need to tell this to any of you here tonight - because of your commitment to ensuring this good start in life.
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Good Beginnings, the organisation responsible for tonight's awards, should be commended for the invaluable contribution they make to ensuring our children get this good start in life.
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Since their creation in 1995, Good Beginnings has been committed to offering support to parents to create nurturing environments in which babies and young children can thrive.
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There is overlap between this commitment and the ideals to which I, in my role as Sex Discrimination Commissioner, am committed.
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Specifically addressing gender based discrimination.
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No where does this overlap occur more obviously than in the workforce.
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Today women are integral members of our labour force.
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They also remain the bearers of, and primary carers for children.
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They perform this dual role, with very little, if any assistance or recognition and often in a hostile environment.
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Women are disadvantaged over their working career as a result of having children - they earn less, are concentrated in less skilled positions and have less access to working their way up organisations. They end up with less superannuation in their old age. All because they have borne our children.
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Changes to the workforce, which support women as they perform this dual role, are if we are to address these disadvantages, if we are to make motherhood more valued and easier for young women.
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The introduction of a national scheme of paid maternity leave is an imperative part of this.
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This measure addresses your concerns and mine - it responds to some of the workplace disadvantage experienced by women over their working lives as a result of having children; and addresses some of the health and welfare needs of mothers and their newborn babies.
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Let me explain what I mean.
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The birth of a child is usually a special time for families for women however it can also be a time characterised by colic, croup, cracked nipples, six feeds a day and sheer physical exhaustion.
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Post natal depression is common, as is the need for a physical recovery from caesarean section births. With the over thirty fives now our fastest growing group of mothers, 1 in 3 women in this age group will have a caesarean- and that means no driving and no picking up the baby capsule for 6 weeks-let alone being able to get back on that early shift as a police officer at 6am!
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Dragging yourself out of bed after your head has just hit the pillow-following feed number five- to go to work is 'that's life' for many women with newborn babies.
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They are forced by financial necessity to return to work before they have recovered physically from childbirth or established a feeding routine.
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And they do - unwilling, exhausted and overwhelmed.
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This is not good for the mother, her child and the other family members, who are also adjusting to changes to their family unit.
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It is not good for the workplace either - why any employer would want an employee at work in this state is beyond me.
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Perhaps this is why many industrial awards require women to be absent from work for six weeks after the birth of a child. How extraordinary that it is not paid for!
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A period of paid leave, directly after the birth of the child, allows a woman the time to recover physically from childbirth, bond with the child and establish a feeding routine without being forced to return to work because there are bills and a mortgage to be paid.
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A period of paid leave around the birth of a child provides women with the choice to take this time out. This can only work for women. And if it works for them, it is bound to work for their children.
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I have to confess to not getting out of a nightie for three months with my first child ( just about) and remembering that every time that baby opened her eyes, I was there looking back into them. It was an intense love affair; no wonder she put on a pound a week! Babies need lots of love to grow and develop; women so often want to give that love but, increasingly in today's financial environment, are unable to even be there. Paid maternity leave gives them that choice and gives the baby the best beginning to the rest of its life.
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So introducing paid maternity leave is a crucial 'next step' in creating an environment which acknowledges the importance of parenting in the health and welfare of newborn babies.
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Paid Maternity leave is the crucial next step in acknowledging the health and welfare needs of new mothers.
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It is a crucial next step in making the workplace a more equitable place for women.
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Tonight however the focus is not really on next steps.
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We are here to focus on what has been achieved.
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We are here to acknowledge those people, places and organisations, who have already made it possible for nurturing environments, where babies and young children can thrive, to be created.
