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COSBOA speech: Pru Goward (2006)

Sex Discrimination

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

  • Ladies and Gentlemen:
    thank you for inviting me to partake in today's panel discussion.

  • Thank you for
    your support.

  • How wonderfully
    encouraged by the Prime Minister's comments last night and Minister
    Hockey's comments this morning.

  • First let me
    say categorically that I have not and will not recommend that employers
    should pay for maternity leave.

  • It is one of
    the mysteries of politics that this vital issue should have gotten
    so tangled up with a red herring.

  • Australian small
    businesses need to get behind paid maternity leave.

  • Why?

  • The cynics would
    say "to fit the bill".

  • Lets look at
    the facts.

  • Fact one, no
    where in the developed world is paid maternity leave funded a scheme
    mandating employers to directly pay employees taking maternity leave.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • That's a view
    shared by the Industrial Labour Organization - not usually supportive
    of business.

  • Any scheme which
    would result in women being further discriminated against in the workforce
    is obviously unacceptable and must be avoided.

  • 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.

  • 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?

  • Perhaps the Prime
    Minister's comments of last night go some way to meeting union concerns.

  • The introduction
    of a government funded, national scheme of 14 weeks paid maternity
    leave represents a small percentage of total tax revenue.

  • In fact, it has
    the potential to reduce costs incurred by businesses currently providing
    employees with paid maternity leave.

  • 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.

  • Let me explain.

  • A basic model
    of paid maternity leave will cost around $300 million. That's paying
    12 weeks up to the minimum wage.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • These young women
    graduates of today are the mothers of tomorrow.

  • 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."

  • These women aren't
    rocket scientists and rich lawyers, they are pedicurists, policewomen,
    pastry chefs.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • Paid maternity
    leave at least means she can afford to take off those first precious
    months. Good for her, very good for her baby.

  • 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.

  • 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!

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.


Last
updated 14 June 2002