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Successfully balancing paid work with family responsibilities remains a major challenge for a large number of Australians. With women continuing to carry the majority of Australia’s unpaid caring work, creating workplaces that support women and men to balance paid work and share caring responsibilities is critical to achieving gender equality.

Commissioner Pru Goward's appointment to the position of Commonwealth Sex Discrimination Commissioner was announced on 29 June 2001. She commenced her term on 30 July 2001.

It has been a long journey from the male breadwinner family of the 1907 Harvester judgment to the modern families of today. The transformation of families has been one of the most significant social changes since the Second World War and arguably over the entire century. Landmark decisions by governments and industrial tribunals have endorsed and encouraged social changes along the way.

Federal Sex Discrimination Commissioner Pru Goward has today released her final paper, A Time to Value: Proposal for a national scheme of paid maternity leave.

In 1999, the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission's (HREOC) Report of the National Pregnancy and Work Inquiry, Pregnant and Productive, recognised the importance of paid maternity leave to Australian women and recommended that the Federal Government commission economic modelling to assess the viability and consequences of such a scheme. This interim options paper has been developed in order to consult, inform the debate and examine the options for paid maternity leave in Australia. The economic modelling to support this debate has not yet been done.

In August 2001, the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission (HREOC) began a comprehensive examination of the need or otherwise for a national paid maternity leave scheme in Australia.

The interim paper, Valuing Parenthood: Options for paid maternity leave set out an extensive range of objectives that paid maternity leave could meet. [242] Many of these objectives were dependent on the structure of the scheme that was implemented.

Learn how the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission acknowledges organisations and individuals who have contributed to Valuing Parenthood.

Back to Table of Contents Abbreviations ABS - Australian Bureau of Statistics ACIRRT - Australian Centre for Industrial Relations Research and Training ACTU - Australian Council of Trade Unions ADAM - Agreements Database and Monitor AIFS - Australian Institute of Family Studies AIRC - Australian Industrial Relations Commission ALSS - Australian Living Standards Study AMA - Australian Medical ...

4.1 Introduction 4.2 Social security and social insurance schemes 4.3 Employer funded 4.4 Combination of employer and social security 4.5 Parental or family leave

2.1 Introduction 2.2 Women, work and children in Australia 2.3 Existing maternity leave arrangements 2.4 Government payments to parents 2.5 Lack of statistical information

Part D of the paper focuses on how a paid maternity leave scheme would actually operate were it to be introduced in Australia. The emphasis, as in the rest of the paper, is on the feedback that HREOC has received through submissions and consultations. Each Chapter canvases the views that were expressed in relation to each component of a national paid maternity leave scheme.

The Commission is a national independent statutory body established under the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission Act 1986. It has a President and five Commissioners. The five positions are currently held by three persons. Please refer to the organisational chart for further information.