A Paid Parental Leave Scheme

Despite public pressure and several attempts by private entities to introduce paid parental leave, it was not introduced in Australia until 2010. Since its introduction, paid parental leave arrangements have been limited, and current arrangements fall significantly below international standards.

1 History of Paid Parental Leave

In 2009, the Productivity Commission was tasked by the Australian Government to undertake a public inquiry regarding paid maternity, paternity and parental leave. At the time of the inquiry, there was a substantial disparity across the Australian workforce regarding access to paid parental leave provisions. Almost one out of two female employees did not have access to paid maternity leave. However, public servants had some form of paid parental leave available to them.

At the conclusion of the inquiry, the Productivity Commission outlined its recommendations in its report entitled: ‘Paid Parental Leave: Support for Parents with Newborn Children’ (‘Report’). The main recommendation of the Report was the introduction of a statutory paid parental leave scheme in Australia. Recommendation 2.1 provided that the paid parental leave scheme should be for a total of 18 weeks, which could be shared by eligible parents, with an additional two weeks of paternity leave reserved for the father sharing the same daily primary care of the child; the payments were equivalent to the adult federal minimum wage for each eligible week. Recommendation 2.6 provided that all those employed with a reasonable degree of attachment to the labour force should be eligible, including the self-employed, contractors and casual employees. Recommendation 2.7 noted that a broad range of family types should be eligible, including conventional couples, lone parents, non-familial adoptive parents, same-sex couples and non-parental primary carers in exceptional cases, as long as they met the employment test.

The Report outlined that the proposed scheme would meet a range of commonly agreed objectives. First, it would generate maternal and child health and welfare benefits through the projected increase in time off parents could obtain from work. Through this time off, a considerable number of families would have an increased capacity to provide exclusive parental care for children for six to nine months. Second, the scheme would promote essential, publicly supported goals within society, particularly so that having a child and taking time off for family reasons could be viewed by society as part of the ordinary course of work and life for working parents.