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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 08 Hansard (Thursday, 5 August 2004) . . Page.. 3576 ..

convention No 183 and the convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women, both advocate paid leave in order to enable women to maintain an attachment to the labour market.

Since 1973, women in the Commonwealth public sector have had at least 12 weeks paid maternity leave, yet very few Australian women who work in the private sector have access to such benefits, despite the fact that part of the taxes they pay go towards paying the benefit to women who are employed in the public sector. How could anyone in his right mind see that as a fair and reasonable situation?

According to the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, only about one-third of women workers in Australia, including public sector workers, have access to paid maternity leave although, in some cases, it is as little as one week. This is clearly a form of discrimination. I am glad to see the ACT government addressing it in part. Taxation incentives will encourage more employers to offer paid maternity leave.

In Australia, paid maternity leave is not legislated for as it is in 20 other countries, including Japan, Canada, New Zealand, Thailand, Singapore and most of Europe, including all Scandinavian countries. In Sweden, for instance, the government pays for 450 days of maternity leave; in Denmark, the government pays 18 weeks of maternity leave at the woman’s full wage. Even our neighbour New Zealand has paid maternity leave, where the government pays for 12 weeks at a maximum of $325 per week.

In Australia workers can gain paid parental leave only by award or in enterprise bargaining. Australia is lagging behind, still operating a labour market that severely disadvantages women. Whilst this bill does not legislate for paid maternity leave, it does create an incentive for employers to provide for it. This is a positive step.

However, the effect that this piece of legislation will have on the private sector offering paid maternity leave needs to be qualified. According to the ABS, the private sector accounts for 57 per cent of ACT employment. Of this 57 per cent, 53 per cent of employment within the private sector is by small business.

One cannot realistically expect that the impact of such legislation within the small business community will be great. Combine this with the fact that a substantial proportion of women are in part-time and casual employment, where the incidence of paid maternity leave is less than for those in full-time work, and you see that this really will not have a marked impact on the provision of paid maternity leave in general. Nevertheless, this is not grounds to reject any forward step towards securing paid maternity leave for women. What this legislation will hopefully do is result in a changing of the guard with respect to private sector attitudes to this form of leave.

In 2002 I introduced the Discrimination Amendment Bill, which prohibited discrimination against a woman who is, or may be capable of, bearing children, or has expressed a desire to become pregnant or is perceived as likely to become pregnant. This bill sought to prevent situations where women were denied jobs or promotions because they may have decided to have children. And this legislation promoting paid maternity leave is one further step in eradicating discrimination against women in the workforce.

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