Australia Moving Backwards, Not Forwards

One of Tony Abbott's new policies caught my interest, his new Paid Parental Leave (PPL) scheme. You can take a look at it here: http://lpaweb-static.s3.amazonaws.com/The%20Coalition%E2%80%99s%20Policy%20for%20Paid%20Parental%20Leave.pdf

It seems that with this new policy being put in place, gender and class equality is being pulled right back to before woman’s suffrage in the 1950s. Looks like it’s back to the domestic sphere with the women who choose to have kids, and depending on how much they earn, that is how much their baby is worth.

What this PPL scheme will provide is a mother's replacement wage to families for six months at up to $75,000 or, if the mother isn't employed, the minimum wage. Now this doesn't seem so bad, right? It’s a good thing to subsidize working women and families! But when looking at the bigger picture of gender discrimination in the workforce, we can see where the policy has its’ faults.

What the coalition’s policy really entails is maternity leave, as it is only women who can claim the full benefit, meaning that only women can take leave and stay home with their child and receive the full value. The government will allow the father to be the primary carer, however, they will only be allowed to claim the mother’s income. Now this is an issue because, even in this day and age, women earn less money than men despite qualifications, experience or job title. An argument for this is that women are more likely to take leave from work because of family, and therefore are denied promotions because the employer may be worried about the expenses they have to pay if the mother is promoted and then has to be replaced for six months. So, women earn less than men, and so the men who stay home will be earning less for their family. Therefore, the policy is targeted more so towards women, incentivising them to leave work over the father, i.e further discrimination in the workforce.

Similarly, because the PPL scheme subsidises the mothers’ normal salary for six months, this leads to debates as to how much one baby is worth over another, and who has the right to even imply that?! Who could possibly say that it is okay for a doctor who earns $150,000 per year and therefore will get $75,000 for her new born daughter, compared to a teacher who earns $70,000 per year and so will only get $35,000 for her son? The doctors’ baby is not better, it just comes from a wealthier family and this policy is encouraging that wealth, making the rich richer and the not so rich, still not so rich!

What Abbott should have done, to solve some of these pressing issues, is:

1. Make the scheme an actual parental scheme so that both parents have the option of taking time off for their child. This will assist with the gender issue in the workforce and furthermore, if we took after the Swede’s, both parents could take paid time off to raise their child, which has been proven to be the best method. All hands on deck and better development for the baby!

2.The scheme should have a set budget so as not to discriminate against class. Let’s face it, no child is worth more or less than the other.

So what we see here is a dichotomy between Liberal Feminism and Maternal Feminism, between 'nature' and 'science'. It is impossible to to find a medium within Abott's policy, as Madeleine Arnot and Jo-Anna Dillabough state in Feminist Politics and Democratic Values in Education (1999), "liberation lies not with concepts of equality and equal rights, nor with democratic freedoms drawn from liberal democratic discourses, but with an explicit recognition of the role of the 'nurturer'... Key to this new form of the social order is not the 'brotherhood of man' but... the social and emotional relations which necessitate the restructuring of fraternal political consciousness". This means that women's place in the private and public sphere should be valued and encouraged to create a better and well rounded government. While women's qualities are undeniable, they should be utilised in the work place and society instead of valued only for their domestic advantages.

Women have fought so hard to put their mark on the workforce and still are not treated equally, what this policy is doing is encouraging an unhealthy, unequal ideal for women to stay home over men. The getting paid part is great, and parents should get that help, but am I the only one who thinks it’s all a little too backwards thinking? We can’t keep reverting to the past, it didn’t work then, it won’t work now.

References
- Arnot, M, Dillabogh, J. (1999). Feminist Politics and Democratic Values in Education. Curriculum Inquiry, 29(2), 159-189
- Ganns, J. (2013). Abbott’s leave scheme is a step backwards for women. Retrieved September 21, 2013, from http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/4679062.html

- Loughnane, B. (2013). The Coalition's Policy for Paid Parental Leave. Retrieved September 20, 2013 from http://www.liberal.org.au/latest-news/2013/08/18/tony-abbott-coalitions-paid-parental-leave-scheme