The Australian Government want to slash the rights of parents to take time off work with their babies in the first year of the child's life.  Following their re-election, the government is once again pushing for massive cuts to the Paid Parental Leave Scheme.  These cuts will impact thousands of Australian families and significantly reduce the ability of parents to have time to bond with their child. 

In 2010, Australia finally introduced a paid parental leave scheme that was funded by the government.  This was a victory for Australian parents more than 30 years in the making and started Australia on the path towards acknowledging the economic and social value of supporting new parents with paid time away from their workplace.  At the time the coalition stated that the scheme 'was not good enough and is no match for the scheme that will be implemented by the Coalition when they are in office' (http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/australia-gets-first-national-paid-parental-leave-scheme/story-e6frg6n6-1225881031472  The Coalition are now in office and want to slash the scheme, claiming that mothers who access their work maternity leave benefits and the government scheme are 'double-dippers' and are 'rorting the system'. 

Paid parental leave is different to workplace maternity leave as it offers both mothers and fathers the chance to spend time away from their workplace with their baby, it is available for families to use within the first 12 months of the child's life as needed and as suits their situation and is flexible to the needs of the family.  Slashing this benefit and tying it to the mother's workplace maternity leave conditions will not only damage a family's ability to navigate their household finances in the year after the child's birth and contribute to forcing parents back to work before they are able to manage, it says to father's that they have no place in the raising of a child, and it says to mothers that they are not valued beyond their ability to have a child and return to the workplace as quickly as possible.  Reducing the benefits Australia fought so long to have moves us further away from the shared parenting and flexible workplace model adopted in most other developed nations. 

We are calling on the Senators of Australia to vote against these changes to the Paid Parental Leave Scheme.