The headlines and the debate continue about maternity leave.
There's now talk that the Rudd Government is going to consider a plan proposed by the Sex Discrimination Commissioner, Elizabeth Broderick, under which working women would get paid leave for one year after giving birth and fathers would get six weeks' paid leave so they could bond with their children.
We're told this will bring Australian into line with its human rights obligations and European standards on paid maternity leave.
There's talk of a two stage plan.
Stage one would give working women 14 weeks' paid leave at the minimum wage of $522 a week before tax. Fathers would get two weeks' paid leave at the minimum wage rate. Then in stage two, mothers and fathers would share an additional 34 weeks' paid maternity leave and under stage two all leave, including the first 14 weeks, would be paid at two thirds of the mother's previous income.
And there's talk that this will affect 300,000 working mothers. Non-working mothers would not get paid maternity leave but would get the baby bonus.
Now there was a public hearing on this issue yesterday in Sydney. There'll be others held around the country. And a report will go to the Rudd Government, we're told, by next February. Unions New South Wales submitted yesterday that there should be six months' paid parental leave at full pay.
Now all this is well and good, until someone starts telling us who pays and how much it will cost.
To be fair to the argument, if we take comparable countries, and by comparable I mean that Afghanistan, for example, has paid maternity leave, as does India and Fiji and, can you believe, Algeria, Botswana, Gambia, Ghana, Rwanda. I note Zimbabwe has paid maternity leave, whatever that would mean, where money is worth nothing and most Zimbabweans don't have a job.
But it is true that around the world maternity leave is paid. In France, New Zealand, in Germany, the bulk of it by the taxpayer. In Portugal, in Japan.
Now in most of these countries we're not talking about a year's leave, but we are talking about 14 weeks' maternity leave in New Zealand, up to 26 weeks in France. 14 weeks in Japan. 39 weeks in the UK paid for by taxpayers. 16 months in Sweden, also paid for by taxpayers.
Now many of these schemes vary according to how they're paid and how much they're paid. But the argument that it brings us into line with international standards is a legitimate argument.
Only two industrialised nations have no form of statutory paid maternity leave, America and Australia.
But a few points need to be made at the outset.
If as a nation we believe in this, then as a nation we must pay.
It's preposterous to ask business to pay. And those who believe that business should are doing no favours to young women, because business will then not employ young women if they're up for hefty lumps of paid maternity leave.
Why employ someone, an employer will say, when potentially they can become pregnant, the employer then loses an employee, has to replace that employee while paying someone on maternity leave for anything up to 12 months. And then having paid maternity leave for 12 months, a woman may decide, as is her right, not to return to work.
If there is some massive call - an overwhelming case for maternity leave - which there well may be, then we as a nation should foot the bill.
Employers should not be compelled to pay.
And that is the small print in this argument that needs to be identified.
