How does Australia's parental leave policy stack up?

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Good morning and welcome to the Daily os It's Monday, the twenty third of October.

I'm Zara, I'm sam.

Last week, the federal government introduced legislation to increase paid parental leave to twenty six weeks.

Paid parental leave was increased from eighteen to twenty weeks earlier this year, but new draft laws would see it gradually rise every year until it reaches twenty six weeks in July of twenty twenty six. We'll have more on what that means and if it will pass in the Deep Dive, But first, Aara, what's making headlines this morning?

Over the weekend, streets around the world were filled with large protests in relation to the ongoing war in Israel and Gaza. The largest of these was held in London, where over one hundred thousand people participated in pro Palestine protests. Also over the weekend, two American hostages were released by HUMMAS. They were a mother and daughter, Judith and Natalie Ranan, and are the first hostages to be freed by HUMMAS, who are believed to have taken around two hundred hostages.

Masaamini, the twenty two year old who died after being arrested by police in Iran, has been posthumously awarded the European Union's top prize for human rights. The award also went to the movement of protesters that fought for women's rights after her death. Amini's death sparked international protests after she was allegedly beaten by Iran's Morality police for violating the country's hijablaws.

US President Joe Biden will host Australian Prime Minister Anthony Alberzi for state visit this week, marking Albanesi's first official trip to DC as Prime minister. Just hours before leaving for the US, Albanesi announced he will also travel to China in early November, which will be the first visit to China by any Australian Prime Minister since twenty sixteen.

And today's good news, Scientists have discovered a breakthrough that could lead to more efficient recycling of lithium iron batteries found in electric vehicles. Swedish researchers at Chalmers University developed a method that allows almost all of the aluminium and lithium found in EV batteries to be recycled without the need to use any harmful chemicals. If the process is scaled up, it would mean these recycled metals could be used in future battery production.

Paid parental leave could increase to twenty six weeks by twenty twenty six under a government proposal that was introduced to Parliament last week.

So Zara, before we get stuck into those draft laws, can we go through what paid parental leave in an Australian context actually means and how it works.

Sure, So, currently, eligible primary carers can access twenty weeks of leave that is paid for by the government at minimum wage. Eligible parents need to have worked consistent hours prior to the birth or to the adoption of their child, and they also need to meet an income test proving that they require the payment.

And when you're saying primary care, you mean the person who's taking the bulk of the responsibilities in looking after the newborn right.

So, paid parental leave has traditionally been intended for the birth mother, except in circumstances like adoption or same sex families. Under the current system, the other parent can share in that twenty weeks of leave.

And is this the only kind of paid parental leave that you can get?

No, So I think it can often be a bit confusing because there are a couple of different schemes that you can access. So some employers have their own paid parental leave policy, and that is different to the twenty weeks of minimum wage that we're talking about that the government gives you, so private employer and the government. There are also laws that entitle employees up to twelve months

So the way I'm understanding it is that paid parental leave is what the government is paying for, and then some employers can fund their own leave policies as well.

Exactly, and employer funded paid parental leave doesn't affect your eligibility for the Government's paid parental leave. As an employee, you can access both at the same time.

So give me a sense of how many Australians are actually accessing paid parental leave.

So what we know is there's around one hundred and eighty thousand families that receive paid parental leave every year and almost all of those payments are redeemed by female parents.

Okay, so now the government's thinking about the future of paid parental leave, what are the proposed changes.

So paid parental leave, as I said, was actually expanded already from eighteen to two twenty weeks earlier this year, so there's already been some momentum in the space. On Thursday of last week, the government introduced new legislation to increase that further.

Now.

According to the draft laws, paid parental leave would gradually increase over a two year period, from twenty to twenty two weeks in July next year, and then from twenty two to twenty four the year after, with a final increase from twenty four to twenty.

Six weeks in July twenty twenty six.

When one parent takes the paid parental leave what happens to the other parent.

Yeah, So the legislation does include a proposal to add four weeks of what's called concurrent leave, so that's for parents caring for the same child, so a month of lead that they could take at the same time to allow partners to provide more support. And it's aimed at increasing female workforce participation and addressing this idea of the motherhood penalty, which is understood to be a key driver of the gender pay gup here in Australia.

So these are some potential changes that would impact a lot of Australians. Where has the impetus for this change come from?

So you might remember, I think we did a podcast episode about it. The government hosted a National Jobs and Skills Summit last year and during that time, peak bodies and unions called for paid parental leave to be expanded from eighteen weeks to twenty six weeks. At the time, PM Anthony Albernezi called it a worthy idea, but he said that the government was restricted by budget constraints, something that we hear all the time on any given issue

It's just taken a couple of steps, so it's.

In line with what businesses and unions were looking for during that summit. And I know that there are a lot of advocates in the space who were at these discussions really advocating for paid parental leave in this country to strengthen and improve.

Okay, so eighteen to twenty six weeks is a pretty substantial increase. But then if we zoom out and look at Australia's place in the global landscape in terms of paid parental leave, how are we going when we compare ourselves to countries around the world.

Oh, look, not great. No, it depends who which countries you're comparing.

I feel like this is always when Northern Europe comes up.

But look, if these reforms pass, it'd bring Australia's paid parental leave scheme closer to other developed countries like New Zealand, who had twenty six weeks of paid parental leave. But we're still very much lagging behind the policies in some of the world's biggest economies, those economies that make up the OECD countries. So, according to the OECD Family Database, average paid leave for mothers is, what.

Do you think as is going up to twenty six maybe a couple.

Of years, maybe kind of the mid thirties. Fifty one weeks okay, so a week off a full year.

If we look at countries like Canada where up to forty weeks of paid leave can be shared between parents, but there one parent can't receive more than three thirty five weeks of benefits, so again that's trying to target that the sharing.

Piece of it.

In the UK, primary cares are entitled to thirty nine weeks paid parental leave and thirty seven weeks of paid leave can be shared by both parents. Finland, Slovakia and Portugal have the highest paid parental leave of OECD countries, with around one hundred and sixty weeks of paid leave available to mothers.

So that is over three years, but that's not.

One hundred and sixty weeks at full pais significantly less. Then on the other side of the spectrum, the US, naturally it's the only OECD country with no national paid parental leave entitlements.

So clearly Australia's kind of I wouldn't say in the middle, but edging their way up the charts in terms of paid parental leave, Zara, How likely do you think it is that this will actually pass well?

The Opposition has said it'll consider the draft laws before it takes any position on the proposal. Now we know, of course that the Government has a majority of seats in the Lower House. That's not a problem for them, but when the legislation gets to the Upper House they don't and they'll need some additional support to pass this legislation.

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