Big businesses in Australia are making inroads in making their organisations more female and family friendly, according an Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Agency’s (EOWA) survey released by the Minister for the Status of Women. Findings from the EOWA Survey on Paid Maternity Leave, Sex Based Harassment Initiatives and the Gender Pay Gap show that 50.8 per cent of large organisations now provide paid maternity leave to employees.  This is an increase of 15 per cent since 2003. 

“This is great news for women, their families and businesses across the country,” Ms Plibersek said. Â
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Eva Cox, Chair of WEL
At last- we have a government committing to paid parental leave! This is the real good news: the government is prepared to acknowledge a clear unequivocal financial relationship between the workplace and parenting. This is the first time that there will be a specific publicly funded program that makes the connection explicit. We have had programs directed to reinforce the ‘choice’ of non working mothers, such as Family Tax Benefit B but not those in paid work, as even the child care funding also covers those who are not employed.This connection needs to be celebrated as a basic shift in the political perception of legitimate time off for the care of others. It has been a long time coming as shown by two near misses; one under Keating and another the Baby Bonus, Both converted a maternity leave possibility into a welfare payment for all mothers. This time it is clearly labelled leave and has a workforce entitlement component. Hooray!
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