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Amanda Stoker

Labor’s childcare and welfare policies at cross-purposes on working mums

To spend heavily to incentivise one cohort of mothers to work while spending heavily to disincentivise another cohort to do so defies logic.

The government’s approaches to welfare and childcare subsidies are operating at cross-purposes, and the mismatch of incentives perpetuates difficulty for single mothers.

Single motherhood is a tough gig by any measure. But we do single mothers little good by paying them what Indigenous advocate Noel Pearson calls “sit-down money” for as much as the first eight years of their child’s life. That period can become much longer if a parent has multiple children, because the eight-year clock restarts each time another child is born.

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Amanda Stoker is Queensland Assistant Minister for Finance.

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    Original URL: https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/labor-s-childcare-and-welfare-policy-at-cross-purposes-on-women-working-20230502-p5d4u0