Parental leave policy outdated, Australia’s sex discrimination commissioner says

WORKING mums and dads are being held back by outdated policies restricting acc­ess to parental leave, acc­or­ding to Australia’s sex discrimination commissioner.

Jessica Forest with her son Benjamin, four months. Picture: Alex Coppel

WORKING mums and dads are being held back by outdated policies restricting acc­ess to parental leave, acc­or­ding to Australian Sex Dis­crimination Commission­er Kate Jenkins.

Ms Jenkins called on ­employers to relax archaic 1970s rules requiring women to work for 12 months before accessing parental leave.

“These laws are based on sexist assumptions about women rorting the system by having a baby before they had been in a job for 12 months,” she said.

“People can never be sure when they’re having a baby”.

The City of Melbourne is among the employers beco­ming more family-friendly by relaxing restrictions governing access to paid and unpaid leave for mothers and fathers.

Under a new enterprise agreement signed last month, council staff can get 10 weeks of paid primary carers’ leave as soon as they start their job.

“This increases until you have been with the organisation for 12 months, when you can access the full primary carer entitlements of 20 weeks,” chief executive Ben Rimmer said.

“This approach also app­lies to secondary carers and to people returning from parenting leave.”

Staff don’t need to have 12 months’ service before getting 12 months unpaid primary carer’s leave, and don’t have to wait another year if they have a second child.

“When we talked to our female staff, they told us rules that restrict access to parental leave held some of them back from going for that fab­ulous new job, especially in their 30s,” Mr Rimmer said.

PricewaterhouseCoopers CEO Luke Sayers said his ­organisation was reviewing its working par­ents policies.

He said supporting working parents was a core issue for employers “to attract and retain the very best talent”.

The issue has been discussed at the Male Champions of Change forum.

West Footscray mother Jessica Forrest knows how important it is for emp­loyers to get parental leave right.

West Footscray mother Jessica Forrest is on leave now with her third child, Benjamin, four months. Picture: Alex Coppel

NAB’s head of corporate communications, she is on leave now with her third child, Benjamin, five months.

“For all three children NAB has given me one week of paid prenatal leave, 12 weeks of paid parental leave, plus continued superannuation payments on an addi­tional five months of unpaid parental leave,” she said.

“My husband has also taken four months primary carers leave with our son and daughter, so they were both home until they were one”.