This week,former prime minister that working mothers would have been better off under an Abbott government policy that was rejected by his own party and largely ignored by feminists.
Champion of working women? Former PM Tony Abbott proposed a paid parental leave scheme which looks quite enlightened in retrospect.Getty Images
And the terrible thing (at least for Abbott’s legions of critics) is that he’s right.
In 2010,Abbott took to the election a paid parental leave policy to provide six months’ leave at full pay,capped at an annual salary of $150,000,meaning the maximum payout would have been $75,000.
It was wildly expensive,but Abbott proposed to fund it with a 1.5 percentage point increase in the corporate tax rate for companies with a taxable income of more than $5 million a year.
This alone made it unpopular among his fellow Liberals,and the Nationals didn’t like it because they saw it as unfairly advantaging urban working women over stay-at-home rural and regional mothers.
Illustration:Reg Lynch.
Abbott dropped the salary cap to $100,000,but even after winning government in 2013,he couldn’t get the policy off the ground.
Kevin Rudd used it to attack Abbott in the lead-up to the 2013 election,tweeting:“$75,000 for millionaires to have a baby. How is that fair Tony?”
One of my favourite election moments came during that campaign when a delivery driver from Seven Hills in Sydney the then-opposition leader over the policy during a televised leaders’ debate.
“The forklift driver in Mount Druitt shouldn’t be paying his taxes so a pretty little lady lawyer on the north shore earning 180 grand a year can have a kid,” he told Abbott.
Zali Steggall,who ousted Tony Abbott from his seat of Warringah,will move a motion to propose an expansion of the current scheme this week.Rhett Wyman
The Greens supported Abbott’s policy,as did feminist legend Eva Cox.
But this was not the coalition of support Abbott required,particularly as his leadership became unstable from Turnbullian forces within.
Eventually,the policy died a quiet death.
It was an interesting example of how the messenger can impact the message.
Abbott’s policy was treated with suspicion by feminists because of his long history of sexist statements,and the atmosphere of vile misogyny he whipped up around Julia Gillard.
It was difficult to trust his bona fides on advancing the cause of gender equality.
Then,when he did win office,his treasurer,Joe Hockey,announced a 2015 budget measure to stop what he called “double-dipping” – women taking advantage of their workplace maternity leave schemes,along with the government-funded one.
It was perfectly legal,of course,but Hockey made it sound like women were defrauding the system by using the entitlements they were,um,entitled to.
I had skin in the game – I gave birth the day before the budget was handed down that year.
As I nursed my newborn,recovering from abdominal surgery,it was interesting to hear the treasurer compare me to a welfare fraudster.
I mention this recent history because it shows how far we have come.
What was once considered outrageous and unworkable – a taxpayer-funded indulgence for “pretty little lady-lawyers” – has now become mainstream. The idea that any government could roll back paid parental leave is unthinkable.
Instead,expanded,Abbott-style replacement-wage paid parental leave is in vogue.
On Monday,Zali Steggall – the independent MP who knocked Abbott off in Warringah at the 2019 election – will move a motion to propose an expansion of the current scheme.
The Greens have a private member’s bill ready,proposing 26 weeks of leave at replacement wage,with a cap of $100,000,a la Tony.
Both Steggall and the Greens want any expanded system to include provisions incentivising the sharing of care,so that secondary carers (usually dads) are encouraged to take time off,too.
Australia still has the system we instituted in 2011,when Labor brought the country out of the dark ages to provide something,anything,to working women who became mothers.
Under that system,primary carers (overwhelmingly women) get 18 weeks’ paid leave,at the minimum wage,with a salary cap of $150,000.
In the ensuing decade,this scheme has not been revised,even though it’s miserly compared to other OECD countries. This,despite the stubbornly low female participation rate in Australia – just 62 per cent.
The average length of paid parental leave in OECD countries is about 55 weeks,and the majority of the 36 OECD members provide a replacement wage for parents,rather than a flat rate as Australia does.
Says Steggall (a former “pretty little lady lawyer” herself):“If there was one resounding theme from the jobs summit,from business to unions and economists,it was we need to increase women’s participation in the workforce.”
This should be done with expanded paid parental leave,but also by bringing forward by six months the Albanese government’s childcare reforms,she says.
“But that’s the one area the government has gone:‘Good idea,but let’s think about it.’ What else is there to think about? It’s a resounding case.”
Steggall points to showing an expanded scheme (of a particular design) would cost $600 million a year but would flow through to an increase in GDP of $900 million a year,thanks to increased workforce participation by mothers.
Treasurer Jim Chalmers has been decidedly vague on expanded paid parental leave.
“When the circumstances permit,and the budget makes it possible,there are some of these ideas that I would love to pick up and run with,” he said after the jobs summit.
Most Australians would probably accept that knowing the global economic weather is uncertain.
But we should never forget that many advances in gender equality – from allowing women into the workforce to addressing the gender pay gap – have been argued against on the grounds of expense.
With the benefit of hindsight,those arguments just look like excuses for protecting the status quo.
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