Reading today’s Daily Telegraph has brought on a reflective mood to herVoice.
By necessity, herVoice was a full-time working sole parent for many years. Her overriding memories of those years are the working mum’s guilt she lived with daily, having to choose between her child and her work.
But at least herVoice had choices which gave her the opportunity to do what she thought best for her child.
Five years later, paid parental leave has become a policy reality and in eighteen months will become a fact. But one simple fact seems to have missed our friends in Canberra, the unions and all the other vocal advocates for paid maternity leave.
Paid parental leave is a disincentive for employers to offer jobs to women of child bearing age.
Today’s article has stated the obvious – mothers are bearing the brunt of the recession.
And with women over-represented in part-time work and lower-skilled jobs, this trend will continue, particularly as the Government introduces higher penalty rates next year.
The bottom line is that the Rudd government has set up a direct pathway for indirect discrimination to prevail against women in their 20s and 30s .
Which means that many mothers, especially sole parents, won’t have the choices herVoice did – they will be forced to live off welfare, as they become less and less attractive to employers.
And their children will suffer as a result.
With his demonstrated disdain for the interests of small business Mr Rudd is rapidly becoming the Opposition’s best friend – all our “alternative government” has to do is sit tight, say nothing and watch the small business community vote with its feet at the next election.
