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http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/po ... -20100312-q40u.html 作者 Adele Horin Tony Abbott的带薪产假计划，让他象个白痴。 但是仔细想一想，他至少让执政党重新考虑了他们吝啬的底薪产假计划。 换而言之，也许这是一件好事，让澳大利亚能够和西方其他国家，例如英国和加拿大一样对产妇有更好的福利。 Big business is on the rampage over Tony Abbott's paid parental leave plan and the Opposition Leader has come in for a terrible savaging. Anyone inclined to regard him as flaky has seized on his announcement with unfeigned glee: now he's really made an idiot of himself. But I am thankful he's drawn attention to Labor's stingy parental leave policy that we are likely to be stuck with for aeons. Once in place no government will be bothered to unpick the pieces, and remake the policy. In industrial relations policy what we get in the beginning is often what we get for a lifetime. We have lived with four weeks' annual leave for 36 years with no hope of it becoming more generous. For 33 years we lived with a standard working week of 40 hours before it was finally lowered a notch to 38 hours. Just look at the history of maternity leave in this country. We got 52 weeks' unpaid leave more than 30 years ago, and while every other country in the world bar the US streaked ahead of us in establishing paid parental leave, Australia remained recalcitrant. Business argued back in the dark ages it could not afford even unpaid parental leave because of the hassle involved in keeping a woman's job open and replacing her with a temporary. Prophecies of Armageddon proved baseless, business boomed, and learnt to live with the adjustment. Now it vehemently argues it cannot afford to make a contribution towards paid parental leave. Armageddon looms again. If long service leave had not been won in 1953, I doubt there would be a hope of it being introduced today, and its timid advocates in any case would be calling for it to be paid at the minimum wage rate (at least to women). Even as we deride Americans for Neanderthal views on universal healthcare, I wonder if Medicare, and the Medicare levy, would win support if proposed now, representing what has become the unspeakable - a tax increase. That's why it is so important to start off with a first-class paid parental leave policy, not one that leaves us laggards in the developed world. It is a fallacy to think Labor's policy of 18 weeks' leave paid at the minimum wage is simply a ''start''. We will be living with it, I wager, for decades. Britain, for example, has deferred indefinitely its plan of 52 weeks' paid maternity leave that was due to start in April. The economy, the weather … there is always a good reason to defer upgrading plans that support working women in particular. Australia's proposed 18 weeks at minimum wage compares unfavourably with much of the developed world. Sweden grants 16 months of paid maternity leave (a minimum of two months to be taken by the father), and so does Norway, Denmark 52 weeks, Czechoslovakia 28 weeks, Ireland 26 weeks, Hungary 24 weeks, Canada grants 15 weeks to the mother and a further 35 weeks to be shared with the father. While baulking at 52 weeks, Britain already grants 39 weeks' paid maternity leave. In many of these countries weeks or months of unpaid leave are also available. Australia's proposed quantum of leave compares more with Asian or Latin American countries than with Europe, and the low payment ensures fathers will not take it. It was always going to be difficult to fund a generous parental leave scheme out of general revenue given the straitjacket politicians have tied themselves in. With any hint of a tax increase evoking howls of hysteria, governments are confined to very modest social initiatives that involve cuts elsewhere in the budget. In Australia more than most places, couples are reliant on two incomes given astronomical housing prices, rents and mortgages. Yet most women want at least six months off work when they have a baby, and babies need that time, too. Paid parental leave is as legitimate a right as sick leave. The only way to have secured a better parental leave scheme, 26 weeks with replacement wages, such as Abbott is suggesting, was to have imposed a levy on business, with a contribution from government. The levy goes into a funding pool so that no single employer is penalised by having a large female workforce, and there is no incentive to discriminate against women in hiring. The thrust of Abbott's scheme is not outlandish, except in a world where business is untouchable. It was not so long ago business almost succeeded in rewriting the nation's industrial relations policy. What business wants - and doesn't want - is not always good for Australia. The details of Abbott's policy may well need refining - the 1.7 per cent levy on taxable income on the top 3200 companies might be too high and too narrowly based. It would be helpful if he provided more details on who advised on and costed the policy. With his track record, and with business, Labor, and the media against him, Abbott is not the best advocate for a policy that in principle is far from reckless. Instead we will settle, with gratitude, for paid parental leave that is so much better than nothing but leaves us behind countries such as Britain and Canada. And we'll be stuck with it for decade [ 本帖最后由 水月境天 于 2010-3-14 18:55 编辑 ] |
