It’s not often that Warren Truss gets much of a look in. In spite of the small detail that if Tony Abbott wins the election Truss will be the deputy prime minister, the Nationals leader isn’t exactly high profile on the mainstream radar.
But this weekend the erstwhile half of the Coalition agreement pulled his leader up on the promise to introduce a wildly generous and inequitable paid maternity leave scheme - sort of.
I’ve written before that Tony Abbott’s plan to tax (sorry, levy) our biggest companies to pay for a scheme that would see women on $150,000 paid $75,000 when they had a baby, was only going to deepen the irrational battle going on between women over how they choose to raise their children.
It’s certainly a bold policy, that has big business quite peeved. But having used its announcement to celebrate International Women’s Day, it’s going to be hard for the Opposition leader to put the toothpaste back in the tube on this one.
In come the Nats, making a bit of a promise of their own. They want to double the baby bonus for stay at home mothers.
They had their national conference this weekend, where mothers were high on the agenda - specifically stay-at-home mothers, who get a bit of a raw deal out of Abbott’s plan. Some were also concerned about the government-funded scheme (yes, I know there’s a business levy, but essentially it’s a public scheme, which makes it taxpayer-funded) being based on the size of a woman’s private salary.
An unnamed Nat was quoted in the Sun Herald as saying: “Why should a woman in the city be paid $75,000 when a part-time nurse in a regional area would only get $25,000?”.
Truss was on Insiders this morning saying that of course the Nationals will abide by the policy (even if it’s through gritted teeth).
He sort of summed up the divide between working and stay-at-home mothers perfectly.
Well it’s a generous scheme and it’s much more generous than anything else that’s been put on the table.
What it is also however is an investment in the professional women of Australia. Now women are playing increasingly important roles in management, in key positions in almost every country.
Now we want those people to be able to continue their careers and this will certainly help to enable that to happen. And so that’s a very positive element of the program.
But we think also it’s important to recognise that those mothers who choose to stay at home and look after their children, they’re also making important contribution to our nation which ought to be recognised.
What he didn’t address, however, is the inequity of a woman being paid a much greater tax-payer-funded amount to have her baby than the woman down the hall.
Yes, people deserve different salaries for different jobs and skills sets, but surely all reproductive systems are worth the same.
I reckon Abbott’s got himself into a mess on this policy. He might want to sit down with his Coalition partners and work out a compromise that will work for everyone.
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