I’ve covered paid parental leave for more than a decade, and taken three stints of it myself in that time, including as a small business owner. I never thought we’d reach the point of discussing a rollback, or of hearing a federal politician describe how the scheme works so clumsily.
But this is 2026. We should know by now to expect anything when it comes to politicians winning a few likes across certain aspects of social media.
Still, there are reasons to be optimistic about the cost of such rollback discussions. Monday’s Redbridge polling found a slump in support for Pauline Hanson and One Nation, with many media reports and commentators quick to link the fall to Hanson’s comments on parental leave, childcare and working families.
As CEO of The Parenthood, Georgie Dent said on the latest findings: “Families are under enormous pressure. The parties that listen to parents and offer practical solutions on paid parental leave, early learning and cost of living will be the ones that earn their attention.”
“Any political party that treats childcare or paid parental leave as optional, wasteful or out of step with what families need is badly misreading the community.”
Australia’s paid parental leave system is far from perfect and has considerable room for improvement. But it’s taken a lot to get to this point, where, as of today, the government-funded scheme is now at 26 weeks, up from 24 weeks at this time last year.
Hitting the “half a year” milestone is meaningful, demonstrating the government’s commitment to supporting new parents. Additional changes as of today to encourage more fathers to take the leave, including increasing the number of reserved days from 15 to 20 to nudge fathers and partners to actually take it, are also meaningful. Especially given the rise to four weeks of leave.
The World Health Organisation recommends six months of exclusive breastfeeding, but until today, Australia’s scheme didn’t cover the period assumed by the health guidelines. Six months is also the threshold at which research shows real gains can be made, with reported outcomes including lower maternal depression, better infant health and higher rates of women returning to work.
As we recently found in our Beyond The Village report surveying more than 1000 new mothers, the opportunity for mothers to form and sustain new connections in the months after having a child is critical to addressing maternal loneliness and providing much-needed community and local support.
Australia has also lagged behind other OECD countries on paid parental leave, including having no scheme at all until 2011 and starting with 18 weeks, which was well below our counterparts. We’re still lagging many countries, especially the leaders on gender equality internationally like Iceland, Sweden and Finland. But Australia is, slowly, continually improving.
Also, as of today, 12 per cent super will be paid on government PPL, further contributing to women’s economic security and sending a message that gaps in paid work to make way for unpaid work shouldn’t come at a cost to your retirement savings later on.
We’re a long way from reaching the support needed for caregiving equality, but a full month is a message to fathers on the value of their contribution, and a far stronger financial incentive to actually take it.
We have further to go. The government-funded leave is at the national minimum wage, failing to replace most parents’ actual earnings, and nowhere near the real cost of taking time out.
But nothing in the current paid parental leave scheme came easy, or by accident. It took years of pressure to get a scheme in the first place, and further (and continued pressure to see the various evolutions that have occurred). It’s progress that must be protected at all costs. We saw at the last election how voters will punish politicians who attack things like work-from-home and other mechanisms that parents often use to get through the working week while managing caring responsibilities.
If Pauline Hanson wasn’t paying attention then, she should be now to how the community has responded to her comments. Or perhaps winning the week across some aspects of the web is still more appealing.