Going backwards: How the parties rate on work, care and families - Women's Agenda

Going backwards: How the parties rate on work, care and families

Make no mistake: Labor and the Coalition want to win the ‘women’s vote’. Both claim a commitment to raising the women’s workforce participation rate, and for working towards the G20 goal of narrowing the participation gender gap by 25% by 2025. 

The problem is that neither party has a particularly comprehensive plan for making it happen.

So the 2025 goal is just that, a goal. In the final days of a marathon election campaign, we still haven’t seen a huge amount of policy aimed at working women – other than the Labor childcare package, which aims to provide long-overdue relief to families on childcare fees. 

Today, we have a scorecard on just what the campaign’s offered in the context of work and families, thanks to the Work and Family Policy Roundtable, a group of 34 researchers and academics from 16 institutions who last month released a number of priority areas it believes Australia should pursue to aid workforce participation and support caring responsibilities, including a capped 38 hour working week.

The group has now found that on many such priorities, this campaign’s actually taken us backwards.

Worse, it suggests the campaign’s strong focus on balancing budgets has seen conversations about balanced lives being politically sidelined.

“Policy in the many areas that affect households’ capacity to manage their work and care had gone backwards,” the group writes. “Employment regulation in particular fails to provide inclusive protection for all worker-carers. Neither Labor nor the Coalition has proposed a more sustained and integrated approach to managing public policy on work and care and national wellbeing.”

It’s called for a reinstatement of the Time Use Survey – a former ABS study that analysed how Australians use their time – in order to offer data and evaluation on better planning and coordinating action across all areas of work and care.  

Below’s an overview on how the Roundtable’s rated three policy areas affecting women, including childcare, paid parental leave and superannuation.

Early Childhood Education & Care [ECEC]

Coalition: The Coalition’s proposed structural reform to the childcare system, due to begin in July 2018, will introduce a single means-tested subsidy that will be paid directly to childcare providers and calculated against a ‘deemed’ rate. It’s expected to provide some additional support for low and middle-income households and deliver downward pressure on the cost of early childhood education. 

Labor: The Opposition’s announced changes to be introduced in January 2017, including a 15% increase on the childcare benefit and lifting the rebate cap to $10,000, with the ACCC responsible for monitoring prices across centres. 

The Roundtable says: “The ECEC policies of both major parties are inadequate, for different reasons, and will not deliver the economic and social benefits Australia should derive from increased investment in ECEC. The WFPR recommends a minimum of 2 days per week of subsidised high quality ECEC for all children, regardless of parents’ workforce participation.” 

Paid Parental Leave

Coalition: The Coalition plans to restrict access to the government Paid Parental Leave scheme, with women who can access an employer scheme only allowed to access the government scheme should their employer entitlement run out before 18 weeks.  

Labor: The Labor party plans to leave the system as it currently is.

The Roundtable says: “The WFPR endorses the basic design of the current system. However we recommend extending the current Parental leave scheme, including the Dad & Partner Pay, to 26 weeks in the near future and eventually to 52 weeks, raising the payment level from the minimum wage and including superannuation.

Superannuation 

Coalition: The Government plans to reduce tax benefits for high income earners on super contributions, and restore opportunities for low-income women to top up their superannuation balances.

Labor: The Opposition has proposed to cut back on concessions to high income earners, by reducing the taxfree concessions available to people with annual super earnings of more than $75,000.

The Roundtable verdict: “Superannuation concessions must address the intermittent workforce participation patterns of women who do the majority of unpaid care work. The WFPR recommends a liveable aged pension as a cornerstone of Australia’s retirement system.”   

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