Mama of maternity leave

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this has now changed!

To be honest I don't know much about maturity leave allowances etc.

Nice!

I think the govt funded paid parental leave is awesome and I will be benefitting from it in 4 months.

This is great and long over due other countries have been doing this for many years i just so happy that Australia follows their lead this will help many families and the early stages and allows more mothers to spend more time with their children so win win horay for common sense

I agree with this. Staying at home with a new baby is DEFINATELY a job!!

I think it's important to have some time to bond with your baby and I think this is a great thing.

I think this is wonderful, though the one thing that worries me is whether it will then encourage workplaces not to give their own paid maternity leave as they know the goverment is paying it.

I had my 1st bub at the start of this year. Prior to that I was working as a scientist but was on a contract. I had been in this job for 4 years and every year my contract got renewed...until last year when I fell pregnant. Under my contract I was entitled to 14 weeks paid maternity leave (or 28 weeks half pay) but unfortunately my contract finished 2 weeks before my bub was due and so it was not renewed. I was absolutely devestated when I found out (I cried for 3 days straight...damn hormones!) because we were really counting on my maternity leave. I agree that we should have saved for teh baby, just incase, but I had just assumed that I would get the leave so was going to take 28 weeks off then go back to work. Now I don't know what to do. I don't have a job to go back to so would need to find another one, but then I am loving being at home with my bub. I have had to get a casual job doing book keeping, which luckily I can do from home, to make ends meet. But I don't know whether I will go back to science and that is a real shame as I studied for 8 years to get where I was. I think if the government pad maternity leave was around at the start of this year then my contract would probably have been renewed so then I would have gone back to work.

18 weeks probably isnt enough, but it is a lot more than most women get and would definitely be a huge help in those early days. And if it means that employers and now more inclined to keep a worker than let them go, it can only be a good thing.

Great to see so many different opinions here! As someone who has no family or friends close by to help me if/when I have children regarding small respite breaks, to aid in home childcare to help me rejoin the workforce etc I think the maternity scheme is a step forward for Australia. We are behind the 8ball in this area and as a low income earner (fully aware of the soaring costs involved with childcare) any type of assistance that enables a parent to spend more time with their new born and help with all the associated costs a growing family has is a positive. Sadly there will always be people who abuse or isuse such schemes but for the majority it is a great help. Many highly financially sound people probably will not see the help that this scheme has for those less fotunate and working hard to have a family and home life.

makeupcrazed I know more than a few families who received the baby bonus and not to mention all of those government bulk payments to families with children (there is one at the end of every financial year, along with some stimulus payments last year) and around here not many children benefited from the extra $$$ instead the pub's did and still do extremely well out of it, and the pokie machines etc so while it may not be the majority of the people who abuse these types of bulk payments there is still a HUGE amount of people that do. I guess it should be given out in the form of vouchers or something similar so that the money gets spent on the children instead of entertainment for the parents ???

Perfectly said makeupcrazed :-)

Great news for any mums-to-be :)

I have two children and i think the new maternity leave payment is great. However im not working and havent for a long while so i dont think i would have ever been eligable for maternity leave.

I think it is quite a generous offer and I can certainly see how it will benefit individual new mothers who would be incurring an enormous amount of expenses when they just have a baby. The money would certainly go a long way. It would be a positive to the economy because it means Australia's population can grow positively and maybe reverse the current ageing population effect.

The stay at home mums are not saying 'what about me'. All we want is to be treated fairly like everybody else. There is a preception that stay at home mums are lazy and undeserving. My husband and I have gone without a lot of things so I can stay at home. We have an old car, no flat screen TV and we don't go on holidays to name a few. My hubby works 75 plus hours a week so we can manage. I am sick of people wanting the government to pay for everything. As for the baby bonus paying for the plasma TV I know first hand of many families that used it for just that reason. What ever happened to saving to have a family.

In my case as is the case with some of my friends that are also 'stay at home' mums the family tax benefit and the Baby bonus still don't add up to the paid maternity leave. I like you am entitled to my opinion and I think the whole thing is wrong. The government would be better encouraging people to save for having children. This could be accomplished by stop taxing interest on savings accounts. We will all pay for this by higher taxes, the money has to come from somewhere and if we don't pay higher taxes someone else (hopefully not someone more needy) will miss out.

Wow. That's fantastic! Especially the part about rolling over the pay!

I think it's a good move though 18 weeks may still not be enough. I think it's really important for mother's to be able to spend those crucial first months bonding with their baby so this is something that will help to achieve this.

I agree Soozie - Women need to work, and as you say in many cases it is a necessity to today as the income from the man often is not sufficient. But also - women should be allowed to work - and not 'have to retire' when having children - and in my opinion the govenment is though the paid maternity leave scheme sending the right signal - to support working women have a family

FANTASTIC, and ABOUT TIME that Australia catches up the the rest of the western world - Australia has been one of the only contries not offering this - and you cannot tell me that governments in all other contries of the world dont know what they are doing. The Scandinavian contries even offer up to 12-18 month of paid leave!! Personally I dont have children, but it is on the agenda in the near future - and no, it wont happen, or be fast tracked due to this new policy - and at a management wage, it will still far from cover my current wage while on leave, but it will certainly help - every bit does!

And like several others have commented, its it not about the government paying women to have children - its about giving the new babies the best start to life by mum or dad being home for longer, than finances would otherwise have allowed.

Is it enough with 18 weeks - personally I do not think so - if you are unwell leading up to the birth, and need several weeks off before, it can essentially just give you 3 months off after birth, and in my opinion thats not enough - who wants to send a 3 month into childcare....? I would like to see this extended to 6 months - but hopefully in the future - other countries around the world have extended their scheme. In my opinion - and speaking form business point of view, I also feel that an extension to 6 months, would make it easier to employ a temp to replace the new mum for 6 months, while anything shorter will make it more difficult to get a good and qualified replacement - and hence, I could see many companies (its happened where I work), adopt the attitude, that "its just for a few months, we'll cope without her" - while a 6 month period is a too big mouthful for most companies, who will then employ temps - hence increasing the number of temp people in employment, creating more taxes, which essentially should help fund schemes like this!

I think the payed maternity leave is very important and much needed in familys where both parents work, and lets all face it, times have changed and it is no longer a luxury for 2 both parents to have to work, it is a necessity. I have 6 children and I was so lucky to be able to stay home and raise them all, we just rented and we owned nothing, had no luxuries and lived on bare basics. I thought I was doing the absolute right thing for them and me, and it wasnt uncommon to be a stay at home mum. We had lots of good times, but fast forward, the kids have mostly all grown up, I am divorced on a pension trying to support myself and the last of the kids before they leave home too. I worked in chidcare a while which was a natural progression but due to a car accident this is no longer an option,so I am skill less and now looking at retraining so I can enter the workforce and try to etch out an existence for myself. The reality is WOMEN NEED TO WORK, and anyway which that can be supported benefits both mum, dad and kids.

I think it is a fair amount for the govt to pay. I'm still confused though - if you get paid maternity leave does that mean you do not receive the current baby bonus of $5000 (so effectively it is a replacement of the current bonus)?

I won't be using this for a long time yet, since I don't plan of having babies any time soon, and my current employer gives us paid mat leave. It's good that it will get extended to everyone though.

This doesn't affect me, as I have 4 kiddies already, and there is no way I'm having any more, but for those working mummy's who couldn't get paid leave before, this is great for them.

I think this is a wonderful idea. It keeps the financial pressures off a bit and allow mums to spend more quality time with their bubs. However, I'm a little worried that this will make employers think twice about employing young women. Although my employer says they are 'family friendly and offer flexible working arrangements' but in reality, that's not the case.

Fantastic!! Im wanting ti start a family very soon and have been very worried about this. Im so wrapped. Takes a whole lot of pressure off as I am currently the primary income esrner and without my wage, I didnt know if we could survive. This gives me a whole lot of hope now that starting a family is possible!