Stay-at-home mothers given the SHAFT by Australian government

Image result for mother and baby public domain

(courtesy publicdomainpictures.net)

By Spencer D Gear

The stay-at-home mothers get the SHAFT from journalists and MPs too often. These are but a few examples of the discrimination now plaguing some parents (mostly mothers) in Australia.

Australia’s Prime Minister strutting his stuff

Flower12 ‘”Paid parental leave is an important economic reform, very important economic reform, that will boost participation and productivity,” Abbott said this week on ABC’s AM program’.[1]

Flower12 Tony Abbott: ‘If female participation in Australia were 6 per cent higher, at Canada’s level, GDP would be higher by $25 billion a year”. Imagine how much richer we’d be if we climbed 16 per cent higher to reach Iceland’s level’.[2]

Writers who give stay-at-home mothers the SHAFT

cream-arrow-small ‘The happy wife is a full-time domestic goddess ministering to the every need of her perfect (and good job-holding) husband and her brood of adorable kids’.[3]

cream-arrow-small ‘Currently 58.4% of all adult women participate in the labour force (ie. as workers, or looking for work); compared with 70.9% of adult men. The reason for the gap is because of the decline in participation of women aged 25-34 compared to men’.[4]

cream-arrow-small ‘52.2% OF VOTERS IN AUSTRALIA ARE WOMEN!’[5]

cream-arrow-small ‘International research confirms that 80 per cent of a child’s development happens in the first three years of life. By the age of four, 92 per cent of the brain is formed. If children aren’t being spoken to enough, are not being exposed to different types of stimulus or if they’re spending too much time in front of a television screen, their long term educational outcomes are compromised’.[6]

cream-arrow-small ‘In this country, more than most others in the advanced world, caring for the home and for children is still considered a predominantly female occupation’.[7]

Discrimination against single income families

These are some of the issues relating to how stay-at-home mothers in households are being discriminated against:

Image result for tax public domain(public domain)

cubed-iron-smSingle income families get only one tax-free threshold whereas dual income families get two tax-free earnings of $18,000 for each partner’.[8]

cubed-iron-sm Another discriminatory policy is Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s Paid Parent Leave which offers mothers in the paid workforce their full salary for six months of maternity leave up to a total of $75,000. The money is to be obtained by a l.5% levy on big companies. Single-income families are discriminated against not only because they do not get the maternity leave payments but also because the tax cuts to big companies to cover the cost of the PPL levy will come out of the pockets of taxpayers’.[9]

cubed-iron-sm ‘Mr. Abbott and Mr. Hockey, stop discriminating against mothers and their children on the basis of the mother’s paid-workforce status. Government payments should be focused on the well-being of children and not on preferential treatment for career women. And if there are any disgruntled feminists who object to such equitable policies, just offer them the title of “Duchess” or “Countess”. This should keep them happy for a while’.[10]

Stay-at-home mothers out of fashion

Annabel Crabb wrote for the ABC,

The stay-at-home mum had quite the heyday for a while, but Tony Abbott has turned his back on the band of women his party once championed…. She is the Australian stay-at-home mum.

Of all the fascinating reinventions Tony Abbott has undergone over the years, nothing is quite so intriguing as the way his legislative taste in women has changed. When he was sworn in, pledging to assist “women struggling to balance work and family”, it confirmed what his epiphany on paid parental leave had already suggested; the model Abbott mum is now an employee, not a homemaker.[11]

The Australian Centre for Leadership for Women wrote to the Prime Minister of Australia:

Australia’s employment rate for mothers is the lowest of all the countries in the OECD at 62%. Universal paid parental leave is a critical strategy in encouraging new parents to stay in the workforce and achieving the G20 goal of increasing women’s labour force participation by 25% by 2025.[12]

What pressure is being placed on mothers to get back into the workforce! But at least this group of women was prepared to admit in this letter to the PM:

There is compelling evidence of health and welfare benefits for mothers and babies from a period of postnatal absence from work for the primary caregiver of around six months.

Australian guidelines and the World Health Organisation recommend that infants are fed nothing but breast milk for their first six months of life and continue to be breastfed into their second year. Exclusive breastfeeding ensures that babies receive the full nutritional and development benefits as well as protection against infection and some chronic disease.[13]

Because of this push by government and other interest groups for paid parental leave and the government’s wanting women to get back into the workforce as soon as possible after the birth of a child, I sought guidance from the Scriptures and sent this email to Queensland senators. This is what I wrote:

My letter to Senator about stay-at-home parents

(Senator Barry O’Sullivan, public domain)

 

I’m concerned over the downgrade given to women (and some men) who choose to remain at home to raise their children. So, I wrote this email letter to Queensland Senator Barry O’Sullivan on 15 May 2015.

I have become disillusioned by what the Coalition federal budgets for 2014 and 2015 are doing to mothers who are not in the out-of-home workforce. You are talking up the need for mothers to get back to work. I’m a long-term family counsellor and I’ve seen the many deleterious consequences of what this does to families.

Do you realise how many stay-at-home mothers there are who could swing an election, especially when the Coalition gives them the SHAFT like it has in the last 2 budgets?

How many stay-at-home mothers are there? I only have access to statistics from the Australian Bureau of Statistics 2009-10. This is what I found in a section (chart) on the ‘Employment Status of Women‘:

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Notice the second last line where for 2009-10 it indicates that ’employed mothers in couple families with children’ were 66% of mothers. That means that the remainder – 34% of unemployed mothers with children, i.e. stay-at-home mothers – are the ones who have been forgotten. They have been given a kick in the guts by the Abbott-Hockey government.

They could swing an election result.

One-third of mothers are stay-at-home people. But your Coalition government have not been fair with them. They have not been treated with justice in the 2014 and 2015 Coalition budgets.
I urge you to quit this inequity by:

  1. Increasing the Family Tax Benefit to single income families with stay-at-home mothers, and
  2. Making the single-income household equitable. At the moment a single-income family with $120,000 income pays approx. $10,000 more tax than a two-income family what has a joint income of exactly the same amount – $120,000. This could be repeated across various levels of income. THIS IS UNFAIR AND SINGLE INCOME FAMILIES ARE OR SHOULD BE EXASPERATED  by what the Coalition is doing to them. THIS VIOLATES FAIRNESS AND JUSTICE. All Aussie families deserve to be treated with equity.
  3. What would be a fairer way? Bring in legislation for income splitting so that, based on this example, the two adults in the household would earn $60,000 each and EACH would benefit from the tax free threshold.
  4. My understanding is that this would provide tax relief for about 800,000 families at a cost of $1.5 billion per year. However, the BIG issue is fairness. Then add,
  5. I urge you to read the research on the impact of a mother’s love on a child. See, ‘How a Mother’s Love Changes a Child’s Brain‘ (Live Science, January 30, 2012). This research found that ‘Nurturing a child early in life may help him or her develop a larger hippocampus, the brain region important for learning, memory and stress responses’.
  6. When will you as a Coalition acknowledge that the uniquely close relationship between a mother and her baby is critical for the baby’s development?

Please tell me what you will do to bring equity into families with a taxation system of fairness to stay-at-home mothers, starting from this budget?

The Senator’s profound response

I was not expecting the kind of solid – even profound – response from Senator O’Sullivan. His email to me on 17 June 2015 from his Toowoomba office stated:

Thank you for seeking my views on same-gender marriage.

As you would be aware, our party has a long standing party position on this issue and we have consistently shared this position with voters.  My party’s position is completely in accord with my own personal position.

Keeping in line with LNP policy, I have staunchly told my parliamentary colleagues, fellow party members, media and the public that I will oppose any measures by parliament to alter the timeless definition of marriage as being between a man and a woman.

I believe the strength or weakness of marriage as a social institution profoundly affects the well-being of everyone in society, especially children.

The state should protect and promote marriage—notably the family unit, which is marriage in its fullest fruition—because it is a distinct and irreplaceable way that men, women, and children can flourish.

The union of husband and wife is, on the whole, the most appropriate environment for rearing children. This is an ideal that is supported by the best available social science.

Recognising same-gender relationships as marriages would legally abolish that ideal.

It would remove the notion that men and women typically have different strengths as parents; that boys and girls tend to benefit from fathers and mothers in different ways.

I also do not support a conscience vote on the issue of same-gender marriage. A conscience vote should only be reserved for matters of life, which this issue is not.

As I travel across the state I do not experience the apparent voter interest in the same-gender marriage debate that is claimed in some sections of the media.

Voters are instead focussed on the day-to-day issues such as the economy, cost of living, access to quality education, drought and infrastructure delivery.

I strongly believe marriage between one man and one woman is critical to making a positive contribution to maintaining social stability.

Society as a whole pays a high price when marriage is devalued.

Thank you for taking the time to write to me on this very important issue.

I was not expecting such a concise and profoundly thought out response. May the Lord bless and encourage Senator O’Sullivan who is standing up for God’s view of heterosexual marriage.

God’s view is heterosexual marriage

Image result for clipart marriage public domainclker.com (public domain)

No matter the voice of the naysayers who are ruining marriage, I have tried to be faithful to God’s view in support of heterosexual marriage in these articles:

Notes


[1] Anne Summers, ‘Abbott’s baby bonus in disguise’, The Sydney Morning Herald, 18 May 2013. Available at: http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-opinion/abbotts-baby-bonus-in-disguise-20130517-2jrmf.html (Accessed 23 June 2015).

[2] In Emma Alberici, ‘Female workforce participation: key is childcare, not babysitting’, The Canberra Times, 18 April 2015. Available at: http://www.canberratimes.com.au/comment/female-workforce-participation-key-is-childcare-not-babysitting-20150418-1mn86z.html (Accessed 23 June 2015).

[3] Anne Summers, ‘The tyranny of the white picket fence: Abbott government can’t be serious about encouraging women in the workforce’, The Sydney Morning Herald, 12 June 2015. Available at: http://www.smh.com.au/comment/the-tyranny-of-the-white-picket-fence-abbott-government-cant-be-serious-about-encouraging-women-in-the-workforce-20150612-ghlpop.html (Accessed 23 June 2015).

[4] Greg Jericho, ‘Abbott’s paid parental leave will do little to bring women to the workforce’, The Guardian, 10 March 2014. Available at: http://www.theguardian.com/business/grogonomics/2014/mar/10/abbotts-paid-parental-leave-will-do-little-to-bring-women-to-the-workforce (Accessed 23 June 2015).

[5] Sarah, ‘Dear Tony: The power of Australian women’, 13 May 2015. Available at: http://sarahsheartwrites.com/2015/05/13/dear-tony-abbott-the-power-of-the-australian-woman/ (Accessed 23 June 2015).

[6] Emma Alberici, op cit.

[7] Emma Alberici, op cit.

[8] Babette Francis, ‘An open letter to the Prime Minister and Treasurer’, OnLine Opinion, 15 April 2014. Available at: http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=16215 (Accessed 23 June 2015).

[9] Ibid.

[10] Ibid.

[11] Annabel Crabb, ‘Abbott’s message to mothers: get to work’, ABC opinion, The Drum, 16 May 2015. Available at: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-05-14/crabb-so-long-howards-cherished-stay-at-home-mum/5452004 (Accessed 23 June 2015, emphasis in original).

[12] ACLW, ‘Statement sent to PM Abbott on support for the current Paid Parental Leave scheme’, 22 May 2015. Available at: http://leadershipforwomen.com.au/transform/statement-sent-to-pm-abbott-on-support-for-the-current-paid-parental-leave-scheme (Accessed 23 June 2015).

[13] Ibid.

 

Copyright © 2015 Spencer D. Gear. This document last updated at Date: 21 November 2015.