AAP - 19 July 2002

Paid maternity leave was just one option the government was considering to help workers strike a balance between work and family, Prime Minister John Howard said today.

Mr Howard said a danger in the current debate was that paid maternity leave was portrayed as a magic fix for families.

"The danger I see in the way the debate has gone on paid maternity leave is that some people are representing it as the only thing that a government needs to do that and once you do that you've fixed the whole problem," he said. "That's not the case at all”.

"It is an issue and we're examining it and we will treat it as part of a whole range of policies."

The federal government is in the process of assessing costs for paid maternity leave options put forward in an interim report by Sex Discrimination Commissioner Pru Goward.

In its submission to the inquiry into paid maternity leave, Australian Business Limited (ABL) said small-to-medium sized businesses already provided flexible working arrangements for workers with families. ABL, a business development organisation for small-to-medium sized businesses, said a survey of its members found they offered alternative family arrangements such as flexible working hours, job sharing, home-based work and lieu time.

ABL spokeswoman Anna McPhee said businesses acknowledged the importance of balancing work and family life by offering flexible options for all employees.

"Enforcing employer, partly or fully-funded, paid maternity leave has the potential to discriminate against women, while placing additional and unreasonable cost burdens on employers," she said.

Ms McPhee said the survey did not support the argument women were not having babies because they could not afford to be out of the workforce.

In the survey there was no evident correlation between the provision of paid maternity leave and the actual length of time a woman took off work," she said.

A survey was conducted at 135 small to medium sized enterprises. More than five per cent of the organisations already offered paid maternity leave.