Andrew
I accept the thrust of your argument re the effect on businesses of a key employees taking time out. But this is a different issue from whether leave is paid or not and how much. My argument is that PPL is a lottery-being tied to fulfilling requirement of paid work even though it is a tax funded not employer funded scheme and is suppose to be in the best interests of babies. My preference is to pay all mothers of newborns the same amount and pay for that by combining the costs of PPL with the parental tax credit, in work tax credit, and childcare subsidies for those under one year. I don’t see the point in limiting contact with the workplace – mothers can use the money to pay for nannies etc if they choose and see fit. Australia does this all much better than we do

I cant see how it would as it is not funded by the employer? 6 months out of the workforce would not require retraining surely?

The point is there is no obligation to go back to work and the comment in the last sentence if it is true is true independently of PPL.

On that reasoning it is surprising they vetoed this bill as the PPL excludes the worst off and goes without any income test to high income families

Frank
by that reasoning the industry of child rearing should collapse as it is totally propped up by the unpaid work of mothers.
Surely the issue here is that PPL is a tax funded payment to support babies and mothers- why should she miss out? PPL only replaces lost income and if you dont earn any regardless of how many hours you work you dont get any or the very minimum

business can’t afford to pay anyone else,

Perhaps that business is so grossly under-capitalised that it’s going to collapse anyway. Why should a new “young mum” have to prop up a failing business at the expense of her family?

This also means women don’t have as big a hit to their career since their male coworkers also tend to take leave.