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Fathers of newborns failing to take up paid leave scheme

Amy Remeikis

It was designed to help fathers connect better with their newborn children, but Australia's paid parental scheme is leaving dads behind.

Fathers of newborns can claim two weeks' pay at the minimum wage – amounting to about $1345 – from the government when their child is born, if they earn less than $150,000 a year and pass a work test.

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But the scheme, which was introduced under Labor in early 2013, is still seen as under-utilised, with only about one in three of those eligible taking it up.

From June 2016 to the end of March this year, 62,560 people received the dad and partner pay (DAPP), slightly up from the same period the year before, when 59,216 people accessed it.

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Of 170,501 people who applied for the paid parental leave scheme, which offers the primary carer up to 18 weeks' pay at the minimum wage, just 620 were men.

To be eligible for the dad and partner pay scheme, a person must be the biological father of the child, the partner of the child's birth mother, or an adoptive parent of the child. 

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A University of Queensland review conducted two years ago found there was a lack of awareness of the scheme, despite a cultural shift for fathers to be more involved in their children's care. The review found men used their annual leave to add to their time off, which didn't leave much flexibility in later months if they were needed at home.

The architect of the scheme, Labor's Jenny Macklin, said there was "clearly some scope to improve awareness" of it.

Richard Fletcher, associate professor with the Faculty of Health and Medicine Family Action Centre at the University of Newcastle, said there was a lot more that could be done.

"One key problem is the fact that [the parental leave policy] is focused on a single carer looking after a baby," he said. "The idea is one adult is needed to look after a baby, and so if the mother is not working then the father must be. [The] idea is that sharing leave is based on the notion that if the dad is going to stop work and be involved in the baby, then the mother has to go back to work herself."

Dr Fletcher said Australia's policy encouraged fathers and partners to go back to work almost immediately, and the government needed to "both do more and do it differently".

"They need to do a lot more to support families who are having a baby, to avoid the ongoing costs of things like depression and children's difficulties, which cost the whole community a lot of money," he said. 

"They need to do more in making that a more supported transition, so the father should have greater access to leave at the same time as the mother. The father should also have, as happens in other countries, encouragement to go to ante-natal appointments. [This will] encourage him to be part of the process, so it isn't him arriving on the day of birth in his role as the father, totally unprepared and without any connection to what is going on."

But the government – which remains committed to the proposed PPL changes put forward as part of its original, but ultimately doomed, Omnibus Bill – has no plans to alter the dad and partner pay policy.

Its focus is on seeking to increase its minimum wage paid leave scheme to 20 weeks, but only for employees not utilising an employer parental leave entitlement.

So far, those changes have failed to pass the Senate, and Labor has said it will continue to fight the proposal.

"Working women have every right to access their paid parental leave agreements that they have negotiated with their employer and top up with the government's minimum wage scheme," Ms Macklin said.