Policies
Families Australia is committed to the development of broadly-based and relevant policy given:
- the diversity of family forms in Australia today
- the significance of extended families to the health and wellbeing of families
- the complexities of the current split of responsibilities between Australian and State and Territory Governments.
The focus of Families Australia is on developing and contributing to public policy which impacts on families, young people and children nationally.
Paid maternity, paternity and parental leave
Families Australia considers paid parental leave to be one component of a continuum of supports needed to allow both parents in working families to combine work and family responsibilities. Australia should leapfrog past solutions for the 20th century that assume combining work and family responsibilities is primarily a women’s issue, and design a parental leave scheme suited to the 21st century. Such a system would provide at least 14 weeks, but ideally 24 weeks, of paid parental leave following birth, access to unpaid leave for up to two years to be used by either parent, the right to request part time work by either parent and ongoing parental leave for emergency care. Read more
100 Policy Ideas for Enhancing Family Wellbeing
In the run-up to the 2007 Federal election, Families Australia released 100 policy ideas for stronger families. These included: a National Family Wellbeing Framework; a ‘National State of the Family Report’; a National Child Protection Strategy; an Australian Government Minister for Children and Young People and an independent Federal Commissioner for Children; a significant increase in spending on the health of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people; universal access to family friendly work conditions, including access to paid maternity/parental leave; a national grandparenting information service; and a commitment by all governments and past providers of institutional care to provide ongoing assistance to organisations supporting Forgotten Australians. Follow the links below to read the complete policy statements.
- Family wellbeing
- Child protection
- Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people
- Work and family
- Grandparenting
- Substance abuse
- The ‘Forgotten Australians’ (persons who were in institutional or out-of-home care as children during the period between the 1930s and the 1970s).
Promoting family wellbeing
There is no widely accepted framework which focuses specifically on family and takes a comprehensive approach which can guide research, policy development, resource allocation and evaluation. Families Australia advocates for the development of a national family wellbeing framework which will help to guide national policy development across all major social, economic and environmental fronts. More
National Access Card
In 2007, Families Australia actively engaged with the then Howard Government, including at Ministerial level, in relation to the proposed National Access Card. Families Australia opposed the card on several grounds. More
Work Choices legislation
Families Australia argued publicly for changes to the proposed Work Choices Bill in 2005. We believed that, without additional supporting measures Work Choice implementation would potentially jeopardise the prospects of Australia’s most vulnerable families, and further increase pressures on family relationships and social cohesion. More