Australian federal public service urged to extend parental leave entitlements

Australia’s federal public service should review, update and extend its parental leave entitlements for working parents, according to the main public sector union. 

“The Maternity Leave Act must be updated to provide a modern baseline of entitlements, with the ability for innovation in enterprise bargaining to continue,” said the Community and Public Sector Union. 

Employees who experience miscarriage or still birth should be provided with paid leave, it added.

“The Coalition government’s bargaining policy is enormously misaligned with broader national workplace relations policy where bargaining for parental leave (and conditions generally) is the norm and has enabled workplaces to move with the times,” it noted. 

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The union also called for greater flexibility in when and how parental leave was accessed over a period of up to five years, the right to extend unpaid leave until children reach school age, and the extension of parental leave entitlements to adoption and foster care, reports The Canberra Times.