Well, the reality is more complicated and less cheerful than the title would suggest. However, without wishing to argue blow by blow with every point made by Mark or the commenters in this thread on the issue, I think there is another way to look at Tony Abbott’s announcement on paid parental leave – namely, as a concession of a key victory to feminism in Australia.
Prior to and throughout the life of the Howard Government, the question of whether it was all right for women to combine paid work and parenting, and of whether public policy should support this choice or discourage it, was a matter of partisan debate in Australia’s political mainstream. Whilst the Howard Government did not succeed in reversing, or even consistently strive to reverse, decades of sociocultural change and return to 1950s patterns of female workforce (non-)participation and stay-at-home motherhood, the policy initiatives which regaled single male breadwinner families (such as Family Tax Benefit B) or made life harder for working mothers (childcare cuts in its first couple of budgets), and the grudging nature of such concessions as were made to working mothers, were clear enough indicators of where Howard’s preferences lay.
The Mummy Wars were also a key front in the Culture Wars. In 1997 the Centre for Independent Studies disgraced itself by misusing social statistics to try to blame working mothers for increases in serious crime. Throughout the Howard Government’s life, writers such as Angela Shanahan, Bettina Arndt and the emerging Janet Albrechtsen filled copious column centimetres arguing that mothers ought to want to stay home with the kids, and misused or misinterpreted social statistics in attempts to prove that this is what most women really wanted.
They were not without allies within the more conservative corners of the ALP. Marn Ferson disgraced himself in 1999 by endorsing Michael Thompson’s Manifesto for Howard which supported CIS claims that working mothers caused rising crime. Mark Latham disgraced himself by providing bipartisan support for Howard’s revised baby bonus in 2004 and not supporting universal paid maternity leave.
Now the political and policy landscape has changed. We have a Federal Labor government which is committed to introducing a universal paid maternity leave scheme, albeit one which is far less generous than it needs to be and than what many other countries provide. And what is the response from the most conspicuously conservative Liberal leader in history, the man who in 2002 said that paid maternity would be introduced over his dead body? He proposes a scheme which is more generous than Labor’s in terms both of the financial benefit and the period of leave provided. However one tries to dig deeper into Abbott’s motives, whatever one makes of the clunky and contradictory language of his statement announcing the proposal, the bottom line remains that there is no longer a partisan division in our political mainstream over whether it’s OK for women to combine paid work and family, and whether public policy should support this choice and accept that it’s the one most women want. Ironic and improbable as it may seem, Abbott’s speech can be regarded as marking an historic, albeit long overdue, win for feminism in Australia. To quote from Abbott’s statement:
My personal commitment is that Australia will finally have a national paid parental leave scheme that’s more than a mere token acknowledgement of women’s rights. Every woman who is in the workforce before the birth of her child should have the option of six months’ parental leave or of a similar option for her partner… This is not the only benefit that the Coalition would like to see provided to families with children but it’s certainly an iconic one worthy of affirmation on International Women’s Day.
It is understandable that people are sceptical about Abbott’s announcement in the light of his conservative Catholic past and (still largely) conservative Catholic present, However, another way of looking at the issue is that it’s only someone like Abbott who could champion such a shift as Liberal leader. Had Turnbull announced such a policy, it would have been belaboured by the Right of the Liberal Party and their friends in the commentariat as proof of his treachery, and most likely would have been dumped along with him.
The question remains, what has brought about this historic concession to feminism by the Liberal leader? One reason could be recognition that Australian public opinion is becoming more feminist over time, not less, as I argued here in 2005. Subsequent social opinion studies have confirmed the trend.
Another reason, however, could be to do with the way in which a social movement such as feminism achieves social change. One traditional socialist conception of social change (shared by many who are not socialists) is that it occurs in accordance with the intentional implementation of a party or government program – a view best summed up by Paul Keating’s statement that “When you change the Prime Minister, you change the country.” However, the feminist insight that “the personal is political” points up the reality that much important social change occurs at what Antonio Gramsci called the molecular level, i.e. at the level of individual decisions and life choices which. in aggregates of millions or tens of millions, amount to major sociocultural change. This is basically what has been happening over the past four decades or so as successive generations of women – partly under the influence of feminist values, partly in the changing environment of choice created by contemporary capitalism, and partly in the environment of choice provided by different mixes of public policy in different countries – have made different life choices in aggregate than preceding generations. As many commentators have pointed out over the past 15 years, it is precisely those societies which have sought to maintain the “traditiional” single male breadwinner as the norm in the teeth of this trend which have become the least socially sustainable, as Abbott’s great friend and co-ideologue Greg Sheridan conceded last year:
About 70 per cent of women in Japan permanently give up paid work after they become mothers. In many ways, this is admirable, but not if the Japanese women don’t actually want this state of affairs. And in any event, the Japanese economy needs them in the workforce.
Of all modern, advanced economies, Japan has the most mother-unfriendly corporate culture and work practices. Some forms of the old social solidarity reinforce this. The practice of lifetime employment and long hours put in by “salarymen”, including bonding over work dinners and drinking bouts, make it extremely difficult for mothers to go in and out of the workforce.
However much traditionalists may decry this, it seems an almost universal feature of modern economies that if you offer women a stark choice between totally abandoning the workforce for motherhood, or totally abandoning motherhood for the workforce, a certain substantial proportion will take the latter option.
Events at the molecular level also change the minds of significant individuals. This is from Abbott’s statement:
This hasn’t always been my view. It’s the position I’ve slowly come to watching the way friends and family members have struggled to combine motherhood with very demanding careers and considering the options that I would like for my own daughters. It’s not fickle to change. It’s more likely to be wisdom than weakness. In any event, on the issue of paid parental leave, I consider that I have changed my mind rather than my values. I have always placed a high value on having children but now have a better appreciation of the policies that are needed if this is to be a more realistic option.
I used to think that employers should pay parental leave if they believed that it would help them to attract and retain their workforce but that they shouldn’t be forced to by government. This is the instinctive liberal/conservative position but it doesn’t take into account the social changes of the last two generations. For economic and personal reasons, the majority of mothers-to-be will be in the workforce and institutional arrangements should evolve to reflect this new social reality.
Abbott and Sheridan have not ceased to be conservative, but they have been mugged by molecular reality. As a result it would appear that they have abandoned the reactionary and revanchist view of the Shanahans, Arndts, Thompsons et al (see above) that sociocultural changes associated with feminism are an unmitigated evil to be reversed, and may have come to a Burkean conservative acceptance that good policy which preserves what conservatives most value about family life needs to work with the grain of such changes.
Jeez Paul, there’s one born every minute. Some points here:
1. Tony Abbott actually has no intention of introducing this policy. What he wants is to be at the centre of the public debate surrounding the policy, and in particular to try and force business groups to have to talk him out of pursuing the policy, thereby forcing them to re-engage with the Liberal Party;
2. The principle that payments are based on income rather than need simply entrenches existing inequalities, and will do little to benefit the vast majority of mothers and children;
3. The big government scheme forecloses the opportunity for individual firms to develop their own parental leave schemes to maintain high performing female staff, that could be built upon a more modest mandatory scheme of the sort that the Rudd government is in fact introducing.
You only need to look at the front bench of the Coalition in contrast to Labor and the Greens to get a sense of which has the l;east claims to being a “party of feminism”.
The paid maternity leave policy – if in fact it is a policy that the Shadow Cabinet endorses – is classic Tony Abbott rope a dope that he probably learned from his boxing days. Cunning politics sure, but nothing in it for most women.
Wot Terry said, particularly poit 2 which seems to have been generally overlooked.
Terry, let me reassure you that Abbott has won neither my vote nor my preferences sa a result of this statement.
Let’s also assume for the sake of the argument that this announcement by Abbott is a case of bowing down in the House of Rimmon rather than any genuine change of position. We are still left with the fact that no Liberal Party leader 15 years ago, or even five years ago, would have announced something like this even as a stunt and a pretence. The terms of the debate about work and family issues have undoubtedly shifted and Abbott would not be making such statements (whether sincerely or tactically) if they had not shifted.
I would also make the point that, in my view, one reason why most Australian right-wing commentary on the Left is of such poor quality is that, with a few exceptions such as Andrew Norton, most right-wing commentators in Australia are too emotionally attached to a cartoonish stereotype of TEH LEFT to be able to intelligently analyse what the Left is, who it is and what it stands for. I’m concerned that some of us may be falling into a symmetrical error in our responses to Abbott’s parental leave announcement.
Even if Abbott has no intention of pursuing this policy in government, as Terry asserts, he has already elicited the response he wanted from Tanya Pilbersek, the Government’s spokesperson. Abbott’s explanation on ABC Lateline was a politician’s professional ‘change of mind’ over the 2002 views he held and my guess is that many viewers will applaud him for it. And my guess is that there will be more of it in other areas. Labor ministers need to be on their toes. Pilbersek should have applauded his new found belief as an affirmation of current labour market trends rather than play the man.
I give you ten out of ten for missing the point Paul.
This has nothing to do with feminism and everything to do with paternalism.
This is designed to force women to stay home and raise children, do the ironing and other wholesome, Tony-approved activities. Tupperware parties, perhaps.
Tony’s musings on levying business to pay for ‘maternity leave’ are his usual disengenuous stuff. Busness cannot absorb these kinds of costs, effectively paying double for employees. By making women employees of childbearing age a financial risk for any business, Tony is assured of making these women unemployable. Better get married and stay home, girls. Score one for conservative catholicism!
If this were genuine, it would be trialed first in the public sector for a year or two, to see the actual effects on the organisation, workforce, and so on.
re your later comment, Tony has annoucned many things no liberal leader before him has announced. This will continue. These aren’t policies, just devices to get his name repeated over and over in the daily babble.
Paul,
I really don’t think that this announcement by Abbott is in the mainstream of the Liberal party. In fact, I think I can say that it isn’t. As the months progress, it may well be the case that this policy proves to be Abbott’s undoing.
Watch the response from Business lobby groups. The Liberal party relies on funding from Business in order to back up the ever increasing party funding gap between itself and the ALP (reliant as it is on a healthy stream of Union funding). Business is furious about this policy. If they are angry enough, the funding will dry up. When that happens, the policy will change. The same pressures that come to bear on the ALP from trade unionism on industrial relations policy will come to bear on the Liberal party.
What I think Tony Abbott is expressing here is a stream of old DLP thought that the government can be a force for “preserving social values” & the financial viability of heteronormative (largely Catholic) “families”. Most ordinary Liberal party members oppose this however. Those on the liberal side of the party see maternity leave and the baby bonus as an excuse for higher taxation and many liberals would see it as a form of social engineering to be resisted.
So to respond to your blog post, I think that you are seeing a (temporary?) expression of good old DLP “government in the service of good families in the community” style policy.
Shouldn’t parental issues be a victory for parents, not feminists? Not that the two things are mutually exclusive, of course, but it’d be nice to see more emphasis on child-rearing as a shared right and responsibility, and income earning as an equal right. Or is LP just joining leaders of both Liberal and Labor in their expressed belief that women = child-bearers = child-rearers?
I appreciate the thoughtful post Paul
That said, I saw this issue as one of trying to help stressed parents, but on another level I guess in Abbott’s mind he is perhaps trying to win the feminist vote.
Saint Furious #8, if you look at LP threads over the past five years you’ll see a good number of threads and coments, including some from myself, emphasising “child-rearing as a shared right and responsibility, and income earning as an equal right”.
To say what I said #$ in another way, and without wishing to pick on any commenter in particular, as a late adolescent and very young adult in the 1970s and early 1980s I partook of the trope of FRASER TEH FASCIST which was one of the discursive by-products of the dismissal of the Whitlam government, and as a young adult in the 1980s partook in the trope of HAWKE TEH ARCH-TRAITOR TO LABOR PRINCIPLES in response to things like Bob Hawke’s position on uranium mining. Neither of these tropes was conducive to a proper understanding of what Fraser and Hawke were actually doing in their times as Prime Minister. Whilst a trope about ABBOTT TEH MAD MISOGYNIST MONK might have its appeal in an election year, we should be wary of believing such a trope so completely that our critical faculties become blurred.
You could have written your contribution without insulting people with speech defects. You may think it’s smart or funny to continue using tired old referencing of Martin Ferguson as “Marn Ferson” but where do you get off by using such insulting language? You have accused C.I.S. of disgracing itself in 1997 – surely this is a case of the pot calling the kettle black.
You have spoilt a topic which has worthwhile elements to discuss with your juvenile usage of language.
I tend to agree with St Furious at #8 … I don’t regard parental leave as a feminist issue at all. It’s mainly a social justice issue, with economic and HR management implications.
St Furious: Shouldn’t parental issues be a victory for parents, not feminists? Not that the two things are mutually exclusive, of course, but it’d be nice to see more emphasis on child-rearing as a shared right and responsibility, and income earning as an equal right. Or is LP just joining leaders of both Liberal and Labor in their expressed belief that women = child-bearers = child-rearers?
I don’t even understand what you’re getting at here, St Furious. More emphasis on child rearing as a shared right and responsibility, and income earning as an equal right, is a victory for parents, but not feminists… how? Can you apply the allen key of language a little more assiduously to the flat pack of thought?
Terry: The principle that payments are based on income rather than need simply entrenches existing inequalities, and will do little to benefit the vast majority of mothers and children
Yes, this is just a victory for the already privileged and I’m surprised that he’d choose that model. It lends even more credibility that this mooted “policy” is simply a pantomime which the Monk never intends to implement, should he get into government (shudder).
A very thought-provoking post, Paul, and I suspect you’re at least partly right. That said, I also suspect Antonio is partly right, and that davey is also correct to point out the perverse incentives thereby generated. Very generous maternity leave provisions often result in more women (and a few men) staying at home with small children for longer periods, although if that is the policy effect one wishes to achieve, there are ways to do it without alienating business or increasing the employer incentives to discriminate against women of childbearing age. These include things like income splitting (far more efficient than the churn produced by the family tax benefit and the baby-bonus). France has both income splitting and very generous childcare provision, which may offer a clue to its high birthrate.
Various people have commented on the way Abbott’s imaginary scheme is funded by a levy on large employers. The overwhelming response is entirely predictable, because we’ve all seen it before. The patriarchy still by and large controls employment in the Western world (and I’m not talking about only male employers, but a system accepted by many) and when faced with a threat of a scheme like this, this many-headed entity has all the cards in its hands. It responds with the predictable: “So, we won’t employ any women then! So suck on that, social reformers!” Fin. until the next round.
Funnily enough, in the male dominated world of building & construction in Australia, we have Long Service Leave and Redundancy schemes levying money from employers, small ones as well. It’s funny how employer levies are completely and totally unacceptable when it comes to a cohort of mostly female employees working in less unionised workplaces, and completely normal and acceptable when it comes to blokes working in male dominated industries with lots of union muscle. Next time you hear Heather Ridout wailing about the Armageddon that will result from levies for parental leave, think of the perks the construction workers get.
Helen, I’m not gifted with language, it’s well established by now, I’m sure.
I did say that the two things, [ie: a victory for parents, and a victory for feminists] were not mutually exclusive.
I’m simply addressing the title of the thread and the implication that parental leave is an example of “Feminism conquer[ing] the Liberal Party”.
I don’t think it’s much of a victory for Feminism when politicians from both sides of the [shrinking] political divide consistently equate ‘women’s issues’ with parenting issues.
When you consider in recent weeks we’ve had a discussion about whether Kevin Rudd was joking when he referred to higher education as a way of young women avoiding parenthood. We’ve had Mike Rann referring to the things he believes women care about and all of them relate to child-rearing. And now we have Tony Abbott in a speech to mark International Women’s Day discussing nothing but parental leave.
brisbanedavey @ 6 – As I understand it, the business would pay the levy regardless of whether they employ women or not so its not going to be any extra disincentive. I do think its a bit odd to only target big business though – the companies that I know of who do offer maternity leave already are large organisations and they would end up paying twice. And btw I think you’ll find many of the public service organisations already offer 3 months paid maternity leave which many mothers stretch to 6 months at half pay.
I too find it difficult to believe that the Liberal party would implement a policy like this. Though its puts the government in the rather odd position of having to run with the “not affordable” line.
SFoI @ 8 – Maternity leave schemes (and although this is labelled parental leave the way its structured means its overwhelmingly going to be maternity leave) can actually reinforce primary care rather than shared care arrangements. Because it allows for only one person to take time off as the leave arrangements themselves cannot be shared easily. It’d be nice to schemes which allow for both parents to get part time paid parental leave or flexibility for leave to be taken when most children are no longer breast fed.
Chris – “It’d be nice to schemes which allow for both parents to get part time paid parental leave or flexibility for leave to be taken when most children are no longer breast fed.”
Yes, I agree.
Rumblings in the party room, according to this report.
Helen, though I agree with your point about double standards, to be fair to Ridout IIRC she also opposed CoINVEST in Victoria, and in their Workchoices submissions asked for the State legislation allowing it to be made void.
Whether long service leave and redundancy are “perks” is another question. I’d argue strongly that they’re not.
I agree too.
I disagree with the idea that a parental leave scheme is unfeminist. If it’s genuinely set up as parental, not just maternity, leave (which it certainly wouldn’t be under a Liberal regime, I agree) it can’t be said to be framing women only as parents. (Most) feminists want to find ways in which women can be parents without being unfairly disadvantaged and ending their lives in poverty. That’s not the same thing as saying they must be parents, and it’s not equivalent to saying that childfree people can go jump, either.
Without parental leave, childcare and the whole bag of family friendly policies, the only option for women who want to go further than a certain level in their work is to go childfree. And for some, that’s fine, but it shouldn’t be coerced, as it was in our grandparents’ day where most serious working women had to choose between job and family. Prominent men don’t have to do that.
While Terry’s right that Abbott is probably not intending to implement this policy, and also about the way the scheme is designed to benefit the economically privileged most I do think a lot of commentators are missing Paul’s central point.
20 or even 10 years ago there is no way someone on the conservative side of the Liberal Party would have raised this policy, even if it was a ruse designed not to be implemented. The benefits to them of increased economic inequality would have been outweighed by the pain of surrendering to the view that it was legitimate for mothers to want to go back to work while their children were too young. The fact that Abbott has taken this position says something profound about the way that feminism has seeped into the veins of the body politic, even amongst those who most hate it.
Thanks, f.s.
Yep, you’ve copped a few tomatoes Paul but I think your central thesis is sound; it’s actually something else that Heather Ridout mentioned in her interview on ABC this morning: that she felt the situation in Australia had come a long way now that both the majors have paid parental leave on the table, compared to 5-6 years ago, even if the Abbott plan was rubbish.
She also made the point that parental leave is an overwhelming priority for the lowest-skilled 30% of the female workforce: in that many of the more highly-skilled occupations already have employer-funded parental leave schemes of varying degrees of quality: but that it was the 30% of women working in the least-skilled jobs who could most benefit from a government-supported scheme. And of course, the entire family – siblings and husband (if present) benefit. So there are profound social justice issues beyond solely the feminist angle you’ve propounded.
That said, the tomato-throwers have also made some very strong non-mutually-exclusive points, esp. St Furious and Helen.
Thanks all for an enlightening discussion!
Let’s not forget that paid maternity leave is only one part of the equation. Workplace flexibility is another crucial aspect, as the sorts of women who pursue ‘very demanding careers” know all too well. After 6 months, you might want to go back to work, but if going back to work means 10-11 hour days and little opportunity to build the demands of child-rearing into your everyday work life, then many women will simply be unable to return to their old jobs.
Can someone explain to me why they are so certain that Abbott has no intention to implement this policy?
This policy has the potential to cause deep ructions in Liberal ranks. Why would Abbott endanger himself for something that he is determined to drop?
That line of argument doesn’t make sense.
Has anyone considered the possibility that the ALP just missed a wondeful opportunity?
What would the result have been if Rudd walked into the Parliament with a bill providing for pretty much exactly what Abbott had promised? Made a speech abotu what a good idea it was, we’re not partisan, open to all initiatives etc etc…and demanded the Liberals support it?
You are assuming, Katz that this was a carefully considered policy decision in which Abbott weighed up the benefits and drawbacks carefully before coming to a decision, instead of an ad hoc attempt at a wedge, and a method of keeping his name in the limelight. Well it certainly has achieved the second.
To put your question another way: Why would Abbott propose to actually implement a policy that antagonises his natural allies and donors, particularly at a time of funds shortages?
“Why would Abbott propose to actually implement a policy that antagonises his natural allies and donors, particularly at a time of funds shortages?”
Or why would he would he ambush his party with a policy that they have previously died in a ditch opposing?
Because Abbot’s modus operandi is “Ready, Fire, Aim”. It’s the way he does everything. He’s a political bomb thrower, just like Mark Latham was. Very entertaining in its own way, and unsettling for his political opponents, and indeed his allies, but eventually bomb throwers blow themselves up.
When the Libs decided to knife Turnbull last year, the catalyst was their howling indignity at Turnbull playing the “I’m the leader” card over the ETS. Turnbull apologised to the party room, but by then it was too late.
Now this incredible account of today’s party room meeting from the Oz:
WTF? This guy isn’t ready to lead the nation. Heck, he isn’t even ready to lead a quad-biking expedition into the…oh, wait.
Of course parental leave is a feminist issue: the very expression ‘parental leave’ is one of feminism’s many achievements.
Correction St. Furious: he wasn’t discussing parental leave, he was discussing his own tortuous progress over many years as he gradually changed his attitudes and ideas about parental leave.
As always, it was all about him. Again.
“…..(I) consider that I have changed my mind rather than my values. I have always placed a high value on having children but now have a better appreciation of the policies that are needed if this is to be a more realistic option…”
Whatever game our jaw thrusting opposition leader is playing, he’s going to get himself in a sticky sort of muddle.
More “realistic” options in the parent / children debate also has to involve planned parenthood, birth control, and abortion of demand.
Old Tony’s musing are going to be his own undoing – if he is pushed hard enough.
As usual, Katz makes the most sense.
Sam @26 is right. Its “Action Man” stuff, like Mark Latham used to do in 2004. Remember when every household was going to get two children’s books, c/o the would-be PM’s office, and John Howard suddenly had to carry some children’s books with him whenever he went to a school, for fear of being upstaged by Latham.
Tony Abbott has a polling problem with women, particularly middle-income professional women. He knows it, and the Liberal Party know it (although its not so much that he has a problem with women, as women have a problem with him). He’s not going to drop the Action Man persona, as everyone around him believes that its working, so he needs to try and out-bid the government in a parental leave policy auction.
He has a lot of latitude at present as: (1) the Federal Libs are pretty much accepting that he will lead them to the 2010 election, as the consequences of rolling another leader are too dire to contemplate; and (2) the perception is that they won’t win government, so the key is to make bold promises rather than be economically responsible. As Liberal spokespepale often say “We’re not the government …”
I suspect there are a lot of ructions about this just below the surface in the Coalition, and not just because of the new tax on business. When the Baby Bonus was introduced, there were a lot of grumblings in talkback world (Libs heartland) about young women being “paid to breed”. I’ll be interested to see/hear if this resurfaces.
At least one Cabinet critic was apparently ‘vociferous.’ Should we have a guessing competition as to who it was.
For me, Minchin, surely.
But that’s not the same question.
The above question is: “Why would Tony Abbott be so reckless as to propose this policy regardless of consequences?”
My original question implied this question: “Why would Tony Abbott propose a policy he intended to repudiate?”
These two question assume quite different states of mind in regard to Tony Abbott.
How’s that Howard?
It looks mighty like the wheels are already falling off Tone’s plan. You could tell that this morning when an interviewer asked him who he consulted about his plan and he refused to name them. Then started rambling on about how everybody knew his view from reading his book. Claptrap.
The Latham comparisons continue. He wrote seven books, and was continually directing ABC interviewers back to them.
All Tony Abbott needs to do now is have a running race with a journo.
As Pavlov’s Cat so rightly points out, “the very expression ‘parental leave’ is one of feminism’s many achievements.”
The argument isn’t that Abbott’s announcement is in any way proof that he’s a feminist or anything remotely resembling one. The argument is that feminism has, in this area, been successful in getting this issue so firmly on the table that even avowed anti-feminists like Abbott have to acknowledge it.
Good post Paul.
I think it’s called a non-core promise.
Thanks Anna.
Pavlos Cat: “Of course parental leave is a feminist issue: the very expression ‘parental leave’ is one of feminism’s many achievements.”
Again, I didn’t say parental values and feminist values are mutually exclusive; I didn’t say it’s ‘unfeminist’ as Helen extrapolates. Or am I just being naive for thinking that if women and men were participating in parenting, and in the employment market with genuine equality, then this discussion would be carried out in a very different way? Isn’t the underlying assumption here that the business owners are men, and the parent taking leave is inevitably a woman? Perhaps I’m also being naive when I think if the broader inequalities that affect ALL women, not just those that choose motherhood, were addressed then this issue would be be addressed in a way that does offer genuine flexibility to parents, and provides greater assistance to those with greater needs [ie: single parents], and isn’t simply a one size fits all pro-traditional-family-values policy statement.
Likewise, when Tony Abbott say he feels threatened by gays, the majority of the discussion reveals that most assume this mean he’s frightened by same-sex attraction in men, some offer that he’s worried about sexual advances from men. Lesbians are invisible in that discussion, in the same way that women who aren’t Mums are invisible in this discussion. Isn’t the simplest explanation for both of these Abbott threads simply that Tony Abbott is scared of anything that isn’t within his very conventional, very traditional notion of ‘family’. If some want to see that as ‘Feminism conquering the Liberal Party’, well knock yourselves out. I think it’s ridiculous.
Paul – it was a joint partyroom meeting, so everyone was there.
My money is on it being Iron Bar
Katz you’ve forgotten that Abbott is an idiot. Seen through that lens, everything he does make sense.
Also, he as incidentally (idiotically, natch) shot his “great new tax” line on CPRS – a line that seemed to be sticking somewhat – to shit.
Ah yes, “non-core promises”. The term revivifies an era of small-minded mendacity and of moral vacuity.
However, Howard’s “non-core promises” involved promises NOT to do something, in this case cut public expenditure in areas that Tory philistines love cutting public expenditure. Acting on those lies was easy for Howard. He only had to use a red pencil on a budget line.
However, in order for Abbott to establish the bona fides of his parental leave policy, he needs to go to the trouble of costing it, work through the administrative minutiae of establishing entitlements and liabilities and a whole raft of other things.
Unless Abbott does all those things the proposal will become an electoral albatross rotting round his neck long before the voters are given an opportunity to show him what they think about liars who concoct fake policies.
No. This doesn’t look like a “non-core promise” to me, unless we concede that Abbott is a complete incompetent in the grubby game of bidding for votes.
LP people may be interested to know that Abbott changed his position on parental paid leave during the period when he was writing Battlelines nearly a year ago and has been advocating a version of his current policy in party forums ever since. The only people to whom this policy came as a big surprise were those who hadn’t been paying attention. It fits in neatly with his long-stated concern to lift the national fertility rate to replacement level (2.1 if my memory serves). If the levy –at least pro tem — to pay for it strikes some as a kind of syndicalism, it’s worth bearing in mind that the French fund a lot of their social welfare policy this way.
I think Abbott failed dismally in his attempt to wedge the Labor Party. The Libs have always trotted out the line that Labor hates business – union access to workplaces, wage rises, enterprise bargaining and unfair dismissal laws were all proof that Labor hated business.
Yet Abbott’s out there announcing an impost on those same businesses.
I think he was playing the opponent from 15-20 years ago. The “we hate business” section of the Labor Party is a small minority these days. 20 years ago Kevin Rudd and his economic conservatism would never have made it to the top of the Labor Party. They’ve recognised that they have to be pragmatic and embrace the big employers and what they bring to the country.
Paul Burns,
The main criticism against policy like this will come from those in the party who support lesser government intervention to engineer social outcomes. Minchin is most definitely not one of those people. He has a definite idea of what kind of society he wants and believes that using the mechanism of government is the best way to eventually achieve it.
Given enough time, policy announcements like this will weaken the hand of the social conservatives in the party as the funding tap literally turns off from business. Once a few more state governments go Blue, expect a lot more sustained criticism.
Getting back onto topic, I certainly don’t see Abbott’s announcement as some kind of victory for progressive feminism in this area. I think on this thread Helen @ 20 summed up the progressive feminist view on maternity leave best when she said: “(Most) feminists want to find ways in which women can be parents without being unfairly disadvantaged and ending their lives in poverty.”
By contrast, Abbott is harking back to conservative Catholic idealism where the state provideth so that women can populate the nation in good stable families. This idea of woman as heteronormative breeder and the womb as an asset of the state is about as far away from progressive feminism as you can get.
Another aspect to Abbott’s announcement, I think, is a pretty rank dog-whistle at the xenophobic Right – “we need whiteys to breed otherwise we will get overrun by immigrants”. The key to this is found is Abbott’s Lateline interview last night when he said here:
http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2010/s2840098.htm
“But I think that this is pro-family, it’s pro-child, it’s pro-mother, and in the end, it’s gonna produce a much stronger economy, because if we look after mothers in the workforce, we’ll have more kids, and there is no greater contribution to the future economic strength of Australia than the kids we have now.”
I think it’s pretty clear what he is getting at here and the kind of voters he is talking to…
I disagree quite strongly with the post, Paul:
http://larvatusprodeo.net/2010/03/09/unfairness-and-abbotts-parental-leave-non-policy/
Zut alors! The Mad Monk is aping the French!
Doesn’t he know that the French are Cheese-Eating Surrender Monkeys?
Will all the children born as a result of this race-saving initiative be presented with commemorative white surrender flags to celebrate the great tradition of French feats of arms? (Mind you, surrendering does tend to reduce death rates that would otherwise threaten the race.)
Merc, I would never throw tomatoes at Paul! I wasn’t actually disagreeing with him, just going off at a bit of a tangent (as usual.)
…besides, your modern tomato, grown for trucking durability rather than taste or aroma, could do someone a serious injury!
16 Saint Furious of Ikea – possibly not the place for discussion on that but has there been a peep of complaint from Funnell about the PM’s disavowal of that conversation?
@49 – Antonio, agree thoroughly with all of that.
You’re right Eryn. Judging by the reaction in the Lib partyroom and business corridors, Abbott has managed to execute the rarely seen and spectacular self-wedgie with pyke.
An especially dangerous manoeuver when one is smuggling budgies.
The one party forum that matters to Abbott is the FPLP, socon ginger groups in the state divisions are irrelevent. They could all be Phds in Abbottcare and it would count not a whit with the parliamentary party.
(Interesting that the Lyons Group of social conservatives actually at Canberra appears to be defunct. This proposal is really more in kepping with the tradition of Joe & Dame Enid IMO, despite the obligatory ’tis all because Tony is a Grouper!’ stuff this has dredged up.)
Well, Nugget Combs had a grand plan to implement Chifley’s bank nationalisation along the lines of the non-partisan French scheme of socialised retail banking. No prizes for guessing how fairly that was treated by the then Oz elites.
This is a total loser for Abbott, and not just because of the ‘no taxation without representation’ corporation Rights mob . Paul Norton is onto something when he invokes the doctrinaire socon hatred of policies designed to help mothers stay in the workforce.
I heard the results of a phonepoll on commercial radio this morning—90% were against Abbottcare. Not particurlarly scientific, to be sure, but the polls on the station in question are normally reliably stacked by either conservative geezers and/or Liberal phone trees.
I agree with Paul’s take on this – it represents a victory for feminist discourse in Australia. Were Tony still opposing this basic discourse he would be trying to die in a ditch for the baby bonus, arguing that it works, etc. Either he has concluded that feminist views are so widely entrenched that practical policy has to trump ideology to keep the fertility rate up; or he has concluded that feminist views are so widespread that he can’t win an election without a parental leave policy.
Either case represents a victory for feminism and a sign that the cultural battle over “working mothers” is nearly over.
I don’t see how this is incompatible with Mark’s post either – there’s nothing in feminism that requires a particular policy not to entrench some other kind of inequality (e.g income based) by bad design, or that prevents a policy being figured on a gradual modification of existing economic relations.
The author argues
“It is understandable that people are sceptical about Abbott’s announcement in the light of his conservative Catholic past and (still largely) conservative Catholic present…”
This is irrelevent rot. Catholicism has no reason to be hostile in any way to maternity leave. This is yet another slur on Catholics with no base. If you are going to attack them at least base it on some valid point. Why on earth would maternity leave and Catholicism present a problem??
Secondly, what is slightly overlooked in the above article is that full time double income families serve capitalism well. I do not believe that women should stay home with kids. But I do believe a parent of both parents should be at home with children. I titally oppose childcare as a tool of capitalist society to push more people into work life. My partner and I have sacrificed an income to share work and family duties because we see it as so wrong to get underpaid young women from working class backgrounds who have no kids of their own to raise the kids of middle class careerists so they can go off and get rich. Of course, it is cheaper for capitalism to underpay childcare workers and push middle class career couples into the madness of 9 – 5 double income life. The true challenge is to take on work culture in this country and for families to reclaim life for themselves rather than being corporate and office slaves.Underpaid strangers should not bring up kids in the kid prisons they call childcare.
I’m pretty sure this is what’s going on. As I mentioned @14, France combines income splitting with generous maternity leave and childcare policies, and has the high birthrate that one would expect from facilitating choice in that way. I don’t think there’s a shadow of a doubt that Tony wants more babies — I’m sure he’s even said that in various places. He’s just realised that if that’s what he wants, he has to shape practical policy accordingly.
Is it a victory for feminist discourse simply because Tony Abbott acknowledges its existence? I doubt it.
Abbott acknowledges this discourse in order to corral it.
“In order that everything remains the same, everything has to change.”
It’s moot. You can’t ever trust Liberals to do the right thing.
Still, you’ve raised a number of interesting points, Paul. It’s certainly the first time in my conscious life that a Lib has posited a Great Big Tax on business to finance social welfare.
It’s occurred, pace many others in this post, that painting this as a blow _for_ feminism ignores the more subtle form of discrimination that women can face due to their often-absence in the workforce at what is often a pretty critical time in someone’s career (late twenties to mid thirties, i.e. when you just start making big league). Thus, when women return to work – often part time – they are behind their male peers in salary, seniority, and often available.
Abbott’s call for leave like this ignores the fundamentally chauvinist structure of our current workforce; fails to address it completely, and as such I just can’t get on board with it being “pro-feminist” – built as it is wholesale on outdated and patriarchal notions of what work even is, not to mention parenting, childbirth etc.
While I feel Spana @59 rather misses the point of what he or she was critiquing in their first para, I feel there’s a very good issue raised in the second para.
If anyone is really serious about encouraging more people to have more kids who grow up healthy in both body and mind, then a good starting point is rethinking a culture where “economic contribution”, “cost effective”, “lifestyle”, etc is valued above family, despite all the dismal “work/life balance” and “family values” platitudes to the contrary. It used to be that being middle class only took one income.
A few other observations.
Politicians of all stripes are seriously weird people, especially if they’ve been doing it for a decade or more. Not to say that makes ‘em necessarily bad or bad company. But whoever said “politics is showbiz for ugly people” was right but not quite the way they thought. Both vocations involve very long and often not very businesslike hours, good people skills in tight situations, being on the road a lot, years of hustling, personality clashes and creative/policy differences that could sink everyone’s mutual show and/or career and major role changes while also often seductively offered a range of moral, economic and personal temptations. While every professional fuckup and personal idiosyncrasy is mocked and mercilessly documented by the media for people who can end your career just by being distracted by an alternative you.
Now imagine knowing all that and then knowingly choosing a political or showbiz career. Like I said, they’re weird people.
And Tony is no exception. Maybe he just genuinely had a brainfart and thought “fuck all the advisors, spinners and fixers, pestering me to measure every word, I’m just gonna put it out ‘cos I really think it’ll work (ibid., SL and others) and anyway I’m on a bit of a road trip high here, let’s see what happens next.”
But if Tony and his team are deliberately and strategically trying to strike the populist note here, then the problem is that the populace as they know it is shrinking fast. The days of a few competing mass media outlets laying out the news with deep fried opinion on the side to one nation under a common groove are running out fast. Thanks to the whole Web 2.0/Social Media/cloud cubby house thang, the populace is now gleefully spinning away from any consensual centre into millions of semi-organised, semi-autonomous and often semi-sentient swarms – all energy, instability and cyber-pheromones.
Under such circumstances, you’ve gotta play the populist very carefully and in very big broad brushstrokes, providing plenty of blank space for your followers’ interaction – and your opponents’ graffiti. Exhibit A: Obama’s presidential run. A masterpiece of 21st century web generation campaigning. So far.
What was my point again? (I can certainly recommend this Gembrook Hill cab sav I “liberated” from work today) Oh yes, if Tone @ Co have planned this vapourware as a careful populist policy move, they’re dreaming. Not that it won’t get nibbles. Just not the drift net harvest that pollies used to expect from such moves.
Did I mention they are genuinely yet genially weird people?
How old was the Cab Sav, Nabakov?
Anyway, Tony’s brainfart might’ve just been because he’s been away from home for a few days and he’s not thinking with his big head because he’s desperate for a root.
“…and he’s not thinking with his big head because he’s desperate for a root.”
That may be not as far from the truth as you think. His “not getting enough on the road” comment I bet struck chords with pollies across the spectrum. We’re talking here about ambitious, highly sexed and emotionally volitle careerists with professionally seductive people skills – under pressure and often well away many a night from whatever sources of emotional sustenance they have nurtured.
I doubt few would be thinking clearly under such circumstances. Especially when a camera is shoved in your face, preying for the moment you get off it.
Not that I’m excusing antediluvian attitudes by any pollie, rather pointing out that in this day age, my general feeling for old school pollies is more pity than anything else.
There they are, facing a fast and ever changing swarming mob of their employers who are getting up to far worse than for what they hold their pollies accountable. And all these pollies have got left is a few golden oldie singalongs where even they’ve forgotten everything except the chorus.
So yeah, I bet Tone has had his fair share of sitting in a hotel room late at night, a long way from risk-free comfort, watching the box and speculating on whether you can tell female from male sharks*.
* “In The Loop” is the best parody (not satire) yet of the dying days of 20th century politics and the birth of 21st century politics.
“How old was the Cab Sav, Nabakov?”
Old enough to be put out of its misery. But look at this hour, one does recall Lenin’s observation that enough quantity does become a quality of it’s own.
For “it’s own” read “its own”. Now I can lay me down to rest without an errant greengrocer’s apostrophe running through my dreams.
Here’s some good pillow music that I should have posted in the hottest 100 female pop songs thread.
“Just be glad to feel”
A bientôt.
In somewhat related news this policy could end up being very good for real liberal parties, such as the LDP which seem to be the only pro-business party left in Australia.
Terry, let me reassure you that Abbott has won neither my vote nor my preferences sa a result of this statement.
Colour me surprised. Just as a thought experiment what hypothetical policies could Abbott install in order to make you vote for him instead of the party that you have preferred for your entire life?
most right-wing commentators in Australia are too emotionally attached to a cartoonish stereotype of TEH LEFT to be able to intelligently analyse what the Left is, who it is and what it stands for
“TEH LEFT” is the people in this thread, who see the Liberal party as cartoon villians, so much so as to posit conspiracy theories as to why Abbott would talk about this sort of policy when he hates women so much, failing to realise that this sort of thing is the way conservatism has been heading for many years.
Babies above all else. Throw money at people to have babies. Make the childless pay for it. Standard operating procedure for the liberal party.
I’m imagining plutocrats the length and breadth of this great country of ours sighing in relief at this snippet of news!
The LDP: dedicated to forming a majority, one deluded fantasist at a time.
the people in this thread, who see the Liberal party as cartoon villians
In our defence, if Tones and Barnaby didn’t behave so cartoonishly, we wouldn’t be so inclined.
It is a Oz version of US Republican Bush II governance large social expenditure programs with little attention given to how they are to be financed.
Abbott to Australian corporations: Pay this ransom … or else.
But the question is: “Or else … what?”
The Rudd Labor government has demonstrated itself to be an entirely dependable servant of Australian corporate capitalism.
Thus, Abbott’s ransom demands are based on an a profound misunderstanding of political realty in contemporary Australia.
Indeed, Abbott’s understanding of political economy appears to be mired in the era of Doc Evatt and Eddie Ward.
The LDP got less than 0.18% of the vote at the last election (NSW Senate, where the star candidate Terje Petersen led the ticket)so they’ve got some way to go.
Steve Fielding was elected with 0.08% of the vote.
Someone needs to research how Senate elections work.
Steve Fielding got elected through a freakish distribution of surplus ALP votes.
The chances of it happening again are as likely as Barnaby Joyce joining a commune in Nimbin.
Newsflash: dorky man dressed as beer bottle seen in vicinity of Tuntable Falls, NSW.
It’s really not that rare Sam. All you need to be elected to the Senate is 2% of the vote and some good preference deals. Nick Xenophon was elected to SA upper house with 2.9% also.
Yes, it’s one of the baleful consequences of the above-the-line option for Senate voting introduced by the Hawke Government in 1984 and misused by the Labor Party at that year’s election and several times since.
Yeah, but it’s aved a lot of trees, Paul @ 79.
I hate to think how many hactares of forest I’ve despoiled by fucking up the Senate
BedsheetBallot when I try to fill in every square …Katz@26:
The idea of this policy is to secure votes before an election. After a Coalition election win, the new government will be under pressure to cut expenditure – and an unfunded $3b program which hasn’t been implemented would be first on the chopping block.
As I’ve said elsewhere, this is the moment from which to trace the decline of Abbott. This proposal is so outlandish, so badly thought out and so out of kilter with other policies (particularly economic ones) that it simply has no credibility.
Think of it as the equivalent of Medicare Gold – some people thought that sounded good at the time but it had no credibility, nobody changed their vote over it and nobody missed it when it was quietly buried.
It is also consistent with the badly thought out brain-farts that Abbott has exhibited throughout his career. During the Howard government, Abbott would come out with “ideas” that directly contradicted the actions of ministers (Amanda Vanstone was a particular target); because he was Howard’s pet they just had to suck it up. Both Nelson and Turnbull as leaders faced this too, having to declare through gritted teeth that “Mr Abbott is entitled to his opinion”. The next Liberal Prime Minister is going to have to tell Tony Abbott to fuck off.
When you talk about “deep divisions”, remember that the Libs are on their third leader since the last election. Abbott could propose to invade New Zealand and they’d have to keep stumm. You can expect a flurry of denials afterwards, lots of named and unnamed “senior Coalition sources” saying “I tried to tell Tony it was a bad idea but he wouldn’t listen …”. I strongly doubt any such dissent will be in evidence beforehand.
Yobbo: the LDP likes the idea of business but hates the reality of it, a bit like the relationship of Trotskyites and Maoists to working people. Maybe they’ll get one Senate seat, maybe they won’t – the point is that they’ll be like the dog chasing the car, lots of noise and focus won’t translate into operational competence. Using Fielding as a model for anything is unutterably sad, notwithstanding the idea that a fully equipped Senator costs at least a million taxpayer dollars each year.
With luck, Andrew E @ 81, the next Lib PM won’t have to deal with Abbott because he’ll be dead (or at least retired) by then. OTOH, I think the next Liberal PM will have to drive a stake through Minchin’s heart.
Have to agree on both counts, DI. The road back to office for the Liberals lies over both their dead bodies, never mind Rudd’s and Gillard’s.
Just so you know, Andrew, I’m stealing that line.
I’m sure you’ll make a motza from it Liam, and am equally sure you’ll sling me a percentage of your earnings therefrom.
Why are you trying to crush an honest businessman with intellectual property costs Andrew? Road to serfdom, piles of skulls, etc. etc.