Labor’s Recipe for Work-Life Balance: Always, Families First

"A Labor Government will unashamedly pursue greater economic growth and prosperity, but it will be prosperity with a purpose. And I believe as a society, we can have no higher purpose than getting the balance right between work, family and community" said Mark Latham in his first speech to the National Press Club as Labor leader.

In his first speech to the National Press Club as Labor leader, Mark Latham eschewed an economic focus to concentrate on the issues of family and community and the role of work in people's lives.

"Often the lack of community comes down to something we can't buy - time. For many people, the lack of time in their lives is just as significant as a lack of money.

It's the challenge of our generation: getting the balance right between work, family and community. This is an era of great economic and social change. But not all the changes are positive.

We're being asked to work harder and longer. Yet we are losing the traditional sources of support to help us cope: the support of extended family and community. Our lives are being pulled apart by these twin forces - putting pressure on families, strain on marriages, isolating us from friends and taking us out of community activities.

For many Australians, life is becoming faster, harder and more stressful. But it shouldn't be this way.

Financially, we are a prosperous nation. It's time we focussed on the prosperity of our relationships: getting the balance right between work, family and community.

This means rethinking the industrial relations system. In this era of constant economic change, one thing hasn't changed fast enough: our workplace relations law. It still focuses on the relationship between employers and employees. It has little to say about the other important work-related bond in society: the relationship between employees and their families.

In the new world of work, the typical family has one-and-a-half jobs. And full-time and part-time employment alike is turning over at a faster rate. There is less job security and greater uncertainty about the hours we are expected to work. Combined with our parenting responsibilities, the inevitable outcome is stress. Stress and the guilt that comes from not seeing enough of our children.

I want Labor's workplace relations policy to overcome this deficiency. To give people the lifestyle and peace of mind that comes from getting the employee-family relationship right.

I don't care how much ACCI and the Liberal Party complain about it. I'm going to put families first.

Surely in a prosperous nation, it is not unreasonable for women to be able to work and then after childbirth, spend time recovering and also nurturing their newborn babies. This is why Labor is committed to 14 weeks paid maternity leave. We want Australian families to have more financial options available to them in balancing work and family.

Surely in a prosperous nation, it is not unreasonable for workers to come back from parental leave and then seek a part-time job.

Surely in a prosperous nation, it is not unacceptable to give casual workers greater security. And with job security, workers and parents are better able to look after their families.

Surely in a civilised society, it's not unreasonable to have workplace flexibility - job sharing and allowing employees to plan their hours and holidays around the needs of their children.

Surely in a civilised society, we can have a first-class child care system: affordability for parents, decent status and rewards for child care workers, and educational programs for our children. Something more than child-minding: early childhood development.

This is Labor's approach - always, families first".

For the complete text of Work Family and Community: A Modern Australian Agenda, Latham's speech to the National Press Conference, go to
http://www.alp.org.au/media/0204/20006891.html

February 2004 contents