The NFAW has been engaged with this issue for a considerable time, including working to generate support for a Productivity Commission inquiry, before the election of the current Government and conducting community consultations on the Commission’s Report to Government prior to the Cabinet decision to proceed with the introduction of a national scheme.
We greatly regret that this Review does not encompass payments for sole parents, as we consider that some of the Welfare to Work changes have been particularly disadvantageous to sole parents and their capacity to be successful or even adequate parents.
This paper examines the experience of Australian women during recent recessions in order to construct a framework within which the policy response to the current recession can be assessed and improved. The recessions of the early 1980s and the early 1990s are examined and compared with the brief experience so far of the present recession.
In the early 1980’s Australia had a highly progressive, individual based income tax and families received support for dependent children in the form of universal family allowances.
The research highlights widespread agreement that the Government should introduce funding for paid parental leave, as part of the next Federal Budget. 67%, or 2 out of 3 respondents, support the broad proposal that all women should have access to government funded maternity leave.
Since the 1980s the introduction of income tests on family payments has transformed Australia’s progressive individual income tax into a system with strong elements of joint taxation and a rate scale that has an inverted U-shaped profile – the highest marginal tax rates apply across low to average incomes and to the incomes of married mothers as second earners.
Background to Individual Budgets - Longstanding commitment to flexible, person-centred care in policy from 1980s. Existing development of direct payments, but low take up by older people.
In its submission to the Henry Inquiry into the Future of Australia’s Tax System, the National Foundation for Australian Women calls on government to reform the Age Pension by creating a centralised retirement insurance plan for low-income earners and increasing the single pension rate, and to introduce policies to encourage women to work such as a national paid parental leave scheme.
Lower income earners, both male and female, cannot hope to save an adequate sum from the Superannuation Guarantee and voluntary savings. Their savings can however supplement the Age Pension set at an adequate level.
