As from January 2011, the Australian Federal Government plans to spend $260 million a year paying the equivalent of the Minimum Wage to the primary carer for eighteen weeks following the birth of a child.

But this will be available only to people who have been continuously employed for at least ten of the previous 13 months.

Full-time mothers will miss out completely.

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Parents of traditional families have always treasured memories of the “milestones” of their child’s development, like when he/she first started to walk.

Now mothers will hear about such things from the childcare centre staff when they pick up their offspring — too tired to care whether he/she walked or not — on the way home from work.

Prime Minister Rudd carries on ad nauseam about what he calls ‘Working Families’ — his mindset being that every adult must be in the paid workforce in order to justify his/her existence.

The Rudd government and the Abbott opposition seem unanimous in their determination to cut parents out of their children’s lives by promoting double-income dependency. 

Having parents with double-decker  incomes is little compensation for toddlers who have no idea where mum is for most of the 24 hours.

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We need an Early Education Care Benefit which would provide a direct cash payment to all new parents, thus giving them a choice about the type of care they want their child to have.

There is no excuse for financially discriminating against parents who want to undertake the care of their children in the environment of family and home.