About Share the Care
Share the Care is our campaign to win shared care paid parental leave arrangements for all Queensland public sector workers.
We know how influential children’s early years are in forming routines, establishing bonds, attending to a child’s physical, health and emotional needs, and shaping future wellbeing.
Importantly, parental leave ensures working parents can spend this critical time needed to care for and support their child, whilst also having access to a decent income for this period of leave.
Traditionally, gender stereotypes have meant paid parental leave has been provided for working mothers as the primary caregiver. This outdated industrial entitlement has perpetuated Australia’s ongoing gender pay gap, as well as compounded issues such as women’s career progression and superannuation balance at retirement age.
Providing access to paid leave to fathers and partners will not only help reduce this gender pay gap but also ensure dads and partners have equal rights and responsibilities to be involved in caring for and supporting their children.
Notably, the benefits of providing paid leave and flexible work options are not one-sided. Employers also benefit from equal paid parental leave arrangements, producing higher rates of return to work by both parents and partners, maximising attraction and retention of a diverse workforce, and increasing workforce productivity and morale.
Share the Care is about progressing Queensland’s workforce beyond outdated stereotypes which for too long have seen working mothers carry the burden of primary caregiver responsibility.
For generations of Queensland children, working mothers and fathers, and the Queensland Government’s ambition to be an employer of choice – the benefits of shared care parental leave are clear.
Current Paid Parental Leave Facts
- Forty-four per cent of Australian employees have access to some form of paid parental leave
- Primary caregivers, overwhelmingly working mothers, are entitled to an average fourteen weeks paid parental leave
- Secondary caregivers, overwhelmingly working fathers and partners, are entitled to an average of two weeks parental leave
- 95% of those workers accessing paid or unpaid parental leave are mothers
- Of those fathers and partners taking leave, almost nine in ten only take less than four weeks leave
We think it’s time these inequalities are removed.
Universally available leave to all parents and partners will ensure that equal shared care becomes a reality.
These reforms also reflect recent changes in the Australian public service and to the Commonwealth’s Paid Parental Scheme which supplements paid parental leave arrangements by Australian employers which recognise equal entitlements for working mums, dads and partners.
Key Ask
Queensland Unions are calling for shared care paid parental leave for Queensland public sector workers.
This means the introduction of arrangements including –
- Leave entitlement: equal shared care of 18 weeks paid parental leave for each parent or carer.
- Grandparent leave: extending access to paid parental leave to a grandparent who becomes the principal carer of a child in the absence of a birth parent.
- Qualifying period: all employees (other than short term casuals) to access paid parental leave (reducing from 12 months).
- Concurrent leave: for parents and partners to access paid and unpaid leave for all or part of their period of leave.
- Shift workers: PPL to be paid on the rate of pay including shift allowances otherwise received except for leave.
- Reward Payments: Additional PPL payment of 8 weeks for employees with over five continuous years of service (26 weeks in total).
- Superannuation: to be paid on all unpaid leave up to 104 weeks (transition period from 1/7/2026).
- Flexible access: to paid and unpaid parental leave over a 24 month period.
- Pre natal leave: 1 weeks’ paid pre natal leave for both partners (increasing from 1 day for partners).
- Pregnancy loss leave: 1 weeks’ paid pregnancy loss leave for employees who lose their child between 12 and 20 weeks’ gestation for both partners.
- Premature birth leave: paid from the date of the child’s birth to just before 37 weeks for both partners.
What Next?
We want to hear your stories and build our campaign for this claim.
Are you a working mother or father who has taken leave to care for your young child?
Are you a working parent who would have liked to take paid parental leave but didn’t have access to equal leave entitlements?
Share you experience of caring for your children with us and help create important change in Queensland.
Queensland Unions acknowledges the traditional owners of the lands on which we live and work – in Meanjin (Brisbane) the lands of the Turrbal and Jagera Peoples – and pays respects to elders past and present.
Authorised by J. King, Queensland Council of Unions, 16 Peel St South Brisbane.