Unions NSW: You Call That Fairness Joe?

This week the Abbott-Hockey Government have handed down their second budget and we are sorry to say it’s not a pretty sight for working families.

Sign the petition to reverse the cuts to Paid Parental Leave.

Far from being ‘Responsible, Measured and Fair’, Joe Hockey’s budget further cements the future starvation of our schools and hospitals by locking in last year’s $80 billion cuts to health and education.

This can only mean fewer hospital beds, longer waiting times and the further decimation of community health and services.

And it doesn’t end there. The Abbott Government is also attempting the unthinkable by ripping away the federally funded Paid Parental Leave entitlement to over half of Australian parents who already have an employer funded scheme.

This is a complete back-flip from Tony Abbott’s pre-election commitment to government funded Paid Parental Leave that would have seen parents receive support of up to $75,000. Now families face the prospect of being $11,500 worse off.

Will you sign the petition and call on Abbott to reverse the cuts to Paid Parental Leave?

The current government scheme was designed to be in addition to any employer entitlement in order to allow six months bonding time with newborns (which experts support).

Tony Abbott and Joe Hockey are effectively ripping the heart out of Australian homes by forcing parents back into work at a critical stage in their newborn babies’ lives.

And as if that wasn’t enough, the government also wants to cut billions in family support payments that will see an average family with two children lose up to $6000 a year.

This is not the society we want to live in. It's our children, our elderly, our sick and vulnerable who will have to pay the price.

Sign the petition to maintain the universality of our Paid Parental Leave scheme and tell Tony Abbott, in his capacity as Minister for Women, that we deserve better than back-flips, lip-service and lies.

In unity,

The Unions NSW Team

P.S. Our Bust the Budget campaigning ensured some nasty measures from last year were dropped. We beat things like the GP co-payment, cuts to indexation of the pension and the six month wait for Newstart for young jobseekers has been pared back to four weeks. While these are significant wins we must stand strong in the face of adversity. The Abbott Government is still trying to push through University deregulation that will force young students into life long debt and the new child care package is being held to ransom based on regressive measures passing the Senate.The fight doesn’t end here. Our community campaigned against the deeply unpopular 2014 budget and we’ll fight this one all the way too.