A second letter to the Prime Minister

...non-breastfed children in industrialized countries are also at greater risk of dying - a recent study of post-neonatal mortality in the United States found a 25% increase in mortality among non-breastfed infants. In the UK Millennium Cohort Survey, six months of exclusive breast feeding was associated with a 53% decrease in hospital admissions for diarrhoea and a 27% decrease in respiratory tract infections.

And keep in mind that many of our Aboriginal mothers and infants live in conditions similar to those in developing countries.

You want to keep health care costs down? Well you will reduce doctor's visits and hospital admissions for respiratory infections, asthma and gastro-intestinal infections if mothers are encouraged and enabled to breastfeed their infants for as long as the infant will nurse. And breast-feeding has long-term benefits for mothers also in terms of reduced breast cancer risk, the major killer of pre-menopausal women other than road accidents, and the third major cause of death for post-menopausal women. Significantly, it has been found that "better educated women" are at greater risk of breast cancer than the less educated. These are your career women, they postpone having children, do not have as many and may not breastfeed for long.

Even from an economic point of view, coercing all mothers of young babies into the paid workforce is unsustainable as the child care costs balloon. Without subsidies, it would not make financial sense for many mothers in basic wage jobs to cover the costs of long day care for their babies. Where is the economic sense in your refusal to subsidise the workers in important industries such as Qantas, but subsidize mothers to put their babies in long day care? The Scandinavian countries, those bastions of progressiveness, have found it makes economic sense to offer allowances to those mothers who prefer to be home with their toddlers.

Mr. Abbott, I am sure you are aware of the recently published study by the Australian National University that children who spend more than 21 hours a week in long day care are at greater risk of performing below average in maths, literacy and overall academic achievement. They had more trouble adjusting to school later on and had poorer marks on a key questionnaire rating strengths and difficulties.

So Prime Minister, why are you generously subsidizing the inferior care toddlers receive in long day care rather than enabling those mothers who wish to do so to care for their infants themselves? It is insulting to full-time mothers to regard Family tax Benefit Part B as "welfare", but to treat the Paid Parental Leave payments and child care subsidies (all paid for by taxes and not the mothers' employers) as "work entitlements".

If the Budget needs the tax revenue you hope to gain from "working mothers", there are easier ways of raising money.

Why not auction off the ABC and the Human Rights Commission? When you abolished the Climate Commission, those who cared about it picked up the tab themselves, and George Soros (or his his ilk) will surely fund the ABC and the Human Rights Commission because these organisations fit perfectly with his game plan for the future. However, we regard our babies as our future, so give them the best deal you can.