To improve the lives of Australians, focus on the needs of the people

Those who have suffered most from the decline of social and personal relationships tend to be boys. Their school retention rates lag well behind girls. Their literacy levels are lower. And in disproportionate numbers, they are the victims of drug overdoses, road trauma and youth suicide.

Our boys are suffering from a crisis of masculinity. As blue-collar muscle jobs have declined, their identity and relationships have become blurred and confused. We need to give our boys a new centre to their lives one grounded in community support and mentoring.

But this isn't just about boys. Girls need our help too. They have a different set of problems, from sexual assault to bulimia and worries about body image.

Young women need stronger relationships and self-esteem to help them deal with these issues. In practice, however, people talk more about the trouble with boys because it is more visible. It's on our streets and in our public places. And when things go wrong, very often the victims are female. We all have an interest in overcoming this problem.

Mentoring is an idea whose time has come. Around Australia thousands of community-minded citizens are creating a network of volunteer mentors to work with young people in need. Mentoring will be our first investment in social capital, mobilising the leadership role of government to create stronger relationships. This is the best way of solving social problems: putting relationships at the centre of government decision-making and working with people locally to rebuild communities.

Often the lack of community comes down to something we can’t buy, time. For many people, the lack of time in their lives is just as significant as a lack of money. It’s the challenge of our generation: getting the balance right between work, family and community. This is an era of great economic and social change. But not all the changes are positive.

We're being asked to work harder and longer. Yet we are losing the traditional sources of support to help us cope: the support of extended family and community.

Our lives are being pulled apart by these twin forces putting pressure on families, strain on marriages, isolating us from friends and taking us out of community activities. For many Australians, life is becoming faster, harder and more stressful.

In the new world of work, the typical family has one-and-a-half jobs. And full-time and part-time employment alike is turning over at a faster rate. There is less job security and greater uncertainty about the hours we are expected to work.

I'm going to put families first. Surely in a prosperous nation, it is not unreasonable for women to be able to work and then after childbirth, spend time recovering and also nurturing their newborn babies. This is why Labor is committed to 14 weeks paid maternity leave. We want Australian families to have more financial options available to them in balancing work and family. It is not unreasonable for workers to come back from parental leave and then seek a part-time job. It is not unacceptable to give casual workers greater security. And with job security, workers and parents are better able to look after their families. It’s not unreasonable to have workplace flexibility job sharing and allowing employees to plan their hours and holidays around the needs of their children.

No one knows the balance between work and family better than the parents themselves. The proper role for government is to provide a range of options and opportunities that parents can mix and match against their own circumstances. The objective must be social flexibility, not social engineering.

When I think back to my grandparents, I think of an era of relationship certainty. Pop worked all his life and Nana looked after the children. Now, in my own circumstances at home, Janine and I have a non-stop dialogue about work and family: how to turn her legal qualifications into a legal career; how to juggle my new work responsibilities against time at home; how to organise child care for the boys; and how to arrange the transport to make all of this happen.