A 'pro-family' government that is not doing its job

The word “family” is not used much in legislation. This might surprise many Australians, because parliamentarians never seem to stop talking about families and family values.

The trouble is, to use “family” in legislation would require precise definitions and the reality is families come in all shapes and sizes and “family values” means different things to different people.

While they haven't yet made clear what they mean by this, the new Family First Party has called for “Family Impact Statements” for all potential Commonwealth legislation. What they seem to have missed is that parliamentary representatives are constantly taking into account the impact of legislation on families - and individuals. It's our bread and butter. It's what we do every day.

Conflicts arise not because one political party is “pro-family” and one is “anti-family”, but because we have different notions of how to support families and individuals, and because we have different notions of what defines a family. Labor's approach to families is non-prescriptive and non-judgemental. We support individual choice and want maximum tax relief and income support for Australians with dependent children.

Australian families have always been more diverse than the “typical families” trotted out during election campaigns to illustrate policy announcements, and policy makers ignore this at their peril.

In making policies for Australian families, it is vital that we deal with true notions of what families today are, and true notions of the pressures they face.

We shouldn't make policies based on some idealised notion of family in which two parents live with two children: Where father has secure employment and mother has infinite time to take full caring responsibility not only for the children, but for her aging parents and parents-in-law, and often also for sick or aged neighbours. (I’m not sure that this “ideal” ever existed, and if it did, I’m not too sure it was ideal for women.)

It’s no good saying that they are “pro-family”, as the Howard Government does, and yet make life more difficult for most families by creating an industrial relations environment in which work is increasingly insecure and casualised, meaning families can’t budget or plan ahead.

It’s no good saying you’re “pro-family” and presiding over massively increased hours of unpaid overtime. A recent report by the Australia Institute show that we work the longest hours in the developed world, longer than the Americans, Germans and even the Japanese.

That means not only that people are spending more hours away from their families, but that volunteering for community activities like coaching the kids’ sporting teams has become impossible: Our whole community suffers.

John Howard said in 2001 that balancing work and family was the “BBQ stopper” issue, yet everything his government does seems to make it more difficult for Australians to balance their work and caring responsibilities.

When asked during the election campaign what his government had done to address the “BBQ stopper” he looked blank, paused, swallowed and said he thought giving someone a job was the best way to help them manage work and caring responsibilities.

So much for helping out with the “work life collision”.

It’s no good saying you’re pro-family but making it impossible for Australians to fulfil the great Australian dream of owning their own home. When the Howard Government came to power it cost 4.5 years of the average wage (male average weekly earnings) to buy a home. It is now 8.3 years. The average loan size in March 1996 was $94,400 and now it is $206,600 - an increase of 119 per cent. The relevant comparison is with average weekly earnings, which for Australians in full time work has increased only by 45 per cent since 1996.

It’s no good saying you’re pro-family while presiding over a family payments system which has 600,000 families with average debts of $800 each, and clawing those debts back irrespective of the hardships endured by families who were overpaid through no fault of their own.

If the government really was pro-family, it would fix the massive problems in childcare. Costs are going through the roof, and there are nation-wide shortages, leading to long waiting lists.

A pro-family government wouldn’t use family payments to penalise women who want to work and contribute a few dollars a week to the family income.

A family friendly government wouldn’t actively discriminate against same sex couples in denying them and their children access to the Medicare Safety Net, given that 20 per cent of female same sex couple households and 5 per cent of male same sex couples are households with children.

Families have changed. Couple families with dependent children now account for a minority of households (although couple families still represent the vast majority of families in which children live).

Society has changed. The majority of mothers with dependent kids work (64 per cent, according to statistical data released last week by the Australian Institute of Family Studies), as well as 92.4 per cent of fathers.

It is not the role of government to privilege one family model over another. The role of government is to take the pressure off families and individuals wherever possible - to make government policy supportive for all family models and individuals, not pick and choose the families of which we approve and punish those of which we disapprove.

We haven’t seen any details of the much touted “Family Impact Statement” beyond what the incoming Family First Senator, Steve Fielding, said two days after the election.

Senator-elect Fielding said, “Family First is based on family values and if it is good for families we will vote for it”. John Howard is reported to have agreed to the principle that all Cabinet-level policies are to be examined from the perspective of families.

Well what’s new? Is he admitting that since his election in 1998 he hasn’t been thinking about how his legislation affects families?

That would certainly explain a lot about the mess of the Family Payments system, the run-away costs of medical care and education and an increasingly hostile industrial relations environment. Somehow, though, I don’t think the Prime Minister would make such an admission.

While it is impossible in the absence of a concrete proposal to know what the role of a Family Impact Statement is on policy-making, I would make two points.

Firstly, if the Government is not already considering the impact of its legislation on families (and individuals) it is simply not doing its job.

Secondly, any consideration of the effects of legislation on families has to take into account the diversity of Australian families. Family Impact Statements shouldn’t be a de facto way of promoting or privileging one family model over others.

Family policy needs to accept and support change and diversity - not ignore or punish it.