Former ANROWS Researcher and Organisation Reach Mediated Settlement Over Return-to-Work Dispute

She said she had hoped to use the period before the NDA took effect to campaign for changes to parental leave and discrimination laws. “The threatening emails I’ve received since they found about this article suggest otherwise,” she said. Watt and her husband Gordon, both Labor Party members, have written to federal MPs and Workplace Relations Minister Amanda Rishworth urging a change to the National Employment Standards.

Under current law, employees must complete 12 months of continuous service before qualifying for parental leave and the guaranteed right to return to their position. Monash University socio-legal scholar Amanda Selvarajah said the eligibility threshold should be scrapped so all employees returning from parental leave are guaranteed the right to return to their jobs.

“If we have these gaps in protection, people fall through the cracks,” she said.

Sara Charlesworth, professor emerita at RMIT University, said Australia’s parental leave system still lagged comparable jurisdictions such as Britain and parts of Europe. “What it does is make women feel it only happens to them instead of knowing this is frighteningly common,” she said.

Submissions to the federal government’s ongoing review of the NES show that in most developed nations, pregnant employees access return-to-work protections from day one.

Countries such as Britain, France, Ireland, Japan and South Korea impose qualifying periods for partners, but mothers are guaranteed their jobs back regardless of tenure. Britain recently expanded its “day one” parental leave rights. Employment law academics and industrial relations experts say Australia is an outlier globally for linking maternity protections to a service threshold that exceeds the length of a pregnancy.

At the time of the dispute, ANROWS was led by Padma Raman, who now serves as executive director of the Office for Women within the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet. The board was overseen by chair Sam Mostyn, who has since become Australia’s Governor-General. ” Rishworth’s office did not respond to questions.

Raman was contacted for comment. A spokeswoman for Mostyn declined to comment. In a statement, ANROWS said the wellbeing and safety of staff was “very important to us”. “We take workplace concerns seriously and respond through appropriate internal processes, with care, procedural fairness and respect for the people involved,” it said.