Getting The Balance Right For Families
Mark Butler MP on the Rudd Government's agenda for work and family
Last updated by Admin, February 5, 2009
Date: 05 February 2009
Mark Butler the Federal Labor MP for Port Adelaide has written the first article of our series of MP Think-Pieces. Entitled Getting the Balance Right: The Rudd Government's Agenda for Work and Family, Mark outlines the impacts of the former Liberal government's regressive and outdated policies concerning work and families and contrasts this with the agenda of the Rudd Labor Government.
Building from the latest edition of the Australian Work and Life Index, produced by the University of South Australia, Mark discusses the moral imperative that governments have in shaping the industrial relations system to mitigate any imbalances that are occurring between a family's work and leisure time. For Mark, the one important thing a government can do in addressing these issues "is to give Australians a greater sense of control of their own lives in order to deal with those choices" between work and family time.
This series of MP Think-Pieces provides our readers and policy leaders with an opportunity to engage in the ideas debate around solutions to the challenges that we face as a nation and make a contribution to progressive thought in Australia.