Paid maternity leave should be a given

As a young woman who is just about to embark on her career, and knows that at some point in the future I will be a mother, the proposal for tax payer funded maternity leave I heard this week has been a huge relief to me. Even at 22, the problem of how I will afford to have children and pay a mortgage does play on my mind.
It’s pretty clear that no one likes paying taxes or believes they should pay for someone else to have children, but think of the future.
Having two working parents these days is a must for most people. So having one person off on maternity leave is bound to be a struggle. A maternity wage means fewer struggles for new mothers and, strange as the idea is, the opportunity for you to raise your own children, as opposed to a stranger.
How easily people become narrow minded and concentrate solely on how this will affect them rather than the big picture. Everything costs more these days, housing prices, petrol, clothing, food, the list goes on. I can no longer afford housing in my home town, and I shudder to think what the price of real estate will be when I am looking to buy. In the past paid maternity leave was not a high priority because it was not a financial necessity as it is today.
Australia needs a larger working force to pay for the ever increasing retired population; therefore sensible benefits to encourage population growth can only be good for our country.
I want progress. For a developed country Australia has very poor parental benefits and support, Sweden has 18 months paid maternity leave, the UK 39 weeks and even many African countries have around 14 weeks. Our children are our future and it is all of our responsibilities to improve lives. Small mindedness and the argument ‘just because I didn’t benefit’ is not the way forward.
I am happy to pay a levy to fund paid maternity leave and help get our ‘lucky country’ out of the dark ages and into the real world of modern society where things such as paid maternity leave are a part of basic awards, regardless of whether or not I have children of my own.