The ACU general staff agreement on paid parental leave has been the focus of intense media attention.

The general and academic staff agreements provide 12 weeks paid leave and 40 weeks unpaid leave for women with 12 months service, but add a new entitlement for the 40 weeks period to be paid at 60% of salary if the mother has two years service and gives a commitment to return to work for at least 6 months after maternity/adoption leave.

The leave entitlements of fathers are also increased, from 5 days paid, to 15, with an entitlement to take a full year off if the father is the primary care-giver for the child.

Foster parent leave allows 6 weeks on half current salary for a child under 5 years of age and 3 weeks on half current salary for a child over 5 years of age.

Attracting less media attention, but also interesting, is the broad scope of Personal/Carer's Leave in the ACU agreements, which allows personal leave to be used for "Ceremonial Leave for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples", "Observance of religious/culturally significant days", "Caring for a child on a pupil-free day", "Moving House", and "Medical or therapeutic appointments for a dependent".

The General Staff Agreement involved the NTEU, the CPSU and the ASU. The same expanded parental leave provisions are contained in the Academic Agreement, and which the NTEU is the only union party to.

In response to the publicity received by the ACU Agreement, there have been a series of public statements issued by political parties and social commentators about the merits of extending paid maternity entitlements more broadly. International comparisons, which the union movement have been highlighting for years, have finally registered with the media. The public environment is now good for building wide acceptance of a maternity leave standard well in excess of 12 weeks paid leave.

While an obvious area of immediate flow-on would be the Catholic Schools System, their agreements have largely been tied up for the next two years, and the IEU report that the Catholic Church has not yet tabled a similar offer for the schools sector. They speculate that this might have something to do with the fact that the practical cost of the agreement at the ACU will be very small (given the average age of both academic and general staff it has been estimated that a total of 15 women might be potential beneficiaries per year), whereas the cost across the schools sector would be significantly higher.

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