can someone please tell me about maternity rights in australia

[pestooneverything]

Hi there - been thinking about moving to oz for a few years now.

We thought we would have our 2nd DC then go but DC2 has not come along as hoped and we are 1 year down the TTC road and don't want to put our lives on hold too much for something which may not happen.

My question is - if we go to Oz on a sponsorship visa (i.e. i get offered a job out there which takes us) and I do find out I am pregnant, or manage to get pregnant, would I be able to take mat leave? Is there such thing as statutory mat leave in oz? How long is someone allowed off?

I appreciate an employer who'd sponsored me would be pretty pissed off if I announced a pregnancy (or am i judging oz employer's too harshly) but I wouldn't put TTC #2 on hold forever....

Thanks for any advice

Hi,

I am not an expert in this area but thought I'd write an answer for you and someone else might come along with more knowledge later on.

I do not think there is statutory maternity pay, but most people I know have taken a year off.

Don't know the specifics of Australia, but if you really want a second child my advice would be just to carry on TTCing and take it as it comes/ deal with it when it happens. Don't try to fit it in around the "what ifs" of an international move, especially as it seems the timing is really uncertain.

I got pregnant in December, a week after I'd accepted a new job (was already living here but was a SAHM). Not ideal and means I only get 3mo maternity leave with this one, but at the same time, not a disaster.

We put off TTCing DC1 through 2 international moves - "let's wait till we get to Dubai as we dont want to be trying to find hospitals at the 11th hour. Will be too stressful" and then "Let's wait till we get to Asia because we dont want to be trying to find hospitals at the 11th hour. Will be too stressful" Ended up delaying for best part of 2 yrs and looking back, we should have just gone for it.

Afaik there is no statutory maternity leave with pay. They have recently introduced optional maternity leave with pay, I think it's for 18w only, or you can take the baby bonus of $5000. So depending on how much you earn, will depend on which is more beneficial to you. However, it's almost certainly not available to people on a working/temporary visa.

The situation with maternity care out here is more complicated too, as I'm discovering - having to choose whether to go with the public system, or private, or a combination - and again, if you're only on a temp/working visa I don't know whether or not you'd be covered. I am a permanent resident, not currently working and we have private health coverage so it's a bit different.

If you plan on working, and more to the point, being the primary sponsored earner - then I probably wouldn't try to get here until you have had DC2.

www.maternityleaveaustralia.com.au/ will probably answer at least some of your questions.

Hey Im currently living in Oz on a 4 year temp 457 work sponsored visa! and I have a newborn baby so can help a little!
You will get NO benefits and NO baby bonus (we knew all this before hand)
If you are a british citizen you will be covered by medicare and the UK and OZ have a reciporcal agreement bout health care.
I paid for all my doctors appointments $68 a visit then took the reciepts to medicare and got approx $40 back each time, again I paid for scans which were about $160 and got about half back from medicare!
I didnt have to pay anything for the actual birth or hospital stay!

I would be very careful about getting pregnant if you are going to be the main visa holder and worker because the employer would not want to be paying an over seas worker while they are taking 6-12 months off work when they could quite easily employ someone else! (however wrong it may be)

Good Luck with it all
We are happy here and happy we had our baby here my poor hubby just has to work a little harder at the weekends to cover my lost wage but it wont be forever :)