Labour Min­is­ter Leroy Bap­tiste an­nounced Cab­i­net has ap­proved sweep­ing amend­ments to the Ma­ter­ni­ty Pro­tec­tion Act and the Re­trench­ment and Sev­er­ance Ben­e­fits Act, ex­tend­ing paid leave and work­place pro­tec­tions to fa­thers and adop­tive par­ents while re­mov­ing long-crit­i­cised re­stric­tions on ma­ter­ni­ty ben­e­fits.

Un­der the pro­posed amend­ments to the Ma­ter­ni­ty Pro­tec­tion Act, pa­ter­ni­ty and parental leave would be for­mal­ly recog­nised for the first time, ex­tend­ing en­ti­tle­ments be­yond bi­o­log­i­cal fa­thers to adop­tive par­ents and guardians. Pro­vi­sion would al­so be made for parental leave in cir­cum­stances where a moth­er dies fol­low­ing child­birth.

The amend­ments would in­tro­duce statu­to­ry breast­feed­ing breaks, with paid time off for lac­tat­ing moth­ers to breast­feed or ex­press milk, with­out penal­ty. An­ti-dis­crim­i­na­tion pro­vi­sions would be strength­ened to pro­hib­it dis­missal, de­mo­tion, re­duced pay or loss of op­por­tu­ni­ties linked to preg­nan­cy, ma­ter­ni­ty, pa­ter­ni­ty, parental leave or breast­feed­ing. Preg­nan­cy test­ing for job ap­pli­cants or em­ploy­ees would al­so be banned.