In October, ABC's Four Corners investigation, The Pregnancy Penalty, brought renewed attention to pregnancy discrimination in Australian workplaces. It coincided with the Australian Human Rights Commission's report, Balancing Act, which identified opportunities to strengthen protections for working parents.
In October, MOTHs has been examining another aspect of women's wellbeing through our recent submission to the Senate Select Committee on Women's Health: access to healthcare during pregnancy and after childbirth.
These developments, together with Victoria's approaching state election, raise a common question. What happens when policies designed to support women don't translate into the experiences those policies promise?
Consider two women.
The first is sitting outside her manager's office, rehearsing how she'll announce her pregnancy. She's excited, but also nervous. She's worked hard to establish her career and hopes to return after parental leave. Yet she wonders whether her employer will see her differently once they know she's pregnant.
The second is sitting in a Maternal and Child Health appointment with her newborn. She's exhausted, still recovering physically and finding motherhood more difficult than she'd anticipated. When the nurse asks how she's going, she smiles and says she's fine, although there's considerably more she could say.
These women are fictional, but their circumstances reflect concerns we've heard from mothers in our community.
Australia's Sex Discrimination Act 1984 makes pregnancy discrimination unlawful, with amendments in 1995 extending protections to potential pregnancy. On paper, women have been protected for decades. Yet of the 104 women who shared experiences of alleged workplace discrimination with Four Corners, 21 reported being dismissed or made redundant, only to discover their positions still existed.
The Australian Human Rights Commission's Balancing Act report identifies 18 areas for reform, including stronger protections against discriminatory redundancies and improvements to flexible working arrangements. The legislation exists, but the investigation and proposed reforms raise questions about how effectively those protections operate in practice.
Our second woman is navigating a different system, but the distinction between policy and practice is equally relevant.
Victoria's Maternal and Child Health services recognise maternal wellbeing, and recent Enhanced MCH policy updates acknowledge that supporting families involves more than face-to-face appointments. Nurses also need time to coordinate referrals, consult other professionals and follow up with families.
These are important provisions. However, a 2026 Victorian Auditor-General's report identified shortcomings in service delivery and monitoring. In 2024–25, councils reported delivering approximately 181,000 hours of Enhanced MCH support against 261,000 funded hours. Reporting inconsistencies mean this difference cannot be interpreted as care families necessarily missed, but the audit also identified workforce shortages and inadequate information about whether services were reaching eligible families.
The findings highlight the difficulty of translating well-designed services into consistent, accessible support.
This is particularly relevant to MOTHs' Senate submission. Our 2024 and 2025 surveys identified cost, appointment availability and geographical location as barriers to healthcare. Although these surveys examined general healthcare access rather than postnatal services specifically, Australian research has also documented barriers affecting women's access to care following childbirth.
For a mother who needs additional support, recognising that need is only the beginning. A referral is valuable, but its effectiveness depends on whether appropriate services are available and accessible.
The two women face different challenges requiring different responses. Workplace discrimination demands effective legal protections and enforcement, while maternal healthcare depends on skilled professionals, accessible services and sufficient capacity to deliver care. What connects their experiences is the importance of looking beyond what legislation and policy promise to examine what happens in practice.
With Victoria heading towards the state election on 28 November, this distinction deserves attention. In our recent article, A Different Kind of Prevention, we considered how investment in preventing harm to people fits alongside other public priorities, including the much-discussed issue of potholes.
The evidence presented here raises questions for candidates about how existing services will be supported, whether workforce capacity matches demand and how governments will evaluate whether their policies are achieving their intended outcomes.
For MOTHs, this is not simply a call for increased spending. It is a call for informed investment, sustainable services and accountability. Our community surveys and Senate submission contribute to that discussion by identifying barriers experienced by local mothers and areas requiring further investigation.
Our two women might never meet, but both deserve systems that deliver what they promise. One should be able to announce her pregnancy without fearing discrimination. The other should be able to seek support after childbirth knowing that appropriate care is accessible.
Good legislation and thoughtful policies matter. But their success must ultimately be measured by what women experience, not simply by what is written on paper.