Parental leave legislation should also provide paid leave to employees who experience miscarriage or still birth, the Community and Public Sector Union said.

The union has recommended the changes to a major review of the Maternity Leave Act covering public servants, saying the laws now fall behind entitlements for state and territory government workers, and many private sector companies.

While the laws were nation-leading at the time they were introduced in 1973, they no longer reflected the different family needs, structures and aspirations of the community, the CPSU told the review.

"Today the Maternity Leave Act is outdated and in need of significant revision to reflect the changing family structures and norms for managing family responsibilities and to promote gender equity in the Commonwealth public sector," the union's written submission said.

"The Maternity Leave Act must be updated to provide a modern baseline of entitlements, with the ability for innovation in enterprise bargaining to continue."

The union called for an end to the Coalition government's restrictions on enterprise bargaining preventing an overall enhancement of entitlements, saying these had created a barrier to improving parental leave arrangements and gender equality in the workplace.

"The Coalition government's bargaining policy is enormously misaligned with broader national workplace relations policy where bargaining for parental leave (and conditions generally) is the norm and has enabled workplaces to move with the times," the CPSU said.

Parental leave laws should allow 26 weeks' paid leave for both partners, and the secondary care giver to assume primary care giver responsibilities after their partner returns to work, the union said. They should also allow both partners the right to take eight weeks of that leave concurrently as supporting partner leave, its submission said.

Reducing or removing qualifying service requirements could also assist in attracting new talent to the Commonwealth public service, the union said.

The Maternity Leave Act currently allows 52 weeks' maternity leave, including 12 weeks' paid leave, to pregnant female employees with 12 months' qualifying service in the APS or other prescribed Commonwealth government agencies. However all the public service's enterprise agreements allow at least 14 weeks' paid leave.

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The union also called for greater flexibility in when and how parental leave was accessed over a period of up to five years, the right to extend unpaid leave until children reach school age, and the extension of parental leave entitlements to adoption and foster care.

It recommended new legislation include 26 weeks' paid parental leave and up to eight weeks' paid supporting partner leave for employees who experience still birth or miscarriage following 20 weeks' gestation. The CPSU also urged the introduction of five days' paid miscarriage leave where an employee experiences miscarriage up to 20 weeks' gestation.

Among other changes recommended were:

The legislation should be renamed the "Parental Leave Act" to reflect different family structures and changes in how families meet caring responsibilities, the union said.

CPSU national secretary Melissa Donnelly has previously said it was essential that no worker be left worse off by the review.

"CPSU members have fought for and won real improvements on the minimum legislated rights through enterprise agreements, and the CPSU would be very concerned if this review sought to wind back those rights in any way," she said.

Submissions to the review of the Maternity Leave Act for Commonwealth employees closed earlier this month as the Australian Public Service Commission conducts the first major inquiry into the legislation in 40 years.

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