Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

The reaction of members opposite in question time and now betrays the fact that they have been completely unnerved, completely unsettled and completely taken aback by this scheme which we have introduced—a scheme which has been widely welcomed by the employed women of this country.

Let us examine the government’s scheme for a moment. As I said, it is for just 18 weeks and it is at just the minimum wage. Labor’s scheme costs just $260 million. It offers just an extra $2,000 on top of additional benefits. Any paid parental leave scheme which offers just an additional $2,000 to cover the absences from work that are inevitable when a mother has a baby is a mickey mouse scheme. A scheme which offers just an extra $2,000 is not a scheme which is going to establish real justice for the women of Australia. It is not a scheme which is going to drive up participation in the workforce. It is not a scheme which is going to give women the real choice that they need—to have a career and to be mothers at the same time. It is, in short, a cruel hoax on the families of Australia.

I understand that giving real benefits to the working families of this country is expensive, but our scheme is funded. We will make less than one per cent of Australian companies pay a modest levy on their tax. We will make this small minority of companies, this tiny minority of companies, pay a modest levy on their tax so that 170,000 women every year can get the help, the assistance and the justice which they need and for which they have been crying out for so long. No-one likes paying more, even in a good cause. I accept that. We all think that other people should pay for the good things that society needs.

I am not surprised that we had a succession of big business representatives stand up yesterday and say that they would prefer that this levy not be imposed. The ancestors of those same big business representatives stood up 20 years ago and criticised the superannuation guarantee levy, which they now accept, and 40 years ago they stood up and criticised the imposition of holiday pay and sick pay and all the other things which are now part and parcel of life. I am not criticising those big business representatives who stood up yesterday to say what they had to say, because all they were doing was representing their constituency. I am just disappointed that they did not think first as Australians, first as citizens, and only then as representatives of big business. The time has come for paid parental leave to be as much part and parcel of working in this country as sick pay, holiday pay and retirement benefits. The time has come and we will implement a fair scheme.

Let me say to the representatives of big business who spoke yesterday that, if Labor had not blown the surplus, if this government had not turned a $20 billion surplus into a $30 billion deficit in just 12 months, things could have been done differently. If Labor was not wasting money hand over fist on Julia Gillard memorial school halls and on a pink batt program which has been the most comprehensive administrative disaster in recent Australian history, if all this waste and management was not happening, we could have funded this scheme in a different way. I say to members opposite, I say to the Australian people, that if we want a fair dinkum paid parental leave scheme now, this is the fairest way to have it.

I also say to the representatives of big business who spoke out yesterday that the coalition does have a plan—a prudent, fiscally responsible plan to get the nation’s finances under control. First, we will pay off Labor’s debt, then we will reduce personal taxes and then we will reduce general taxes. We would like to be able, in the medium term, to reduce company tax so that this levy constitutes only a temporary increase in the taxation even of big business. If we are going to have a fair dinkum paid parental leave scheme, it has to be funded. Everything has to be funded, and if this scheme is going to happen any time soon, this is the best way for it to be done. It has to be funded by business because if it is not funded by business it is not fair dinkum parental leave. It has to be funded by business generally because if it is funded by particular businesses on the basis of the leave taken by their own staff, it will inevitably discriminate against younger women who do not deserve to be discriminated against in the workforce, and it has to be funded by big business because big business has the greater capacity to pay. This coalition that I lead will never be party to anything which involves discrimination against the employment prospects of younger women or anything that involves putting an added burden on small business, which is the economic engine room of this country.

The scheme that the coalition put forward yesterday is pro-family, because it takes the pressure off the budgets of tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of families every year; it is pro-women because it gives them the real choice that they have not had in the absence of a fair dinkum scheme; it is pro-children because it acknowledges the real cost of having children and acknowledges the real need that children have, particularly newborns, to bond with their parents; and it is pro-small business because, effectively, larger business will be paying for the parental leave costs of small business and for the first time many women will have the opportunity to be employed by small business because they will have their parental leave met under this scheme. It is actually pro-big business too, in the long run, because if we have more people, and we should have higher fertility with a scheme such as this, big business will have larger markets and we will have a higher participation under this scheme and higher participation means a much more productive economy.

There has been a lot of talk in this parliament over the last few months about the demographic destiny Australia faces of an ageing population, a situation where we will have not five employed people to pay for every person on benefits but just 2½. There are three keys to avoiding the so-called democratic time bomb. The first is a higher population, the second is higher participation and the third is higher productivity. This scheme that the coalition announced yesterday is absolutely central to achieving two of those three things. If we have a meaningful, fair dinkum paid parental leave system we will have greater participation by women in our economy and we will also have higher productivity because women who have been in the workforce will be able to stay in the workforce, and they are some of the most productive workers we have.

This is a visionary scheme. What we saw from members opposite today was the carping of small-minded men and women who know that they have been trumped by something that is truly visionary. What we had from those opposite today was almost ludicrous talk of this 1.7 per cent levy on total company incomes over $5 million somehow leading to artificial avoidance, as if a 1.7 per cent difference in a rate is going to lead to massive avoidance—and these are people who have personal income tax rates varying from about 15 per cent to something like 45 per cent. Then we were told that the fluctuations in income were somehow going to make this scheme administratively possible, as if people’s incomes do not fluctuate all the time and as if people and companies and the government that rely on tax revenue cannot cope. It is as if those on the other side are supporting a flat rate of tax for everyone, because that is the only thing that prevents tax minimisation schemes and revenue fluctuations.

Then we heard that there had been insufficient consultation—the charge of insufficient consultation from a government whose cabinet ministers come into the room and are told that some star chamber has decided already what is going to happen to their submissions and the charge of lack of consultation from a Prime Minister who announces health reform to the premiers who are necessary to its carriage with a take-it-or-leave-it letter an hour before he gets up to announce the reform. That is a joke. Then there was the accusation that there was no detail from a government which is proposing a $30 billion health reform, almost none of which can be detailed at this point in time—from a government that is experimenting with the health of Australians.

This is a very important new policy from the coalition, but it is certainly not the last word from us when it comes to helping families. We are the party of Australian families. We are the party that has helped Australian families. We were the best friend of Australian families in government—we were, we are and we will be again. This is outstanding policy and I challenge members opposite—(Time expired)

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