Jenny Macklin (Jagajaga, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Kennedy for his contribution to the debate. Just to clarify one of the issues that the member for Kennedy has just raised about a woman who may be earning $140,00 before she goes off on parental leave, under the government’s scheme she will only be entitled to exactly the same amount as a woman who is a casual worker or a seasonal worker, the federal minimum wage of just over $540 a week. I make that clarification for the member for Kennedy. By contrast—and maybe this is where the misunderstanding arose—the opposition has put forward a different scheme. As the member for Kennedy would be aware, the opposition is proposing a new tax on larger businesses, a new tax expected to raise around $3 billion a year. That tax will be imposed on most things that Australians buy. From the revenue derived from that tax, the opposition proposes that if a woman is earning—and to take the figure that the member for Kennedy has raised—$140,000 before she had her baby then, under the opposition’s scheme, she would be entitled to six months of maternity leave paid at her full wage; she would get $70,000.

16:51:58

That is the opposition’s proposal: a high-income woman earning $140,000 a year would get $70,000 over a six-month period, paid for by this new tax. That is the opposition’s scheme; it is not the government’s scheme. The government is very clear that we think we should have a government funded scheme, which is what this bill is about, and that we will pay it to women for 18 weeks at the federal minimum wage no matter what her income is. There is a work test and there is an income test, but—to go to your point—that is the relevant proposition of the bill.

See this speech in context