Sussan Ley (Farrer, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Childcare and Early Childhood Learning) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak of my concern at the double-dipping occurring with the government’s new Paid Parental Leave scheme. I take the House back to question time last week when the Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs said:

It is not just mothers and fathers who are pleased with paid parental leave; it is also business. Business is very pleased with the benefits that are coming to them from paid parental leave being delivered by this government.

I advise the minister that there is a body which is even happier, and that is the Public Service. I have received a number of complaints from people who were questioning why public servants are receiving two sets of taxpayer funded parental leave.

In the government’s haste to enact their scheme, they failed to act to address the double payments being made to those paid from the government purse. Government employees already had generous maternity and paternity leave arrangements. However, under the government’s new Paid Parental Leave scheme, Australian taxpayers are having to contribute twice for these employees. This is not a criticism of the Public Service—we love them and they do good work—but this is not right. So, in addition to the $570 a week paid to those on less than $150,000 a year, public servants will receive their 12-plus weeks leave at full pay, plus superannuation.

Australian taxpayers are being slugged enough by this government. Not only has the cost of child care risen—and it is set to rise further—but we have a government intent on making taxpayers pay a flood levy and fund an outrageously overpriced National Broadband Network. It is persisting with the ongoing debacle that is grandly known as the Building the Education Revolution, not to mention the recently introduced, brand-new, big, fat carbon tax. There is certainly no value for money with the Gillard government. Australians will have to continue to dig deep into their pockets to fund Labor’s harebrained and poorly designed schemes.

Double-dipping is now also occurring in the private sector, with businesses who introduced their own paid parental leave schemes still being required to pay employees who are now also in receipt of the government funded PPL. Small business is very different from the public purse; this could hurt them and will hurt them. Did Minister Macklin survey these supposedly ‘happy’ businesspeople as well?

The coalition are certainly supportive of paid parental leave—in fact, our own proposal was considerably more thorough and purpose fit than Labor’s current model. Leaving aside the perverse examples I have mentioned, there is a real problem right now with people receiving less than they should technically be entitled to. Where employees are currently offered full wage replacement by their employer, they should be entitled to maintain this—after all, this was the coalition’s policy. We recognised that the government scheme of a minimum wage, as opposed to normal salary, may force people back to work early.

The bottom line is that Australian taxpayers should not be funding both sets of leave for public servants, which results in them being paid more for being on leave with their newborn than being at work. The reality is that Australian families would be far better off with the paid parental leave scheme proposed by the coalition. We committed to 26 weeks leave at full replacement wage, including superannuation. Parents would have had more time to bond with their newborn in those critical first months. They would not be facing the possibility of being forced back to work early for financial reasons. Under this new PPL, many people are concerned they will not be able to manage financially, with the dramatic decrease in their current take-home pay to the minimum wage.

I go back to the glowing account by Minister Macklin. In praising her new leave scheme, she said:

… Australia finally caught up with the rest of the developed world …

If double-dipping, putting financial stress on new parents and further recklessly using taxpayer funds is Labor’s developing dream world, perhaps the minister should get out more often, because it is not the real world.

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