Julie Owens (Parramatta, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I know; it is all over the place. It is actually quite difficult to deal with these strange hangovers from a quite absurd decision back in 2006. If you had a child back in 2006 who was about six at the time, your parenting payment will cease, essentially, around January 2013, when that child turns 12 or 13. If your child is younger than that—if your child was only two or three at the time—then you still have a few more years, because the parenting payment will continue until your youngest child turns 12 or 13. That means that over what will now be about a 12-year period from 2006 to about 2018 all the parents who were grandfathered when the coalition government introduced this absurd grandfathering clause in 2006 will move over to the same set of rules that apply to the other parents.

It is going to take us that long to bring equity back into the system but, quite frankly, I think we need to give parents the lead time to make the decisions and adjustments they need to in their lives, particularly those who have already been out of the workforce for long periods of time because this grandfathering of the parenting payments allowed them to do so. Some of these parents who will be coming back into the workforce post-2012-13 may have been out of the workforce for quite substantial periods of time, so it is also important for us to provide support in other ways. We are doing a number of things that will help these parents get back into the workforce. For a start, we are providing $80 million for additional training places for single and teenage parents so they can get the skills they need to get a good job when they return to the workforce. We are also providing $19 million for additional community based support for parents, like playgroups and mentoring through the Communities for Children program. That playgroup idea is a particularly valuable one. In my area, wherever there are large numbers of single parents we find that the local community quite often gets together to support these parents through that particular format. It is a very useful way for parents to interact, get out of their homes and start the process of socialising again and moving back into the broader community.

We are also providing $4 million for access to career counselling through Job Services Australia providers. This career advice will be available to grandfathered parents in the year before they move onto Newstart so that they can plan their return to work and access the training they need. Again, this is very important, because this absurd old grandfathering process introduced by the previous government has left a lot of parents out of the workforce for many, many years.

I am pleased to see this bill introduced into the House. It will provide an incentive and assistance for many people to move back into the workforce. At a time like this, when we are approaching a serious boom, particularly in mining, in our economy, we need to make sure that we are providing every opportunity we can for people to benefit from that boom by moving back into the workforce and enjoying the benefits that a boom can bring. This bill begins that process as part of much larger package to support some of the more vulnerable people in our community.

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