Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is ridiculous for her to stand here today and suggest that the cleaners of Australia should pay for her parental leave—because that is what would be the case under opposition leader Tony Abbott's scheme—and that her parental leave pay, if she were having a child today, should also be paid for by the people out working on the roads. It is only appropriate that we should have some sort of indication, like we did with private health insurance and like we did with the baby bonus, of the income that people have when it comes to having children and when it comes to looking after medical expenses. I well remember when we voted on means testing the baby bonus. Do you know how I remember? Because my son was born on 19 January, less than nine months after we changed that in the budget. My wife was pregnant on budget night and we did not have a nine-month lead-in—which might have been a good idea, as I explained to my then pregnant wife.

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