Sarah Henderson (Corangamite, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Paid Parental Leave Amendment Bill 2014. This bill is very much in keeping with the coalition's commitment to reduce $1 billion of red tape on businesses every year. Already our 'red tape repeal day' has delivered in excess of $700 million in savings. This bill ensures that business no longer carries the burden of having to act as the pay clerk for the Paid Parental Leave scheme. This will save businesses $44 million a year and make life easier for small business owner-operators. This measure will also save the not-for-profit sector $4 million a year.

Earlier in this debate it was suggested by a member opposite that there was no evidence for these savings. I say to that member: read the explanatory memorandum; the detail is there. But Labor has not been very good at getting its head around the detail. We just heard from the member for Blair, who claimed that employers will have no role under our amendments. We have actually made it very clear that, where an employer has administrative capacity and has found the role to be beneficial for their organisation, with the agreement of the employee, they can opt in to take on this role voluntarily. So, again, we hear from the other side of the chamber a deficiency by Labor in understanding the detail of the bill before this House.

The savings to businesses in my home state of Victoria will be around $11.67 million alone. That is a very significant measure. You would think that Labor would get behind these reforms to help small business, because it is common sense. But, like the billions of dollars of savings that Labor is blocking—including $5 billion of its own savings—Labor is once again standing in the way. In 2011 Labor voted down the private member's bill of the member for Dunkley—now, of course, the Minister for Small Business—to remove the pay clerk burden from the PPL scheme, and Labor has continued to block this important measure. The bottom line is: Labor does not understand how important this is for small business, because it does not understand that, taking the cost pressures off small business helps jobs and drives prosperity.

The Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry conducted a survey of its members on the Paid Parental Leave scheme in May 2013. In that survey it found that 84 per cent of businesses either agreed or strongly agreed that the government should not require employers to be the paymaster for the Paid Parental Leave scheme.

Debate interrupted.

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