Craig Kelly (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Paid Parental Leave Amendment Bill 2014. In the time allowed, I would like to address two specific issues: firstly, the importance of this change to small business and, secondly, why paid parental leave is important, especially for the future.

In the six years of the previous Labor government, we had no fewer than six small business ministers—six separate ministers in charge of small business in this country, coming in through a revolving door. The chief of the Council of Small Business of Australia, COSBOA, Peter Strong, had a media release on his desk which said, 'I am extremely disappointed that once again we will have a new small business minister.' He had that media release on his desk because he knew that every couple of months he would need to use it again because there would be another change of small business minister.

Let us have a look at what Labor actually did to small business in that six years, how small business was smashed by the previous Labor government. We know that the unemployment queues, over the six years of Labor government, lengthened by 200,000 people, but the biggest hit was on small business, where 412,000 people lost their jobs. You could fill up the MCG four times with the number of people who lost their jobs in small business under the previous Labor government. We also saw a shift from small business to big business during that time. In private sector employment, we saw, for the first time in our nation, the proportion of small business fall to under 50 per cent. At the end of the Howard years, 53 per cent of people employed in the private sector were employed in small business. After six years of Labor government, that had declined to 43 per cent. So we had six years of failure from six small business ministers under Labor—complete and utter, hopeless, hopeless failure.

Why did that failure occur? We know that Labor, with their central planning ideology, have the idea that they know better than the small business community how things should be done. We know that almost every policy they had was an attack on small business, from the carbon tax on. One of the attacks they made was forcing small businesses to act as pay clerks to administer their Paid Parental Leave scheme—just more red tape for small business.

The difference between the coalition and the Labor Party could not be any clearer than in their approach to this issue. The Labor Party saw the small business community as a group of people that could just be there and carry out extra work and deal with extra red tape, and they imposed this extra paperwork burden on them. We in the coalition want to take that red-tape burden off small business, because we want those small business people to be out there using their creativity and their entrepreneurial skills to drive innovation and to create the new jobs in our society, rather than sitting down dealing with red tape.

Labor simply do not understand the basis of small business. They do not understand that history has shown that small business are the best innovators. Throughout history, it has been shown that the new jobs in the economy, the new innovations, are all driven by small business. Some of the largest companies in the world today started off as small businesses. We just have to look at a few. Amazon is one of the most famous companies in the world. It was only back in 1995 that it was started by one guy working at home in his garage. It is the same with Apple computers. It was started by two guys working at home in their garage. And of course everyone knows about Google, one of the wealthiest and most prosperous companies in the world today. It was only in 1998 that that company was started by two guys working in their garage. That is why small business is important, because it is the small businesses of today that will create the innovations and drive the jobs of tomorrow. But what we saw under Labor was a complete attack on that sector, with 412,000 jobs lost in the small business sector because they smashed them with red tape.

This bill takes away that red tape burden, that extra pay clerk burden, from the small business and passes it on directly to the Department of Human Services. Of course, it is not compulsory. If the employer wants to provide that Paid Parental Leave scheme that the government has mandated then they are able to do that, but they are also able to pass that paperwork burden on to the Department of Human Services. That is exactly what this coalition wants to do: to cut that red tape, to free the hands of our small business people.

Also, this is important for our migrant communities. Throughout the great history of migration to Australia we have provided our migrant communities with the opportunity to go in and start their own small business. That has been an essential mechanism which has given millions of migrants who have come to this country the ability to enter the mainstream of Australia—our economic mainstream and our social mainstream—by giving them that opportunity to go into small business. That is why it is important. And that is why removing the burden of being pay clerks and processing the government's Paid Parental Leave scheme is just one of the many important steps that we in the coalition are taking.

In the time remaining, I would also like to talk about why Paid Parental Leave is necessary. Many of my constituents have come up to me and said, 'I was never given any paid parental leave. I had to raise my kids without the government giving me anything. Why is it necessary today? Isn't it just a great handout?' Well, we have to look at the demographic changes and what is down the track for this country, because the decisions that we make here in this parliament today will affect the prosperity and the welfare of our children and our grandchildren and our great-grandchildren.

When I was born, back in 1963, the fertility rate was 3.5—the average woman was having 3.5 kids. That is what it was back in 1963 when I was born. But we have seen a decline since then, and today we have actually fallen below the replacement rate for our population. Our fertility rates in this country are down to 1.87. So we, as a society, are not even having enough babies to keep up our population; we are declining. We cannot go on like this. Also we have an ageing population. Because of the many great medical breakthroughs that we have seen, because of our prosperity and because of improvements in the environment, we have been able to increase the lifespan of Australians. So at one end we have increasing lifespans and an ageing population, and at the other end we are not even getting a replacement rate of children being born.

If we continue with this low rate of fertility in our country, what are we going to see in 30 years time? We know that the number of people aged over 65 will double—it will go from 3½ million people to seven million people; that is another 3½ million people over the age of 65. And that will actually be 25 per cent of the population. So we are looking at a future where we will only have 2.4 people of working age to provide the income and lifestyle support for people over 65 who have not funded their own retirement. So if we add that burden on top of the debt burden that is growing every day and every week—and which will keep growing unless the changes are made which the coalition has started in this budgetary process—we are going to condemn our future generations to a lower level of prosperity and a lower level of opportunity and to lower levels of freedom than we inherited in this country. So we have to look at what policies we can come up with to increase the fertility rates of this nation.

It is easy for the member for Jagajaga—and, I am sure, the other members of the opposition who will speak on this bill—to take a cheap political shot and say that the coalition's policy gives $50,000 to wealthy women, and to go down the class-warfare line. That might resonate within some pockets of the population, but it does our nation's future a great disservice.

The reason for what the coalition plans is this. We are not handing $50,000 to anyone. What we are doing is to address a specific issue, to attempt to increase the fertility rates of this nation. One of the reasons for our low fertility rate is the high cost of living in our major cities—mainly, our house prices. Most young couples today simply cannot afford a mortgage unless they have two incomes. They rely on those two incomes to service that mortgage. The wife might decide that she wants to have time off to have a baby, but many couples are putting that decision off because they say, 'How will we continue to service our mortgage during that period of time?' That is one of the reasons why women are putting off the decision to have kids. So the government is saying that we want to treat Paid Parental Leave in the same way as we treat sick pay and holiday pay. We are saying that during that period you are entitled to a replacement wage, and that is what we are doing. Up to a cap of $100,000, you will be paid that replacement wage—in exactly the same way as if you were sick or on holidays. That way, we are saying to women who are considering being mothers, 'You can have six months off and you will continue to get your wage paid for a period of six months, up to a limit of $100,000.' That is what we are doing, with the entire aim of increasing the fertility rate.

Secondly, the way in which this scheme will be paid for will, perhaps, be the greatest boost to small business that we can give them. We have a very lopsided and inequitable system at the moment. Depending on what sector of the economy you work for, females can get different levels of paid parental leave. So if you are a government employee or if you work for one of the larger companies, you are getting much more generous paid parental leave than if you are in a small business. The coalition's scheme actually levels that playing field. There will be a 1.5 per cent increase in the company tax for only our largest companies. That will actually help, because that will give us a two-tier company tax rate, one for larger companies, one for smaller companies. That, again, is a great boost for those entrepreneurs, those small business people who actually drive the economy.

It will also allow for the first time for many years, when a young talented female who is looking at going out into the workforce and contributing to our society, for her decision not to be distorted by what paid parental leave scheme a larger company has or the Public Service has. A small business will be able to go out there and bid for the services of that talented young female. That woman will know that she will get the same paid parental leave scheme, whether she works for the largest firm in town, the Public Service or a small business. I commend the bill to the House, which takes away the obligations of small business of being a 'pay clerk'. The proposed amendment, to be moved by the opposition, with respect to businesses with fewer than 20 employees, should be rejected. It should be for all businesses. There should not be a cap. I commend this bill to the House.

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