Eric Hutchinson (Lyons, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is a pleasure to rise and speak on the Paid Parental Leave Amendment Bill 2014. I have been an advocate for change in this area ever since the policy was explained to me. The hysteria that has been whipped up by the opposition and those on the other side really beggars belief because ultimately this is a measure of equity. This is about providing low- and middle-income women with the best opportunity to go and have a family, because that is really important. It is also about providing them with the best opportunity, if they so choose, to get back to work.

There have been many misunderstandings. The principal misunderstanding relates to how this measure will be funded. In large part this will be funded by a levy on the biggest tax-paying big business in our country. I find it quite interesting that those on the other side see that as a bad thing. It will particularly help low- and middle-income women in the work force. It particularly will help those women that are involved and employed within small business. Why should not those people who choose to work in small business have the same opportunities that are offered to women that work in big business, to women that work in the Public Service? Why is it that cleaners, teachers and shop assistants should be disadvantaged under the current arrangements? Why is it that those on the other side would oppose these measures?

It is a policy that will support new babies. The evidence shows that the first six months of a baby and a mother bonding are the most vital and the most important. It is also important to understand that superannuation will be paid on this fair dinkum scheme. You do not have to look very far. Most people do understand that women, when they retire at the end of their working lives, have less superannuation than their male counterparts. It is simply untenable. It gives women every reason to have a family. That is so important for Australia. It is so important for them. It gives those women the very best opportunity to re-enter the work force if they so choose.

This is in fact a workplace entitlement. This is not welfare. It is a productivity measure. It is good economic policy. It is not welfare. As Australia's population ages, goodness knows, the evidence is clear for anyone who would want to look, anyone who would listen, that we are going to need many people back in the workforce paying taxes and working. This, in a productivity sense, will support women getting back into the workforce, and indeed we are going to need them. Importantly, we will remove the responsibility that currently lies with small business to be the pay clerk for government within this scheme. It means that low- and middle-income mums are indeed the winners. They are the winners when they are spending time with their families, with their new babies, and they are winners at the end of their working lives, when they also will have access to superannuation at a similar level to what their male counterparts enjoy.

But there is more. For the first time, this will allow small-business employers to be able to compete for quality female employees alongside big business and the Public Service. This is an enormous opportunity for small business to expand. We know what an important part of the Australian economy it is. We know about the damage that was done to small business under the previous government and the number of businesses that failed due to the carbon tax. These are measures to support what we understand and we know to be an important part of the Australian economy—that is, the small-business sector. Indeed, this is a policy of equity.

If you do not believe me, others are saying similar things. I believe that perhaps Eva Cox has the definitive argument for immediately passing and implementing this Paid Parental Leave Amendment Bill. For those including me who are too young to remember, I take it on very good authority that Eva Cox was one of the Australian women's warriors who emerged from the feminist revolution that swept this country in the 1970s, along with people like Germaine Greer, Elizabeth Evatt and Ann Summers. In the early 1980s, she was also an adviser to the respected Tasmanian Labor senator Don Grimes when he was the federal opposition spokesman on social services.

Eva Cox has never been at any time a darling of this side—the Liberal Party. Despite her obvious political colours, she strongly supports the coalition's Paid Parental Leave scheme. Why? Because she understands how much it is needed by Australian women who must work as well as care for their children. Cox, indeed a hardline feminist, says yes to the scheme because of the deeper, more significant reasons which Tasmanian and Australian women who were working and trying to raise a family all at the same time in the 1970s will know and agree with, whatever their political persuasion. That generation of women had been arguing and advocating for such a scheme since the early 1970s for themselves and their daughters, who are our new generation of women in the workplace.

Incorporating paid parental leave with other workplace leave entitlements normalises parenting in the realm of employment. Taking paid leave to have a baby reinforces the notion that it is quite legitimate to be an employee and to be a parent. It is a vital ideological step in shifting attitudes about what makes an ideal employee. The Australian workplace culture needs to acknowledge the fact that in the 21st century all of us are human beings with different responsibilities, and better aligning our paid work with outside obligations is a good measure of a healthy society and will, importantly, boost productivity.

This scheme, I repeat, is a workplace entitlement. It is a productivity measure. It is not about welfare. The legislative amendment for this scheme that we are debating today is closer to an industrial work entitlement that normalises paid parental leave than the current scheme. It is longer, 26 weeks instead of 18, and that is because all the data, all the information, shows that the first six months a mother has with her newborn baby are the most important—and children are indeed important. We need mums to have babies, and we also need mums, if they so choose, to be taxpayers as well again.

I also found it interesting that Cox described the media debate that has surrounded this initiative as 'a sad illustration of both the tenor of current political debates and continuing bizarre attitudes to women in paid work'. Should not those opposing this policy remember and acknowledge what Cox and her feminist colleagues have been campaigning for for nearly four decades? She says:

Too much of the discussion has been emotive, often sexist and deeply irrational.

The most offensive idea to those against the scheme seems to be that a handful of 'high-earning women' would continue to receive their salaries while whilst having a baby. When was the last time that this level of anger applied to high-income men taking annual leave or long service leave? Why is it different? Why is it different because they are women having babies? It simply does not make sense. Or is there still—

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