Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

It is fair and it is affordable. It is fair because it delivers paid parental leave to the whole of Australia, not just to the public servants who work for members opposite. It is affordable because it is paid for by a modest levy on the 3,000 most profitable and largest companies in our country. So it is fair, it is affordable and it is just. It should be delivered because we have promised it at not one but two elections, and it will be delivered under this government.

The logic of members opposite is that it is all right for public servants to be paid at their wage but somehow it is wrong for shop assistants, people working in small business and all of those decent, hardworking women working in the suburbs of Brisbane, Sydney and elsewhere and in regional towns. How can members opposite claim to be friends of the workers of Australia when they do not want female workers to get paid parental leave at their wage? How can they? Really and truly, why is it fair for the Leader of the Opposition's staff to get paid parental leave at their wage and not every other Australian? It is simply not fair.

See this speech in context