Josh Frydenberg (Kooyong, Liberal Party, Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

Our paid parental leave scheme is supporting working women across the country. What we saw prior to COVID was a record number of Australian women in work. The honourable member refers to the gender pay gap. In fact, the gender pay gap has closed to a record low of 13.9 per cent. Do you know what it was when Labor was last in office? It was 17.4 per cent. Our paid parental leave scheme is providing about $2.3 billion a year. We've made some changes over the course of the pandemic, supporting new parents whose employment was interrupted by the pandemic by introducing an alternative paid parental leave work-test period for a limited time. Prior to temporarily changing the work test period, parents must have worked 10 out of the 13 months prior to the birth of their child to qualify for paid parental leave. In November of last year the government temporarily extended the work test period to require parents to work 10 months out of 20 months for a limited time.

The honourable member also references the OECD. Let me point out that comparing Australia's Paid Parental Leave scheme with those of other OECD countries is quite problematic because of cross-country differences in the design of statutory paid parental leave schemes and employer provided parental leave schemes. In Australia, parental leave is fully funded through general taxation revenue. This is a non-contributory scheme, which means that all parents who are eligible for government funded paid parental leave can access this support when needed in addition to any employer provided paid leave. Unlike the majority of the members of the OECD, Australia provides a flat rate rather than a replacement wage from a contributive fund, so you can't compare the two schemes.

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