Zoe Daniel (Goldstein, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

The Paid Parental Leave Amendment (Improvements for Families and Gender Equality) Bill 2022 is the leading edge of a step-change for women, families, the economy and for the ongoing pursuit of gender equality in this country. Now that we are here, though, let's make it a giant leap forward, because not many policy levers have this power to bring about the sort of cultural change that's needed to elevate Australia's recent poor record on gender equality. To say it's needed is an understatement.

Once a leader on gender equality, Australia now sits 43rd in the world in the global gender gap index. While ranked equal first in the world for women's education, we rank 38th when it comes to economic participation and opportunity and we have a gender pay gap of 14.1 per cent. Australia has one of the most gender-segregated workforces in the world, and our rate of female part-time employment is almost 10 per cent higher than the OECD average.

The recent women's senior executive census found that progress of women into the most senior leadership roles in the nation's top companies over the last six years has been negligible. In the last year, representation has actually gone backwards. We like to think we're leaders. In this we are not. We can be, we should be and we must be. In fact, Monash University's recent women's health and wellbeing scorecard found that, at the current rate of change, it will take more than 200 years to achieve gender equality in Australia. I don't have the patience for that, nor does my daughter, nor do the women and girls of Goldstein. We can't sit back and wait for things to happen organically. We need to shift our thinking about how we divide up unpaid care work now. Stop looking at the cost; start looking at the benefit.

Women have already been paying the cost emotionally and financially. Systemic structural and cultural factors perpetuate gender inequality in Australia. These things are interlinked. Systemic violence against women too is linked to how they're valued. Until we address workplace and economic imbalances, broader equality will not simply arrive. So much of that inequality is linked to women doing most of the unpaid care work and society not valuing the caring work that women do—paid and unpaid.

As I explained to my 14-year-old daughter recently, girls and boys are born into gendered norms. Society embeds those norms. Gender stereotypes lead to discrimination. Women take on most of the caring responsibilities. As a result, they're under-utilised in the paid workforce. Women make up higher levels of part-time work—gender segregation by job type. This all leads to a gender pay gap, with a lack of women in leadership positions, less superannuation in retirement and, increasingly, poverty for older women—not an attractive snapshot. The penny dropped for my daughter. I don't want that future for her. I want her to dictate the life she leads, the job she wants and how much time she wants to work. I want her to live in a society where unpaid care work is evenly shared and seen as important. I want her to be valued equally to a man.

The Parenthood's 2021 research report Back of the Pack—How Australia's Parenting Policies are failing Women and our Economy found that, compared to global peers, mums in Australia fall behind in work participation after children and never catch up. Achieving a more equitable division of unpaid care between men and women is fundamental to achieving gender equality. This is what the paid parental leave amendment bill sets out to do.

Removing the notion of primary, secondary and tertiary claimant and the requirement that the primary claimant be the birth parent creates greater flexibility, allowing families to decide how they will share the entitlement. The bill combines the previous dad and partner pay with parental leave to increase parental leave pay to 20 weeks. Two weeks of parental leave pay will be reserved for each parent to use it or lose it, to encourage more fathers and partners to access the payment. The use-it-or-lose-it element is a critical piece and will help foster a culture where men's role in care giving becomes accepted and encouraged. The importance of this can't be overstated. Taking time out of the paid workforce to care for a child should be part of the usual course of life and work for both parents, and in Australia at the moment it's simply not.

Currently, 88 per cent of parental leave is taken by women, which takes them out of the paid workforce and, for many women, it is then hard to pick up where they left off. But having a more flexible paid parental leave scheme that encourages men to access it is about more than women fulfilling their work ambitions. It also supports the nation's wellbeing by bonding fathers with their children and boosting the economy. Leveraging women's participation is one of the most effective actions to improve our economy and productivity. The National Skills Commission estimates the need for 1.2 million additional workers across the economy by 2026. A large majority of these roles are in highly feminised industries, such as health and early childhood education and care.

Women are an untapped workforce who can play a vital role in meeting these labour shortages. The Chief Executive Women and Impact Economics and Policy paper 2022, Addressing Australia's critical skills shortages: unlocking women's economic participation, found that halving the workforce participation gap between men and women would represent an additional 500,000 full-time skilled workers with postschool qualifications. The report said that engaging women in paid work at the same rate as men could unlock an additional one million full-time skilled workers in Australia.

I commend the aim of the bill to make paid parental leave more accessible, more flexible and gender-neutral. But the amendments don't go far enough, and they are too slow. These changes—which, in effect, combine existing provisions rather than extending them—will not roll out fully until 2026. I stand here as a member of the crossbench to challenge the government to push for more ambition, to go to 95 per cent—100 per cent—not to stop at 75 per cent. Women must be enabled. The time frame is a failing in this bill and should be brought forward. Three more years of waiting is too long.

We also know from international experience that the key to men taking parental leave is the 'use it or lose it' component for an extended period—that is, more than two weeks. In Denmark, 'use it or lose it' provisions saw a significant increase in men's uptake of parental leave, and men were subsequently more likely to continue shared care of their children throughout the early years. This is the step change that we need. The evidence shows that, as a result of policies like this, workplaces and communities are more accommodating and accepting of sharing the care between men and women.

The use of parental leave by fathers in Australia is very low by global standards. Fathers in Australia take less than 20 per cent of the parental leave that their international peers take and receive just 0.04 per cent of all publicly provided parental leave. Because care patterns are established in the first year of a child's life, this entrenches stereotypical gender roles. According to the World Economic Forum's Global gender gap report 2020, the gap between how mothers and how fathers work, care and earn after a baby is more pronounced in Australia than in comparable nations. We should be encouraging men to take up parental leave, to normalise flexible work and shared care responsibilities and to strengthen women's workforce participation and financial security. And it's healthy for men. When fathers take parental leave, they as well as their children and their partners benefit from stronger relationships.

This is why I favour a nontransferable six-week 'use it or lose it' provision when paid parental leave entitlements grow to 26 weeks by 2026, to encourage greater shared caregiving by both parents and, importantly, to incentivise men to access the leave. I know the government has asked the Women's Economic Equality Taskforce to come up with the best model for the expansion to 26 weeks, which will be legislated separately from the current bill before the parliament. I look forward to seeing where it lands and will hold the government to account on the 'use it or lose it' provision.

I also urge the government to extend the superannuation guarantee to paid parental leave. Paid parental leave is one of the only types of paid leave to which the superannuation guarantee does not apply. When mothers take time out of the workforce to care for their children, not only do they struggle to maintain a meaningful connection to the workforce; they can go for years without receiving any super. On average, women accumulate 47 per cent less super than men. A paid parental leave scheme that includes super will help redress the imbalance. This must happen if we are serious about this.

It's time we stopped punishing women for the burden of unpaid care work they carry. The Goldstein community elected me on a platform of gender equality, among other things, and I will continue to fight for a society where women and men have equal economic and social choices and responsibilities. This bill goes some way to achieving that by shifting gender norms. Next, 52 weeks of paid parental leave to bring us up to par with global leaders in this space. It's time to not only share the load but enable women and girls to take that great leap forward.

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