Brian Mitchell (Lyons, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I'm proud to speak to the Paid Parental Leave Amendment (Improvements for Families and Gender Equality) Bill 2022 in this place today, and I'm proud to do so as a member of this government, which is ensuring this critical reform is provided to families right across Australia. Labor governments build the country. Our positive reforms are felt for decades. They are reforms which benefit the people of Australia and ensure a fair go for all. Gough Whitlam reformed higher education to ensure it was accessible and achievable for all Australians. Bob Hawke reformed Australia's health system, with Medicare, ensuring more people could access health care. And it is this government, led by Anthony Albanese, that will reform paid parental leave, which will ensure greater gender equality and fairness for all Australian families.

When we came to office in May last year, paid parental leave became one of our central focuses as a new government. The 2021-22 federal budget had, at its core, investment in paid parental leave for the benefit of the people of Australia and the Australian economy. It's not just a social measure; it's also an economic measure. This government understands that investment in paid parental leave, when it is done right, will advance gender equality, provide a boost for the economy and help everyday Aussie families with the cost-of-living pressures that are being felt across Australia right now. It was a message that was sent loud and clear by workers, employers, unions, economists and industry experts at September's Jobs and Skills Summit: gender equality and economic reform are issues that go hand in hand. It's not often, as we know, that you get all those disparate groups coming together with a common voice. This is a reform that opens our economy and provides full and fair participation for women in Australia, both as parents and within the workforce.

It was the Prime Minister who said that this reform agenda would be 'a parental leave system that empowers the full and equal participation of women, which will be good for business, good for families and good for our economy'. The message from this government cannot be clearer than that. The importance of this bill cannot be more obvious. This reform, at its core, is good for Australia.

This bill will see the implementation of the first tranche of the government's paid parental leave changes, which were announced by the government in October, in Labor's first budget in 10 years. The bill provides essential structural change, which will modernise paid parental leave and ensure that it meets the needs of modern Australia and modern families. This means the scheme will meet the needs of Australian families fairly and equally, which is something that it doesn't currently do. Current eligibility rules under the Paid Parental Leave scheme are unfair, at best, in a way that disproportionately and negatively affects families in which the mother is the higher income earner—and I don't think anybody can enunciate it better than my colleague the member for Bendigo in her terrific speech just now.

Backwards views on who is and isn't the breadwinner in a family are just not relevant in today's Australia, and so it is important that these views are not inadvertently entrenched in legislation and the support schemes that emanate from it. Under the current scheme, mothers who are the higher income earner are negatively impacted by statute. Currently, two families with a household income of $200,000 dollars are treated vastly differently based on who is the primary income earner. If the father in this situation is the primary income earner, then the scheme is accessible to that family and they meet the eligibility criteria. But if the mother is the higher income earner, then the family is automatically ineligible for support under the scheme. It's not good enough, and this government and this bill will change it.

Frankly, we're 23 years into the 21st century, and we've still got a situation where women face this sort of discrimination. I'm old enough to remember when women had to leave the workforce when they got married. I'm not quite old enough to remember when women had to get their husband's permission to open bank accounts. We thought those days were long behind us. The entrails of those days remain in legislation, and this government is determined to wipe them out and end discrimination once and for all.

This bill will deliver six key and core changes that will come into effect from 1 July 2023. First, it will combine the two existing payments under the scheme into a single 20-week scheme. This will make it less convoluted and more easily accessible for parents. Currently, there are two payments that are made under the scheme from government. Parental leave pay, which provides up to 18 weeks of payment, is primarily targeted to mothers. On the other hand, dad and partner pay provides up to two weeks of payment to fathers and partners. Under this bill, those two payment streams will combine in a single 20-week payment which will give parents more choice and flexibility in how they choose to use paid parental leave and how they choose to share care of their newborn or adopted child. This better reflects modern Australia and how Australian families choose to parent in modern Australia. It accepts that not all families are the same and that different families will make different choices. This gives vital flexibility to parents so that they have the opportunity to provide for their family in a way that suits their family. This very much puts the family first.

The second key change is that a portion of the scheme will be reserved for each parent to support them both to take time off work after birth or adoption. I can't put into words how important that is. The ability for both parents to take time to be just that—parents—and to spend time to bond with their newborn and to enjoy being a family is something that all parents deserve, and under this Paid Parental Leave scheme it is something that all parents will be able to participate in. As the member for Bendigo so brilliantly enunciated, those early years are so vital in setting future roles in the family. Actually, I've noticed this myself in my family. I'm perhaps embarrassed to admit that, while my wife and I used to share duties at home fairly equally, we have a very traditional set-up, I would say, when it comes to child rearing, and my wife by all means takes on the heavy domestic chores in the household. So that's a very traditional way. I'm sure I get a lot of grief for it still, as I should. But those marks are set early, and this seeks to change that. So it is a very welcome change. When I see the young fathers in this place and the way that they are so ready to take paid parental leave and to be much more involved in the nurturing of their kids in a way that I admit I never did with my young children, it's just fantastic to see how quickly young fathers are adapting.

Third, the notion of primary and secondary carers will be removed. This will make it easier for both parents to access support. The removal of this terminology is long overdue. I don't think anybody would realistically consider one parent to be more important than the other, so why should the paid parental leave scheme support that inference by listing primary and secondary carers? It's wrong, and it's gone with this bill under this government.

The fourth key change is that we are expanding access to the scheme by introducing a $350,000 family income test. Under this test, applicants can qualify even if they do not meet the $156,647 individual income test. That's about opening access to this scheme to more Australians, and it means stronger families and a stronger economy. It's a great initiative, and I'm pleased it's being included in the bill.

Fifth, the bill will increase flexibility for parents to choose how they take paid parental leave days and how they transition back to work. Every person in Australia is different. Every parent is different, with different circumstances and different ways that they will adjust to their newfound parenthood. It's critical that this flexibility is afforded to people so they can make transitions in a way that is right for their family and in the best interests of their family. Governments should never dictate how someone leads their personal life or their family life. Improved flexibility in the scheme will be a game changer for Australian families.

Finally, the sixth key change to the scheme in this bill is to allow eligible fathers and partners to access the payment irrespective of whether the mother or birth parent meets the income test or residency requirements. Families living in Australia should not be left behind, and families will not be left behind under the Albanese government. This key change is another way that the Australian government is ensuring more access to the scheme, which is both fair and to the benefit of Australian families and, by default, the broader Australian community via the economy.

In my electorate, many families are struggling with the cost of living and are uncertain about the future for their new and growing families. This bill sends a message loud and clear that the government stands with Australian families and is making it easier for them. From Deloraine in the north through to Bridgewater in the south and everywhere in between in my electorate, families are going to benefit from these changes to the Paid Parental Leave scheme, and so in turn will local economies.

I'll conclude in the same way I started: by reiterating that this bill is good for families and good for the economy. It's a bill that provides much-needed reform to Australia's Paid Parental Leave scheme. I would like to take this opportunity to thank the minister, Amanda Rishworth, for the work that she has put into this reform for the benefit of Australian families. This is a very significant reform. It's a reform that should be a unifying moment for this parliament. At its core, it's a bill that will ensure the ongoing security and prosperity of Australian families in a flexible way that works for them, and I am sure that, just as we talk about the reforms that Gough Whitlam made to education and that Bob Hawke made to health, this will go down as a defining moment and future Labor governments will turn to this and say, 'This, too, was a defining moment that we should be proud of.'

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