Sam Rae (Hawke, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Paid parental leave reform is good for families. It looks after new mums, dads and bubs. The Albanese government knows that it's critical for the health and wellbeing of newborns and their parents, and we know that expanding and investing in paid parental leave is good for our economy.

The reforms set out in the Paid Parental Leave Amendment (Improvements for Families and Gender Equality) Bill 2022 are all about this government's commitment to improve the lives of working people, especially new mothers. It will encourage parents to share more of the caring responsibilities and make sure that the necessary support is there during one of the most challenging and exciting times of anyone's life. I know for myself all too well the joy, the terror and the utter exhaustion that you feel while juggling work and caring for little ones. I've been fortunate enough to have been in workplaces with generous provisions for parental leave, but I know that not everyone is in the same position. For each of my three children, the ability for me to take leave to be there for their first months has made a monumental difference. It's a privilege that should be enjoyed by all new parents.

This is about choice and flexibility. More people should be able to make the decision that I and so many others can, to enjoy their time raising a new family, and we should make sure that they're fully supported to do so. The decision to have a family is a big one, and we don't want families to have to worry about caring for a newborn while managing the day to day of keeping the lights on and putting food on the table. For too long, parenting has been undervalued and deprioritised in policymaking, but this government knows that it is one of the most fulfilling things that you can do, and these changes recognise that.

This bill to expand and modernise the Paid Parental Leave scheme is a significant reform, driven in large part by unions, who have recognised the need to maximise women's workforce participation; but also for employers, who want to make sure that their workplace is as supportive and accommodating as possible. This sort of investment in our paid parental leave system is good for business, good for productivity and good for the Australian economy. We heard loud and clear at the Jobs and Skills Summit that something needed to be done to ensure greater gender equality, and that that equality was at the heart of future economic reforms.

Importantly, we're delivering on cost-of-living relief for new families with this expanded scheme, something that has been front and centre for this government. In the October budget we revealed this as part of a broader $7.5 billion five-point plan to deliver targeted cost-of-living relief for households while not adding to inflation. This plan builds on our commitment to Australians that we will take action on cost-of-living pressures that are impacting their households and their families.

The plan includes delivering $4.7 billion over four years to deliver cheaper child care for more than 1.2 million families, including almost 7,000 families in my electorate of Hawke alone. We'll also progressively expand paid parental leave to six months by 2026. This is a massive game changer for all working families. By expanding paid parental leave, alongside our investment in cheaper medicines, through reducing the PBS maximum general co-payment to 30 bucks a script, we're lending a hand to those who need it most. And we're delivering more affordable housing, including having a new national housing accord to build affordable and well-located homes for Australians who are trying to have a go. Finally, we'll be getting wages moving again, including supporting the increase to the minimum wage, supporting a wage rise for aged-care workers, fixing the bargaining system and investing in the capabilities of our people and the capacity of our economy, because it's the right thing to do.

After a wasted decade, we're finally building a stronger and more resilient economy and delivering cost-of-living relief for Australian families. These sustainable and targeted reforms will help our economy to bounce back by driving productivity, while making sure parents can make the most of the exciting time that building a family brings. It's important that our businesses and places of employment are supportive places for parents to return to. They need to feel and they need to know that they're being backed in during the pregnancy or adoption and also while they're on leave.

Around 181,000 Australian families will benefit from the changes outlined in this bill, including around 4,300 parents who will be eligible for paid parental leave for the first time under the scheme. This includes the many families that make up my electorate of Hawke, which is filled with new mums and dads and host to a booming population. We know all too well the balancing act that working families face every single day. Hawke is home to a vibrant, multicultural community with so much to be proud of. The city of Melton is one of the fastest growing areas in Australia, with more than 50 babies born every week, exemplifying why it's so important that we work together to ensure that every child's health and wellbeing is central to what we do. The ABS's population-change data shows that the Rockbank and Mount Cottrell area in my electorate of Hawke has Victoria's second-highest growth rate, exploding in population by 540 per cent. By 2051 the city of Melton is projected to be larger than the current population of Canberra. Our fast-growing suburbs will only continue to boom. It's clear that so many families in my electorate are trying to juggle it all while still giving their kids the best start in life. That's why these changes to the scheme are so timely and urgently needed for communities like ours.

When this scheme was first introduced by the Rudd government in 2011 it lifted a huge burden off the backs of hardworking families and created new ways for families to make sure they were able to provide for their kids, while centralising the care and wellbeing of new parents and babies in policymaking. Prior to the Rudd government's scheme being introduced just 50 per cent of working women had access to employer-funded paid parental leave. This grew to around 95 per cent of working women having access to some form of paid leave in the years immediately after the scheme was introduced. And it laid the foundation for more families to make choices that they wouldn't have had before, particularly new mums.

We've still got a way to go. As we know, currently the primary caregiver, usually the mother, is entitled to 18 weeks of pay at the national minimum wage, with dad and partner pay separately provided with two weeks leave. The scheme does not currently do enough to encourage dads to take it up. We know that too often this places the burden of care on women alone. In 2021, almost 170,000 people received parental leave pay and almost 90,000 people received dad and partner pay. In too many cases, the primary care role is left to new mums during what can be an extremely isolating and challenging time. This government will change the scheme to make it easier for new dads to take up paid parental leave. We'll combine the two payments and change eligibility requirements so that new dads aren't excluded from the scheme if their partner makes over the $151,350 income test. By doing this, we're making it easier to raise a family, while boosting women's economic participation and improving gender equality. The reforms that this bill will bring in send a strong message that parenting is an equal partnership. We recognise the role of men as carers too, and we want to see that reinforced in workplaces and across our communities This is particularly consequential in our electorate of Hawke, where the workforce participation rate for women aged 25 to 54 years is around three per cent lower than the rate recorded nationally.

The ACTU welcomes this as a long overdue step forward, pointing to the fact that the unfair burden of care placed on new mothers contributes to women's earnings falling by 55 per cent, on average, in the first five years of parenthood. We will change the income test to a combined $350,000 between both partners, meaning families are no longer excluded if the mother exceeds the individual income test but the father doesn't, as is currently the case under the scheme. Changes will mean fathers and partners can receive payments under the scheme at the same time as they receive employer-funded leave, incentivising more dads to take on a caring role in those early days. The government has been very clear that our Paid Parental Leave scheme is designed to complement employer-paid workplace leave schemes, not to replace them.

Importantly, this bill introduces amendments that would mean that parents can take their paid parental leave in multiple blocks, in their own time, as suits their families—helping them to ease back into work, as little as a day at a time, within two years of the birth or adoption of their child. This flexibility will support parents to return to work in the way that they see fit, and they won't have to worry about losing their paid parental leave entitlements if they take it in their own time, on their own terms, according to the needs of their families. But there is still cultural change that needs to take place in workplaces before we can truly see all the benefits. Employer-provided paid parental leave is more common in industries dominated by women. Around 50 per cent of businesses in industries dominated by men offer parental leave, compared to 75 per cent of those in female dominated industries. Employer-funded leave needs to be an important part of the offering available to new parents, and it's important that the scheme is complemented by employers to make sure that parents can reap the full benefits and stay connected to work and that our economy can enjoy the dividend.

Part of this cultural change will be enacted through this bill introducing an easier claiming process, which will allow either parent to take leave first, removing the assumptions about mothers and fathers being primary and secondary carers. We know that when fathers are more involved, and take on more responsibility in that caring role, the care continues throughout a child's development, with significant physical, mental and social benefits for the mum, the dad and the kids. Importantly, these reforms will extend the full 20 weeks paid leave to single parents as well. These outcomes are going to be essential going forward as we continue to build on the paid parental leave offering. The current scheme will be changed in six key ways from 1 July 2023, including by combining the two separate payments into a combined 20-week scheme to be shared by both parents; maintaining time for each parent to facilitate both parents to take paid parental leave after a birth or adoption; redefining and removing the notion of primary and secondary carers as being the role of a mother and father respectively, which does not take into account the unique and changing circumstances of modern Australian families; expanding access for thousands of new families with a $350,000 family income test, meaning people can receive paid parental leave if they do not meet the current individual income test; increasing flexibility by giving new parents more choice in how they decide to take paid parental leave; and ensuring eligible fathers and partners are able to access the scheme regardless of whether the mother or birth parent meets the income test or residency requirements.

But we won't stop here. In the October budget we committed to a half-a-billion-dollar investment to expand the scheme to provide six months of paid parental leave at the national minimum wage by 2026. As part of that we will be progressively increasing the scheme by six weeks until it reaches the full 26, bringing us up to six months of paid parental leave.

The prioritisation of this issue in our first year of government speaks to our commitment to working families, especially in the context of our changes to make child care more affordable and accessible for everyday families. Our plan for cheaper child care means 96 per cent of families will be better off—that's 1.26 million families across the country—and not a single one will be worse off under our plan.

The cost of early learning is a major cost-of-living issue for working families. Under the previous government, almost 73,000 families were locked out of the childcare system because it was simply unaffordable. We're getting on with fixing the cost of child care, and we're fixing paid parental leave. This is about fundamental economic reform, building back after 10 years of inaction and delivering a considerable economic boost while supporting working families in our community.

We're delivering a wholesale reform of the way we deal with paid parental leave in this country so that it's a fairer, more robust system that aligns more closely with the views and expectations of modern Australia. I am very proud to be part of a government that has spent every day working on behalf of Australian families, delivering significant reforms to improve the lives of families and communities right across our country. (Time expired)

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