Peta Murphy (Dunkley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I'm pleased to follow the member for Hughes and find myself agreeing with everything I just heard her say. I didn't hear the start of your contribution, Member for Hughes, but I suspect I would have agreed with that as well.

Most of us in this chamber understand that society has changed, almost unrecognisably in some ways, over the last 30, 40 or 50 years in the way women now expect to be able to live their lives and the things that we expect to be able to achieve. I actually can't believe it, but I'm turning 50 this year. I think of my mother's experience, as someone who was a teacher, when she had me, and the experience of professional women now when they have children. The changes that have happened over that 50-year period are remarkable and so positive. My mother found it very hard to go back to teaching after having had me, because she didn't get the support at the school for the flexibility that she needed to be able to have a young child and work full time. We would find it extraordinary these days for that to be acceptable, particularly in a public school system.

The Paid Parental Leave Amendment (Improvements for Families and Gender Equality) Bill 2022 takes us another step towards achieving the sort of society that we want to be a part of. That is—for many of us in this place, and for almost everyone I know in my community—a society where men and women are able to equally share the joys and the burdens of child care, particularly in the early years after they've had children.

For too long now, the structure of workplaces, the culture in Australia and the expectations have made it incredibly difficult for men who want to be at home and be part of the early weeks, months and years of their children's lives to do that. As women we often, rightly, talk about how important it is to have paid parental leave provisions for women and to support women to get back into the workforce, and all the benefits individually for women, for businesses, for the economy and, quite frankly, for children, of being able to see women go back into the workplace after having children.

Possibly we should also talk more about how important it is to encourage and facilitate men to take on more of that childcaring role earlier in their children's lives and to help men who want to do it to do it. That's why, in particular, the 'use it or lose it' provision in this legislation for two weeks of paid parental leave is an important step towards being able to do that. We know, and others in this place have said it—there's nothing new or remarkable in what I'm saying—that the research shows that if men spend more time with their children in the time immediately after birth then they are also more likely to be more involved in their children's lives as they grow up. We know the benefit to children of having that relationship with their fathers. And we of course know the benefit to women—yes, it's generally women—of having a male partner who is more involved in their children's lives and also takes on more of the unpaid work associated with having a family. We also know from all the census data that women still do a disproportionate amount of unpaid work around the home, often no matter how progressive that household is and no matter how much the man and the woman in that household both want to be equal and share the burden. Again, culture, workplaces and a lack of opportunity for men to be more involved play into that unequal burden.

So I'm really pleased with this legislation and everything that speakers before me have said it will achieve for families, for productivity and for children. It is an important first step in what the Albanese government wants to achieve and that push towards 26 weeks of paid parental leave—and looking forward to the recommendations of the Women's Economic Taskforce about what some of the provisions should be in that legislation.

After what I've just said, it will surprise no-one to hear that I think we can also do better in terms of the 'use it or lose it' provisions. Of course, there are very difficult decisions to be made about the costs of progressive reforms in the economic sense and the benefits of them. And we can't always bring in, and bring in quickly, the extent of reform that some of us would like to see. But there are other countries in the world that have a standard in paid parental leave that I believe we should be looking to for the future and aspiring to. We could look to Sweden, which, as I understand it, provides 480 days of paid leave to parents, 90 of which are reserved for fathers on that 'use it or lose it' basis. Iceland has 12 months of leave, at 80 per cent of total salary, which can be shared between parents. That's a pretty expensive scheme, it must be said. But there are a number of countries around the world that have and that are looking at looking at extended 'use it or lose it' provisions and can point to a change in the culture in their countries as a result of introducing the provisions. They can point to changes in data saying that men very rarely took paid parental leave or were involved in the early years of their children's lives before the introduction of 'use it or lose it' provisions in paid parental leave, and now it's becoming a societal norm.

My contribution on this legislation is to say that it is absolutely terrific, and I am very proud to be part of a government that is introducing it, but to also say that that norm, where both men and women can be part of the early years of their children's lives and can make a decision between them about how that is balanced, is the norm we should be aspiring to in this country. It will go a long way towards the gender equality that everyone in this chamber wants to see achieved.

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