Amanda Rishworth (Kingston, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Social Services) Share this | Hansard source

I would like to thank the member for Fremantle for his question and for the work that he does in supporting families in his community.

Helping families to get ahead has been front and centre of our government's agenda. The Albanese government will always look at how we can provide more support for working families. Earlier this year we implemented legislation to modernise paid parental leave, to reflect how Australian families and their needs have evolved over time and how we can best meet them. Our changes, which commenced on 1 July, give more families access to the payment, give families more flexibility on how they take leave and make it easier to share care. And today we have taken another significant step forward. This morning I introduced legislation to increase the paid parental leave scheme to six months by 2026. From 24 July we will add an extra two weeks a year, delivering the biggest expansion to the scheme since Labor introduced it in 2011.

The Albanese government is increasing the amount of support available to families by six weeks, with an investment of $1.2 billion over five years. That's nearly $5,000 extra help to cover time off around the birth of a baby and it will help to juggle care and work. Our 26-week scheme will include four weeks reserved for each parent, which leaves 18 weeks that parents can choose to share however they wish. Our changes will also mean that parents can take up to four weeks of leave at the same time from the current two weeks available.

These changes reflect expert advice from the Women's Economic Equality Taskforce. They strike a very important balance in increasing support to families, making it easier for both parents to take leave and providing flexibility in how they structure their care arrangements. Not only will our investment help families but it will also support participation and productivity over the long term, providing a dividend to the Australian economy. I am pleased that our reforms have been widely welcomed by gender advocates, employers, unions and, of course, families alike. Moon from Canberra, a mum of two, has welcomed the changes, saying that they would help families immensely. And there are mothers like Alicia, who has an 11-month-old baby; she said that these changes would have made it easier to go back to work and continue her career.

Labor is the party that created paid parental leave and now it is the party implementing the scheme's largest expansion. Our reforms are good for mums, dads, children, business and the economy. (Time expired)

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