Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to support the Paid Parental Leave Amendment (More Support for Working Families) Bill 2023. We're the first government in Australia's history with a majority of women in our ranks. As the finance minister and Minister for Women has often said, we know equality for women is not just an add-on or a nice-to-have; it's absolutely crucial for our economic prosperity. That's why, in our first budget last year, we expanded the paid parental leave scheme and made it more generous.

On 1 July Australians began to benefit from these reforms. This was the biggest expansion to paid parental leave since its creation, with the government investing more than $530 million to progressively scale up the scheme, reaching six months paid leave in 2026.

For two-parent families, a portion of this leave will be reserved for each parent, to encourage families to share caring responsibilities. Again, this goes beyond taking a bit of pressure off household budgets; this is about greater equality and greater security for Australian women and about dads doing their bit. It goes to the PPP framework of population, participation and productivity. That's what makes it more than good social policy; it's good economic reform as well.

This bill implements the second tranche of our significant expansion of paid parental leave, first announced in last year's October budget, increasing the scheme to 26 weeks by July 2026. It's about the Albanese government keeping its commitment to improving the lives of Australian working families. With this legislation, the government is committed to providing each parent four weeks of reserve leave from July 2026, when the full scheme is implemented, which will encourage shared care and send a strong signal that both parents play a key role in caring for children. We're increasing the amount of weeks reserved for each parent on a 'use it or lose it' basis, reaching four weeks in 2026.

The bill introduces concurrent leave, meaning that, from 2026, both parents can take four weeks leave at the same time if they choose to do so, providing flexibility for families in how they arrange their care. Families come in different shapes and forms and have different needs and aspirations and different work arrangements, so that's very important. It also aids maternal health recovery, providing the birth parent with extra support as they recover from childbirth, and it's been shown to reduce parental stress, so it's good for mental health as well. It's good for long-term health and wellbeing for both children and parents.

These changes reflect the additional advice on PPL sought by the government from the Women's Economic Equality Taskforce and represent the largest investment in paid parental leave since the scheme was first introduced in 2011 by the Gillard Labor government; it's always a Labor government that does these types of things. We've responded to sustained calls from a wide range of stakeholders to improve and expand the scheme, particularly to encourage shared care.

The bill introduces a minor technical amendment to ensure access for fathers and partners who don't meet the work test requirements but would have if their child had not been born prematurely. The provision is already in place for birth parents. Importantly, this investment will increase support for both birth parents and partners. Up to 22 weeks of leave will be available for one parent, up from 18 weeks, with four weeks reserved for the other parent, up from two weeks. Single parents can access the full entitlement. As well as increasing the reserved period to encourage shared care, which is critical for women's economic equality, the bill also gives families more flexibility by doubling the period parents can take concurrently from two to four weeks. Altogether, this legislation delivers more support for working families, improves outcomes for children and advances gender equality. The bill follows changes commenced from 1 July 2023 to make the scheme more accessible, flexible and gender equitable. These important structural changes lay a foundation for our expansion of the scheme to 26 weeks.

From the Jobs and Skills Summit and the employment white paper, the government has heard loud and clear that support for families to balance care is critical to ensuring women's long-term economic equality. In fact, this was one of the strongest points of consensus and one of the clearest calls for action from the Jobs and Skills Summit in September last year. Businesses, unions, experts and economists were all on a unity ticket on this. They all understand that one of the best ways to boost productivity and participation across the economy is to provide more choice and more support for families and more opportunities for women. It ticks all the boxes under the PPP framework. There's also extensive research—for example, from the Grattan Institute and Equity Economics—showing that boosting women's labour supply or workforce participation is one of the best ways to increase GDP.

The Albanese government has listened, consulted and taken action to deliver Australian families the kind of support they need to boost productivity, boosting the economy and increasing the time parents have with their newborns. Indeed, the October 2022-23 budget measure was welcomed by a huge cross-section of stakeholders—the Business Council, the ACTU, Thrive by Five, the Parenthood and the chair of the Women's Economic Equality Taskforce, Sam Mostyn.

We know that good women's policy is good economic policy. Women will tell you that.

They've been telling men that for years. This investment is promoting parenting and an equal partnership while boosting the economy. This is all about making sure that every family has more choice, better security and more support.

The changes to the scheme better address the needs of families and provide greater security. Roughly 180,000 families who receive paid parental leave each year will benefit from a more generous scheme that supports maternal health and wellbeing and encourages dads and partners to take leave.

It's estimated that about 4,300 people would now gain access to the scheme who would be ineligible under the current arrangements. Not only that, this will help families to balance work and care. It's a double dividend for the Australian economy. It strikes a balance between supporting families' greater gender equality and supporting workforce participation.

Subject to the passage of this bill, two weeks of additional payments will be made from 1 July 2024, applying to births or adoptions from that day, increasing the overall length of paid parental leave by six weeks by July 2026. Again, the bill increases the number of weeks reserved for each parent to four weeks in order to encourage the sharing of care and household responsibilities. The rest of the 18 weeks can be split in any way people choose. They can choose to use it concurrently—by both parents at the same time—for up to four weeks. They've tried to make this as flexible as possible.

The bill increases the number of weeks people can take and increases flexibility, and that's a big improvement. I think the impact firstly on mums and dads being able to take time off from work for the birth of a baby is extremely important, and, with the reserved period as well, we're going to see an increase in the sharing of caring responsibilities in households. I think that's extremely important. Children need to know that dads and partners, not just mums, are the ones involved in the caring of them from their time of birth.

Another key objective of the scheme is to encourage partners and fathers to take leave, and that in turn helps balance work and family life. The changes in the bill send a clear message that the government supports shared care. We want to see that reinforced in workplaces and across our communities.

It's worth noting the taxpayer funded Paid Parental Leave scheme is a minimum entitlement designed to complement employer provided leave, therefore it doesn't act in substitution—it's a minimum entitlement. And we're encouraging employers and employees, unions and businesses to look at a more generous scheme on top of it. It's the minimum entitlement.

Data collected by Workplace Gender Equality Agency shows the portion of businesses providing their own paid parental leave has increased over the last decade. This positive trend demonstrates employers increasingly see themselves as having a role alongside government in providing paid parental leave. We want to see that continue in the future. We definitely want to see that continue. It's important we have a paid parental leave scheme that complements other paid parental schemes offered by numbers of employers, and that's why this bill is so important.

Look at the OECD—and we always compare ourselves to the OECD—Australia is historically towards the bottom in terms of support for paid parental leave. This is not only to do with child care; we need to increase women's participation through this measure so they can stay in the workforce and build productivity and build their living standards.

On a related note, it was great to see reports today that Australia's average gender pay gap, as measured by the Workplace Gender Equality Agency, fell by 1.1 per cent and points to a new low of 21.7 per cent over 12 months to March. Since coming to office, we've worked hard to improve women's economic equality in Australia, and it's encouraging to see this reduction in the gender pay gap.

Earlier this year we passed legislation to improve transparency on gender pay gap reporting to accelerate the closing of the pay gap and keep a spotlight on the issue. But we also know that to close the gender pay gap we need to address gender segregation in the workplace and ensure caring responsibilities are shared within families, and that's why this bill is important. That's where PPL and the measure in this bill will go a long way in encouraging more sharing of care and household responsibilities.

Paid parental leave is another great reform introduced by Labor. Very little happened in this space in the last decade after the Gillard government introduced it. Then, in our first budget, we announced the change. We were legislating an increase from 20 weeks to 26 weeks so parents could have more time off after the birth of their child. That's a very significant increase. We think this helps a lot of families to better deal with cost-of-living pressures as well as having extra weeks off that are paid and will be of great assistance. It's an investment of $1.2 billion over five years. Of course, it benefits the broader economy in terms of workforce participation, and the multiplier effect, if you like—if you're a Keynesian like me—will be much greater than that.

As a result of these reforms, from 2026-27 the government's total investment in PPL will be around $4.4 billion a year. This is a significant investment that reflects the government's commitment to better outcomes for families and advancing economic equality for women. I know a lot of working families with young children in my electorate will benefit hugely from this. In the 2021-22 financial year, we saw the number of families grew, and it will grow to 2,625 by 2022-23.

Debate interrupted.

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