Peter Khalil (Wills, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Of all the duties a government has towards the people that it represents—and there are a lot of duties and obligations that it has—one that's very important is the obligation to look after working families. Those who take part in the labour force while also raising children face what at times can seem to be an impossible balancing act. I know this for a fact, and I'm sure many members on both sides understand the juggling act that parents raising children have to struggle with. Giving adequate attention to both our professional lives, which can be very busy and time consuming, and our family lives, trying to have a rewarding career and having the privilege of raising children should not be, in my view, mutually exclusive, although it tends to be that way for so many parents.

Our party, the Australian Labor Party, has long sought, through some of the policies that we've put in place over many different governments over decades, to ensure that that is the case—that you can actually try and work through those challenges as best as possible. That's why Labor governments in the past have a history, of implementing Paid Parental Leave schemes. It's why we made paid parental leave reform a centrepiece of our first budget—the first budget of the Albanese Labor government—where we invested half a billion dollars to expand the scheme to six months by 2026. For those who are keeping track, and I'm sure there are many parents who are, this was the single largest investment in PPL—or the Paid Parental Leave scheme—since Labor established it in 2011. It benefited more than 180,000 families each year.

But we are not done yet. This government is going to build on the current scheme to make sure it is serving the public even better than before. We do this because we know that maintaining and improving paid parental leave benefits our entire country in a number of ways. For one, it bolsters our economy by ensuring increased workforce participation and labour productivity. It also helps advance gender equality, ensuring that women are able to be provided the same professional opportunities as men. It's also a driver of things that are hard to quantify—like the joy and contentment that a parent feels when they know they can spend some precious, intimate time in those formative moments in their child's life, and can do so in relative peace. They're not pressured by the fact that they have to worry about the money coming in and keeping a roof over their head, and these are really important elements which are not so tangible.

As a whole, the improvements that are being proposed today are some of many examples of the Albanese Labor government's commitment to helping working families. It's about supporting childhood development. It's about ensuring economic equality for women. Most members of this chamber need only look around their electorate in order to see why we need to keep building on the Paid Parental Leave scheme. In my own electorate of Wills in the northern suburbs of Melbourne, I hear constantly from constituents who work hard to provide for their families. They desperately wish they could have more quality time with their families. Further still, I know a lot of people in my electorate who have already done the hard, rewarding work of raising children and they're always under that pressure and stress to put food on the table. Work means they can't be around their kids when they're young in those formative years.

There are a number of those who already benefit from a generous Paid Parental Leave scheme. I want to see that expanded and made more widely available so that future generations can enjoy the same comfort that people who are benefiting from the scheme do now. Those voices are a few of the tens of thousands in my electorate alone whose lives are impacted by paid parental leave. According to the 2021 census, the electorate of Wills has roughly 23,000 families who are raising children. Across the entire nation, that rises into the millions. For many of those families and those who will have children in the future, we can ensure that their lives are made just that much more stable and secure. By enacting these changes we are not just ensuring that these constituents are heard but also making life better for all Australians in the process.

With respect to the bill, exactly what are we proposing? As I mentioned earlier, these changes build on the existing improvements made by the Albanese Labor government. More specifically, they represent the implementation of the second half of our paid parental leave reforms that we announced in our 2022-23 October budget. The first half of these reforms, as you might recall, started on 1 July last year, and gave more families access to paid leave, granting parents greater flexibility and encouraging them to share child care. Today, we build upon that commitment by making the program even better for working families. We are expanding it to 26 weeks—six weeks up from the previous 20 weeks. This is a change that even the Leader of the Opposition described as reasonable—thank you, Leader of the Opposition.

The bill will also increase the period reserved for each parent from two to four weeks, while also doubling the period where parents can take leave at the same time from two to four weeks. Starting on 1 July 2024, two additional weeks of leave will be added each year until reaching 26 weeks in 2026. Currently, up to 18 weeks are available for one parent—these are usually taken by the mother, with two weeks currently reserved for the dad or the partner. The increase to 26 weeks means mums can access up to 22 weeks of paid parental leave—an additional month compared to the current scheme. It also doubles the period reserved for dad or partner from two to four weeks. At the same time, single parents will also have access to the full 26 weeks.

The changes will commence from 1 July this year, and will apply to birth or adoptions from that date. Crucially, this expansion provides additional support to mums after childbirth, supporting their and their child's wellbeing, while also encouraging dads and partners to take more leave, which is very important. When fathers and partners take a greater caring role from the start, it benefits everyone, the entire family—mums, dads and the kids. The changes in this bill send a message that treating parenting as an equal partnership supports gender equality. The government values men as carers too, and we want to see that reinforced in workplaces and our communities more broadly. Together, our changes strike an important balance in increasing support to mums, encouraging dads to take leave and providing families flexibility in how they structure their care arrangements.

This amendment ensures sufficient financial supports are in place for new families, because Australians should not be disadvantaged by having to take time off work to care for new members of their family. Having children should not be a stressful time, it should be a joyful one—although we know there are some stresses and tensions involved. But the beginning of life should be enjoyed and cherished. There is plenty of stress awaiting parents when their kids hit their teen years—some of us would attest to that, as we know!

The improvement of paid parental leave under the Albanese Labor government is but one of many, many instances of this government going into bat for working families. I am very proud, really proud, of the part that has been played by this government, which is willing to make real substantive changes to make the lives of our constituents better every day. Families all across the country will be able to benefit from the changes that are before us today. All told, over 180,000 families are forecast to make use of these improvements when they go into effect next year—that's a fantastic result. As complex as policy-making can sometimes be, all of this, at its core, is really quite simple. Guaranteeing paid time off for parents to spend with their children is good for parents, it's good for kids, it's good for our economy and for our society. So let's pass the bill.

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