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

I thank all those who have contributed in this important debate on the Paid Parental Leave Amendment (More Support for Working Families) Bill 2023. Paid parental leave is a proud Labor legacy, and the Albanese government is building and expanding on this legacy. This bill increases the scheme to six months by 2026, providing families an extra six weeks of government paid leave. It implements, in full, our commitment from the 2022-23 October budget and represents a total investment of $1.2 billion over five years.

Starting on 1 July 2024, the scheme will increase by two weeks each year until reaching 26 weeks in 2026. This will benefit over 180,000 families each year and represents the biggest expansion of the scheme since Labor introduced it in 2011. The bill adopts advice from the Women's Economic Equality Taskforce on the optimal model of the 26-weeks scheme, where four weeks are reserved for each parent on a 'use it or lose it' basis and parents can take up to four weeks of PPL at the same time. As a result of these reforms, from 2026-27, the government's total investment in PPL will be around $4.4 billion a year.

I note the Community Affairs Legislation Committee has examined the bill ahead of the Senate consideration. Delivering their report on 5 February, the committee recommended the Senate pass the bill. I thank the Senate committee's secretariat staff for their work and, particularly, the work of Senator Marielle Smith as chair. I would like to thank all of those who made written submissions and contributed to the public hearing. I was very pleased to see strong support for the bill from a diverse range of family, employer and community groups; unions; gender experts; and economists, including the Business Council of Australia, the Parenthood, the Australian Council of Trade Unions, the Brotherhood of St. Laurence, the Australian Council of Social Service, Equality Rights Alliance, Diversity Council Australia and Impact Economics. The Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry said:

Under this legislation businesses are set to benefit by ensuring that fewer productive employees end up leaving workplaces permanently and more women remain in the labour market.

Equality Rights Alliance, Australia's largest network of organisations advocating for gender equality, called the changes 'equality enabling' and 'significant advances in the promotion of Australian women's economic security'. Dr Leonora Risse, an economist specialising in gender equality, said:

The amendments in this Bill are an undisputable and significant improvement from previous policy settings and are strongly welcomed. The expansion of entitlements to 26 weeks, with the inclusion of a reserved allocation for fathers and partners, is a historic milestone for women's rights and economic standing, and for gender equality in our country.

And I couldn't agree more. Dr Risse and Diversity Council Australia both noted that the bill's changes were well informed by evidence and best practice.

I acknowledge, in the committee report, and this second reading debate, some of the crossbench have called for the government to further invest in paid parental leave. I am proud of the strides our government has made since coming to office. We know that there's always more to do. We've been clear. We intend to pay super and paid parental leave when the budget has the space to do so. We also know that gender pay gaps at retirement are driven by gender pay gaps in working life. Investing in paid parental leave is one part of the government's multibillion-dollar and long-term agenda to support women's economic opportunity.

It is worth remembering that the government payment is a minimum entitlement, designed to complement leave provided by employers, who also have a key role to play. Data collected by the Workplace Gender Equality Agency shows that the proportion of businesses providing their own paid parental leave has increased over the last decade. Nearly two-thirds of employers offer their own entitlement; that's up from less than half, a decade ago. This positive trend demonstrates that employers increasingly see themselves as having a role alongside government in providing paid parental leave, recognising that it is a workplace entitlement rather than an income support payment. We want to see this trend keep growing. We want paid parental leave to continue to be recognised as not only a great social policy but also a valuable workplace incentive that returns benefits for parents, employers and the economy.

Now, the second reading amendment from the opposition risks undermining recent progress by weakening the employer role. If the coalition strongly believed that small business shouldn't administer this workplace entitlement, then they should have acted in the nine years for which they held office. Instead, they focused their energy on calling mothers 'double-dippers' and trying to find budget savings from paid parental leave.

I want to be clear. This bill does not make any change to the employer role, which has been in place since the scheme's inception. Giving mind to administrative impacts, the act already provides reasonable circumstances where Services Australia steps in and delivers the payment—for instance, if the employee has been with the business for less than 12 months, or they're taking leave in blocks of less than eight weeks.

As the member for Deakin well knows, the Productivity Commission recommended the employer role to promote workplace retention and gender equality. In considering potential administrative impacts, the Productivity Commission found that, in any given year, only four per cent of small businesses would need to administer PPL for an employee. Subsequently, an independent evaluation of the Paid Parental Leave scheme conducted by the University of Queensland over a four-year period found employers generally experienced few difficulties in administering the payment, and costs were very minimal, both in terms of time and money.

Administering the payment is a reasonable contribution for employers, who significantly benefit from the government providing PPL to their employees. Each year the government spends around $460 million to provide paid parental leave to employees in small businesses. Moreover, the member for Deakin is wilfully ignoring the fact that two recent Senate committee hearings heard compelling evidence from women's groups, family groups, economists and unions about how the employer role in administering paid parental leave is important in promoting gender equality. These groups have expressed significant concern with the idea that small businesses shouldn't have to administer the payment. The ACTU said this 'would be a huge backward step for gender equality', and paid parental leave:

should be perceived as a normal feature of employment arrangements, rather than as welfare …

…   …   …

we are concerned that the already shocking rates of discrimination against women … would just worsen.

Jess Rudd from The Parenthood, an organisation representing more than 80,000 parents and carers across Australia, said: 'Parents will lose the umbilical link to their employer and have to go through Centrelink. I've run a small business. I'm all for cutting red tape, but this is just bad policy'. Equality Rights Alliance, Australia's largest network advocating for gender equality, said: 'If we start to tell small business, "This isn't your job, you don't need to worry about women's work," then that sends a signal that could have ramification across the country'. Dr Angela Jackson, a leading economist said, it would be 'a retrograde step', and:

while it might be a small time administrative gain for small businesses, the long-term competitive disadvantages will hurt them as a sector. It'll certainly hurt the women that are working for them, and it will hurt the broader economy.

The government shares the views of the Productivity Commission, women's groups, family advocates, economists and trade unions—paid parental leave is a workplace entitlement and should be administered by employers. Government, business and unions should be working together to ensure paid parental leave entitlements are as strong as inclusive as they can be.

I also acknowledge the second reading amendment put forward by the member for Wentworth and the importance that it expresses of encouraging shared care for the social and economic benefits it brings, particularly for women. While we agree with the sentiment, we don't agree with the detail and we will not be supporting this amendment. Encouraging greater uptake by men has been a key consideration in the design of our paid parental leave reform. When fathers take a great greater caring role from the start, evidence shows that there is a more even distribution of household responsibilities, which persists through a child's life. However, the amendment does call for locking the government into proposals for any future paid parental leave, and the government reserves its right to consult widely on any future tranches of paid parental leave, as we have done with this bill, and make sure we have the settings right.

This bill does adopt the advice from the Women's Economic Equality Taskforce, and includes four weeks reserve for each parent on a 'use it or lose it' basis. This will encourage men's uptake, working in tandem with the changes we legislated earlier this year to make the scheme more accessible, flexible and gender-equitable. From 1 July this year, we've significantly expanded access for many fathers and partners by: creating a single payment that both parents can claim; allowing paid parental leave days to be taken flexibly in blocks as small as one day at a time, with periods of work in between; allowing partners to be eligible regardless of their mother's income or residency status; and allowing partners to take government-paid leave at the same time as any employer-paid leave. As part of our reform, the government has committed to undertake a multiyear evaluation to track the impact of the changes, including uptake by gender, which will help us identify where refinements might be needed.

In summary, the bill's careful design changes all work together to strike an important balance of increasing support to families, encouraging both parents to take leave, and providing flexibility in how they structure their care arrangements. The bill gives Australian families more paid parental leave than ever before and will support participation and productivity over the longer term, providing a dividend for the economy. I commend the bill to the House.

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