Michelle Ananda-Rajah (Higgins, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

There is a generation of young men who do not wish to follow in their fathers' footsteps. They've seen the trade-off of long hours against time spent with family; they've seen the neglect of relationships and the impacts on their partners. They want family and—rather than or—work.

When it comes to raising a child, decisions made in the earliest time of a child's life lock in patterns of parenting for years to come. An Australian woman does more caring, and twice as much housework, even a decade after the birth of the first child. In other words, having children worsens the gender division of work at home, which persists for years to come, serving neither the mum nor the dad's relationship. A survey of 842 men conducted by the Australian recruitment agency Hays in 2019 indicated that 80 per cent of men believe that shared parental leave and child-rearing responsibility would help break down unconscious bias and improve gender diversity.

Australian businesses are stepping up because they've put two and two together. They've realised that equal PPL schemes are good for their bottom line because they help to retain talent. And we are in a war for talent. In this war, every age matters. PWC reported a reduction in the proportion its staff who resign while on paid parental leave from 6.4 per cent in 2017, before the more flexible option was introduced, to 3.3 per cent in 2021. Deloitte introduced similar leave entitlements for mothers and fathers in 2015, and saw an increase in the uptake of parental leave among fathers from 20 per cent to 40 per cent.

I have caught a glimpse of this new generation of fathers. They have stood shoulder to shoulder with their partners in campaigning for the protection of child care in Higgins. The early childhood education centres in Carnegie and Murrumbeena will close in March. These beloved centres have been a pillar of our community since the 1990s. Small in size, they have seen at least a generation of children passing through their doors. One of the children who passed through those doors is now a doctor. The educators have been there for decades—some, as long as 26 years. Such tenure is unheard of in the early childhood education sector. They are caring, professional and dearly loved by the parents and children they service. Every child feels accepted, including many children with chronic conditions like epilepsy and autism.

Now, as the closure of these centres looms, the parents are understandably disappointed, after campaigning hard to have this decision overturned. Theirs was a parent-led campaign, with a petition, garnering over 7,000 signatures; a rally outside the town hall; and coverage in the media. The parents pleaded with Glen Eira council to slow down the process, rethink their decision and invest in, rather than divest from, what were clearly community assets. If the centres were lithium mines, nobody would be countenancing shutting them down.

These parents championed this cause, on top of their day jobs as teachers, lawyers, doctors, nurses, business owners and public administrators. Why? Because early childhood education delivered by community is a highly-trusted source and has care standards above the national average. Community based child care accounts for 42 per cent of the childcare sector, according to a report by CELA and other organisations, positioned competitively against 49 per cent private for-profit providers.

While affordable, accessible early learning and care is a linchpin for working families, it is not enough in our pursuit of gender parity. According to Treasury, women reduce their hours of paid work by 35 per cent over the first five years following the birth of their children. Part-time becomes permanent part-time, with all its flow-on impacts to individuals and the economy. We need to do more. It was for this reason that the Gillard Labor government introduced paid parental leave in 2011, and it is the Albanese Labor government that has picked up the baton dropped under those opposite.

The Libs presided over spiralling childcare costs and turned a blind eye to a stagnant, moribund gender pay gap. They watched as Australia languished on the World Economic Forum's Global Gender Gap Index, falling to 43rd place. In just over a year, Australia has climbed 17 places on that index—the largest increase since the index began in 2006. In just over a year, we have made the gender pay gap the lowest in Commonwealth history, at 13 per cent, down from 14.1 per cent in August of last year. But we have more to do. In just over a year, we now have a record-high participation rate for women, at nearly 63 per cent in May of last year. With 53 per cent of women in our ranks, the highest in Commonwealth history, the Albanese government unapologetically drives a hard agenda when it comes to supporting women. But we need to do more.

Why is reform to PPL, paid parental leave, important? It's because stereotypical gender norms, that lock in men as breadwinners and women as homemakers who are also tethered to part-time work, start in those early weeks when baby comes home. Part-time work is fine, if it is a real choice. But too many women who seek to return to full-time work find themselves denied career progression. To put it bluntly, less pay means fewer assets, less super and greater vulnerability in the face of those curveballs in life, like relationship breakdown, bereavement or job loss. This is one of the reasons the gender pay gap is so pernicious.

Approximately 180,000 parents in Australia, and 960 in Higgins, will benefit from this scheme. Our bill will expand access to the scheme and provide more flexibility for families. The value of getting new fathers to spend more time with their babies in the early years cannot be overstated. The bill expands paid parental leave from 20 to 26 weeks, increasing the period reserved for each parent from two to four weeks, and doubling the period that parents can take leave simultaneously from two to four weeks. These reforms will provide much-needed support to mums after childbirth, encouraging dads and partners to spend more time with their children in those formative years.

We also acknowledge that there are calls to expand the scheme even further, but we need to see that cultural shift occur in corporate Australia—for it to become acceptable for working fathers to take much longer periods of time in order to be there in that early period after baby comes home.

This bill strikes the balance between supporting mums and encouraging dads to take leave and providing families with flexibility in structuring their care arrangements. The bill sends a clear message: parenting is an equal partnership and should be treated as such. We would like corporate Australia to take heed. It's good for parents, it's good for bubs, it's good for employers and it's good for the economy. This is exactly the kind of critical infrastructure we need to support and champion in Australia. I commend this bill to the House.

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