Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs. Why do Australian families need certainty about paid parental leave?

Jenny Macklin (Jagajaga, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Chisholm for her question, because she understands very well that couples who are planning to have children are making one of the biggest decisions of their lives. I am sure I do not have to remind members of the House, many of us parents ourselves, what it is like to take that step either to start a family or to have another child. For many families, when they are deciding when to start a family or when to have another child, there are many, many critical things that they have to take into account. They have to think about what they are going to do with their employment, with family matters, and with the various financial commitments that have to be considered. The job that we have, of course, is to support families as they make those decisions, not to make their lives more complicated.

In a little over nine months time, Australia’s first paid parental leave scheme is due to start, on 1 January. In case the Leader of the Opposition does not get the subtlety here, that is in just about nine months time. I am sure everybody here can do the maths.

Wayne Swan (Lilley, Australian Labor Party, Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

He’s not very subtle.

Jenny Macklin (Jagajaga, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Maybe not. That means any couple who are thinking about or planning to have a baby want to know what is going to happen. Are they going to have a paid parental leave scheme that they can depend on on 1 January next year? That is why they need certainty now. They want to know whether or not the paid parental leave scheme is going to be there for them in nine months time.

The Leader of the Opposition, of course, is threatening to leave parents with nothing. What they know is that this Leader of the Opposition is the biggest risk to families and their certainty. Unfortunately, the Leader of the Opposition does not seem to care that families have been waiting decades for a paid parental leave scheme. We know that the Liberals in government refused to introduce a paid parental leave scheme. We know what the views of the Leader of the Opposition are. It has been very well reported that he said over his dead body would paid parental leave be introduced.

I must say his comments yesterday demonstrate further that he really has no clue about how his latest thought bubble of a scheme is going to happen. He said that he would be amazed if he could not get his scheme up and running by 2013. I would have to say that I would be absolutely amazed if his half-baked scheme had been given any more than half a minute’s thought. There is no question that that applies to some members of his frontbench.

If you have a look at Senator Joyce today, the shadow minister for finance, he said: ‘You know, let’s talk about it once I’ve read it. I don’t like talking about things I haven’t read.’ A sham policy with no detail, no costings, no time line and no deal for Australian families is what the Liberal Party is offering. By contrast, this government has proposed a paid parental leave scheme for the first time that this country has ever seen. It is going to be fair for families and fair for business. Families know that this Leader of the Opposition cannot be trusted on paid parental leave.