Jenny Macklin (Jagajaga, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Families and Payments) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Under this government's latest cuts to paid parental leave, a woman working at Coles would lose 10 weeks of paid parental leave, a loss of around $6,700. Can the Acting Prime Minister explain to mums working at Coles why he thinks that cutting the amount of time they can spend at home breastfeeding their newborn babies is fair?

Barnaby Joyce (New England, National Party, Leader of the Nationals) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the honourable member for her question. I say that we are doing so much in this nation to make sure that we are both fair and responsible—because we acknowledge the task that was left to us by a Labor government: it was a previous Labor government that left us hundreds of billions of dollars in debt. And with every decision that we make, we have to deal with that task. The Australian people might have forgotten about the debt that the Labor government left for us, but might I remind them that when Mr Howard and Mr Costello left government, the treasuries were overflowing with money. Yet, through the term of the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd government, they just squandered it all, sending our nation hundreds of billions of dollars into debt, and now we are trying to deal with this issue. I would now like to refer the question to the relevant minister to finish the answer.

Christian Porter (Pearce, Liberal Party, Minister for Social Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for her question, through the Acting Prime Minister. What might be worth explaining to the individuals you have described is the situation that exists at the other end of the Paid Parental Leave scheme. Of course, at the end that you are talking about, 91 per cent of all of the families that are completely unaffected by what we describe we would do are in the private sector—and yes, they are families, often, that work in Coles or Kmart or the like. What might be worth explaining to the kind of person you have described is: why is it fair that that person would be possibly having access to 10 weeks of their own employer scheme and then eight weeks of the government scheme—

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

Christian Porter (Pearce, Liberal Party, Minister for Social Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

and yet someone on a median income of $71,000—on a median or average family income of $147,000; indeed, a civil servant who might earn $140,000—can get 18 weeks from their employer and an additional 18 weeks through the taxpayer?

I might also say to that person that you, shadow minister, have said on a number of occasions that the median income of the mothers who would be affected by the government's proposed policy is $43,000. And you have done that deliberately, on a number of occasions, to scare all of the mothers who will absolutely not be affected. Where you have said, for instance in your press release, member for Jagajaga, 'women who will be worse off on a median income of $43,000'—where you have said that, on a number of occasions: that is the median income of the mothers who are not affected at all by what we are suggesting! Not only have you unhitched your wagon from the truth, you have taken a fact and deliberately misstated its opposite to try and scare mums into believing they would be affected when they would not be.

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The members for Sydney, Shortland and Griffith will cease interjecting.