Libby Coker (Corangamite, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Superannuation is particularly important for women. We know that women over 55 are the group most vulnerable to homelessness, and this is unacceptable. The reforms have been driven by our Labor caucus, which, for the first time ever, proudly, has a majority of women. Our Labor government is absolutely committed to advancing equity and opportunity for women. Let us remember that, until 1972, around a decade before I entered the workforce, no major party had a women's policy, let alone a robust paid parental scheme. It was only under Labor, led by former prime minister Gough Whitlam, and his women's adviser, Elizabeth Reid, that a revolution for women's rights began.

Since then, our society has made significant strides in gender equality, but women still do the lion's share of nurturing and caring for children across our nation. For example, data shows that, only two years ago, women accounted for nearly 90 per cent of primary parental leave, yet 91 per cent of organisations do not discriminate between men and women taking parental leave. Over the past 40 years, there have been significant changes in the composition of Australia's active workforce. There have been large increases in the employment participation of women, who comprised 48 per cent of the total employed in 2022, compared to 36 per cent in 1979. Australian Bureau of Statistics data reveals that the most common reason women were unavailable to start a job or work more hours was caring for children. While we celebrate the incredible nurturing spirit of women, we must work together to create equitable opportunities for everyone: mums, dads and all parents.

Making life easier and more productive for Australian parents is critical reform. This is why paid parental leave reform was a centrepiece of our first budget, where we invested half a billion dollars to expand the scheme to six months by 2026. This is the largest investment in paid parental leave since Labor established it in 2011, benefiting over 180,000 families each year. Many in my community would remember that, in the past, dads were only able to take government paid leave at roughly half the rate of mums. The scheme was built on the gendered assumptions of primary and secondary carers, which limits parents' ability to share care. Our reforms have addressed that anomaly, and this bill we speak on today further addresses these issues by implementing the second tranche of our government's paid parental leave reform, announced in the 2022-23 October budget. It follows the first tranche we legislated at the start of the year to modernise the scheme to reflect how Australian families and their needs have changed over the past decade. These changes, which commenced on 1 July, have given more families access to payment, given parents more flexibility in how they take their leave and encouraged parents to share pay. This is a strong foundation and will help parents across our nation.

This bill does many things. It builds on our commitment to support young families who are struggling to make ends meet. We know that raising a family can be expensive. It often means young people are unable to buy a house when they raise children. That's why, alongside our expansion of paid parental leave, we are working with states and territories to deliver the Help to Buy scheme, supporting up to 40,000 families in purchasing a home of their own. This will bring homeownership back into reach for thousands of families who have been locked out of the housing market. The Albanese government has already helped more than 50,000 Australians into homeownership through the Home Guarantee Scheme, including more than 6,000 through the new Regional First Home Buyer Guarantee.

It is important to raise a couple of the things that are taking place in this bill. The bill will provide flexibility by increasing the number of weeks where parents can take paid parental leave at the same time. All in all, our reforms strike an important balance in increasing support for mums and encouraging dads as well. Many in my community will remember that men really do not get the same amount of time with children, and we want to see that both parents have an opportunity to play an active role at a critical time when children are so young. It makes such a difference to parents. So we are looking forward to being able to offer all families this opportunity. It means that more families will have roofs over their heads for their children, and our expansion of paid parental leave will help do this as well.

In closing, the Paid Parental Leave Amendment (More Support for Working Families) Bill 2023 reaffirms Labor's commitment to paid parental leave. It is good for parents, it is good for kids and it is good for the wellbeing of families. It is good for employers and, importantly, it is good for our economy. I commend the bill to the House.

Kylea Tink (North Sydney, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I acknowledge the words of the member for Corangamite. She eloquently summed up where we are at with this bill and the significant work that has been done to date. As a bill that seeks to improve the lives of working families in Australia whilst also improving outcomes for children and advancing gender equality, the Paid Parental Leave Amendment (More Support for Working Families) Bill 2023 is indeed a welcome step in the right direction. Yet even in the face of its introduction, many in my community of North Sydney continue to lament the fact that Australia remains far behind much of the rest of the world when it comes to family support and paid parental leave provisions. With so much evidence accumulating around the world of the benefits of adopting progressive policies to support shared care and gender balance in a society, why is it that we as a nation seem to still be debating legislative reform that has been operating in some countries for more than four decades?

Australia can and should go further in adopting international best practice, including the payment of superannuation, unpaid parental leave, ensuring 26 weeks is the minimum leave entitlement for a family, and furthering the 'use it or lose it' provisions to encourage greater shared care. Shockingly, expanding the paid parental leave payment from 20 to 26 weeks by July 2026 is the largest investment in this scheme since it was introduced in 2011. In the time of at least four prior governments, this is the single largest investment we have seen in this scheme in over a decade. Our public policy is not keeping pace with societal expectations. In this context, I thank all who have been tirelessly advocating for these improvements over many years, and I'm grateful that this government is currently listening to voices of women and families.

Extending the period reserved for a non-childbearing partner from two to four weeks should better encourage shared care. However, as a mother of three, in the course of a child's life or, indeed, a baby's first 12 months, four weeks is barely a drop in the ocean. Encouraging both parents to share the responsibility of caring for young children fundamentally shifts a cultural expectation which currently frequently forces women into the primary care role regardless of what a family may desire. I believe our goal as a society should be to provide families with the maximum support they need to enable them to choose who the primary carer is and when without a gender biased lens brought no the discussion. As stated by one North Sydney mother: 'I think sharing caring responsibilities is critical. Men need greater incentives to pause their careers, and women need to be free from the patriarchal assumption they are better at the at-home piece and less likely to be able to support the family financially.'

International experience shows us the fastest way to address the gender pay gap is to introduce shared paid parental leave. When I first saw this in action in Finland in 1988, I was incredibly impressed by the impact such a practice had. At the time in Finland, every family expecting a child received an enormous box of products in the later months of their pregnancy. In that box was a pram, formula, bottles, nappies, indeed, pretty much everything a child or a family could need for the first 12 months of a baby's life. The box even doubled as a crib for the first six months of the child's life. In this way, that community was ensuring all children began life on an equal footing, and families, regardless of their economic circumstances, were supported in their decision to have a child.

The other thing that struck me while there was the clear expectation of shared parental responsibility, with each partner taking time to be with their child in that first 12 months. This isn't something that was forced on them. It was something they were empowered to choose, and, therefore, they were encouraged to do it. The long-term impact was absolutely evident in both the operation and the attitudes of their society. At the time, this was in stark contrast to where I'd come from here in Australia. At that stage, it still felt very largely like it was every woman, or perhaps even every baby for itself. At the time, our country was disputing single-parent payments, accusing women of deliberately getting pregnant so they could live off the government, whilst also making it clear that it was the man's job to provide for the family.

As the Grattan Institute noted in 2021:

Greater sharing of childcare is one of the best ways to improve women's economic security.

But I'd go one step further in asserting that greater sharing of child care is one of the best ways to strengthen family bonds and connection and, ultimately, improve community attitudes and behaviour. For this to be possible, however, flexibility and equity in approach are especially important. Ensuring both parents are encouraged and enabled to take leave during a child's first year of life can make a huge difference in the way a family and society operates, and it's for this reason we should be embracing this reform as a priority. My wish is that both my daughters and my son will know that, when they choose to have their families, our community is united in its expectation that they are equal to their partner in parenting responsibilities.

Recently the Women's Economic Equality Taskforce reported Australian women still face deep gender inequality and continue to shoulder a disproportionate burden of unpaid labour across all spheres of life. From being caregivers, nurturers and educators to taking on professional roles and community leadership, women's essential contributions are often undervalued and unpaid, perpetuating economic inequality. Outdated systems, policies and norms discount women from active participation in our society and our workforces. Indeed, the estimated value to the Australian economy that could be realised by purposefully removing the persistent barriers to women's full and equal participation in economic activity is an astounding $128 billion.

As one North Sydney carer said to me recently:

Being a full-time carer for a young child is such an undervalued role in society. It's an enormous undertaking to raise a healthy, happy, kind child with both parents working.

We are indeed fortunate to live in this country, yet it must be acknowledged that the Australian Paid Parental Leave scheme is one of the least adequate in the developed world. Not only is the leave significantly less than OECD countries' average; it presents significant gender inequality and limited access to services and leaves Australian families facing financial hardship. If current working patterns continue, the average 25-year-old woman today who has just one child can expect to earn $2 million less over her lifetime than the average 25-year-old man who becomes a father. How can this be allowed to be so in our nation? The North Sydney community have shared with me the difficulties with the current Paid Parental Leave scheme, with 75 per cent of them expressing that their leave time was simply too short. The global average of total paid parental leave entitlements available to mothers is 54.1 weeks. That's over two times more than what we are aspiring to offer here in Australia under this bill.

So how do we continue to build on the efforts of this bill to further improve the lives of many working families in Australia at the same time as improving outcomes for children and at the same time as advancing gender equality? Firstly, as mentioned in the final WEET report, North Sydney joins in calls to legislate the payment of superannuation on all forms of paid parental leave, with 100 per cent of North Sydney constituents agreeing superannuation should be paid on parental leave, when they were recently consulted. An inequitable labour market and household career dynamics have resulted in a superannuation gap of approximately 23 per cent at retirement age between men and women. In the 2019-20 fiscal year, the median superannuation balance of a woman aged over 65 was $168,000, compared to $208,000 for men. I understand this is a measure the Treasurer has said the government would like to implement when there is budget to do so, yet to date there has been no action in this area. Given that modelling done by KPMG has estimated that this reform could cost as little as $200 million, I call on the government to prioritise this investment, as we all know the truth is governments choose to afford what they want to afford. The security of our families and the strengthening of our broader social constructs should be just as important as investments in weaponry or fossil fuels.

Secondly, North Sydney supports calls for the 26 weeks paid parental leave to be the minimum leave entitlement and calls on the government to do more to phase the scheme up to an eventual 52 weeks of paid leave, whilst maintaining the principles of shared care and flexible arrangements. ABS data from 2021 showed 24.7 per cent of respondents cited 'caring for children' as the main reason they were not available to work, with women of all ages spending nine hours more per week, on average, on unpaid care and work than men.

While 26 weeks of paid parental leave covers the child's first six months of life, there are indisputable benefits to introducing 52 weeks of paid parental leave spread across two parents, with modelling showing that a scheme such as this would only cost the government an extra $600 million a year. In turn, this investment would boost GDP by $900 million a year, thanks to increased workforce participation by mothers, whilst also boosting the average mother's lifetime earnings by $30,000.

In the words of a North Sydney constituent, 'Living in Sydney is expensive. Without paid parental leave we can't afford to pay our mortgage, with rates going up, and will have to go back to work sooner. Please advocate for the professionals, the women, the supportive men that want to care for their children. We need to support men to take time off to care and bond with children and we need to enable women the right to choose when they return to work.'

The commitment of this government to women's economic equality is evident in the measures included in this bill, and the benefits of purposeful action can already be seen in the reduction of the gender pay gap to 13 per cent. But we still have so far to go and there is no time to rest on our laurels. As a society, we must decide who we want to be, not just in the next three years but over the decades to come. I implore this government and this 47th Parliament to be that moment, to be the moment that we decided, as a nation, that it was time for us to embrace equity: gender equity, racial equity, financial equity and social equity—indeed, equity in every meaningful way—and, ultimately, invest in moving our society forward.

Jerome Laxale (Bennelong, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Becoming a parent changes your life. It happens so fast, and it's never really what you expect. You try and prepare for it—you read the books; you read blogs online—but it's always so much more than you prepare for. And, as parents know, the early days with a newborn are the most extraordinary. In amongst the fog of bringing a newborn home—or two newborns, as was my experience—I still somehow remember those early days with each of my children. Even after the two weeks they spent in the neonatal intensive care unit, where we were able to ease into new parenthood, I still remember getting home and saying to myself: 'What next?'

Because of the Labor government, I was able to spend some time at home in those first few weeks. Thanks to a Labor government, my kids' mum was able to stay at home for much longer. We were able to do that because of Labor's paid parental leave. At the time, we were one of the last countries in the OECD to offer it, and it was well overdue. Now, reform is also overdue. It's time to make paid parental leave better. I was lucky to be able to spend those early days with my kids. Paid parental leave is a lifeline for parents navigating the challenges of childbirth and the responsibilities of raising a child.

Thirteen years ago, the first Labor member to hold my seat of Bennelong stood in this place and proudly spoke to the Paid Parental Leave Bill 2010. When she won the seat of Bennelong in 2007, only 54 per cent of female employees and 50 per cent of male employees had access to some form of paid parental leave, and only one-third of employed women with children actually received paid parental leave from their employer. Of course, as is always the case, the women left out were low-income workers—women who worked in early childhood education, in care industries, in retail and in cleaning.

The work of my predecessor and that government she was a part of marked a pivotal turning point. It had a commitment to rectifying the imbalances in access to paid parental leave and ensured that, in law, every working parent, regardless of their socioeconomic status, had the opportunity to embrace the joys and challenges of parenthood without undue financial strain.

The groundbreaking Paid Parental Leave Bill 2010 laid the foundation for a more equitable future. Today we can see the enduring legacy of that policy. The majority of employees in Australia now have access to paid parental leave, whether provided directly by their employer or by the government. Because of that, there has been a fundamental shift in how our society values and supports those navigating the complexities of work and parenthood. That's the lasting change that great policy can achieve. It goes beyond the legislative text; it transforms lives, shapes futures and creates a ripple effect that extends far beyond the halls of this parliament.

The legacy of the Paid Parental Leave Bill 2010 is not merely in numbers or percentages; it's in the countless moments of connection, the shared laughter and the warmth of family life. It's being with your partner at a really challenging time. It is in the empowered women in our community who, once left without this support, can now navigate the challenges of parenthood without sacrificing their economic and career security. It's in the fathers who, encouraged by policies promoting shared care, can actively and more easily participate in the upbringing of their children without fear of professional repercussions. It's a testament to what great policy and forward-thinking governments can achieve: policies that help transform people's lives.

Just as a former Labor government knew when it created the Paid Parental Leave Act to fit the circumstances of that time, we know that the landscape of our nation has evolved. Our understanding of family dynamics, of gender roles in parenting and of the intersection of work and life has expanded, calling for a recalibration of this policy to align with the contemporary needs of Australian families. Since we've come to government, we have undertaken the reform needed in a methodical and meaningful way. This bill, today, is another example of that.

In the first budget, we invested half a billion dollars to expand the scheme to six months by 2026. This historic investment, the largest since Labor established the scheme, will benefit over 180,000 families each year. It's a reflection of this government's dedication to improving the lives of working families, fostering better outcomes for children and advancing women's economic equality. This bill builds on the changes we made to modernise the Paid Parental Leave scheme earlier this year.

These changes, which, if the bill is passed, will begin on 1 July, will give more families access to the payment, offer parents greater flexibility in how they take leave and encourage parents to share care. This amendment will allow us to provide even more comprehensive support to working families.

The bill, if passed, will expand paid parental leave by increasing the length of time of payment from 20 to 26 weeks. It will also double the period where parents can take paid parental 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 26 weeks are reached in 2026. This expansion is not just a numerical increase; it's a qualitative enhancement to the support we provide to families during a crucial time in their lives. The journey to parenthood is always diverse and the pathways in family life are always varied. Extending the leave duration responds to the needs of families, offering an extended period for parents to bond with their newborns and establish the foundations of a secure family unit. As it stands right now, up to 18 weeks are available for one parent—usually taken by the mother—with two weeks reserved for the father or partner. The proposed increase to 26 weeks means mothers can access up to 22 weeks paid parental leave, which is an additional month compared to the current scheme. As mentioned, it also doubles the period reserved for the partner from two to four weeks.

This expansion is not just about extending financial support; it's about recognising the importance of parental involvement with a newborn from the very beginning. Crucially, this expansion sends a clear message that parenting should not always rely on one parent. This bill and the changes being proposed acknowledge that parenting is an equal partnership. The government value men as caregivers too, and we want to see that reinforced in workplaces and in our communities. In Bennelong, where families come in all shapes and sizes, we understand that diversity extends beyond ethnicity and gender; it includes the diversity of roles within a family. This amendment acknowledges and cultivates a culture of shared care and reinforces the importance of both parents in the upbringing of their children. It's a recognition that family responsibility should be shared and parents' roles in their families should be viewed as equal.

When the government announced our paid parental leave reform in the October budget, we entrusted the Women's Economic Equality Taskforce with providing advice on the best model for 26 weeks to advance women's economic equality. The taskforce recommended reserving four weeks for each parent on a 'use it or lose it' basis and allowing parents to take up to four weeks of leave at the same time. This bill reflects that advice. This decision is not just about meeting a quota. It's about creating an environment where families can thrive and where one partner can pursue their ambitions and, where applicable, the other can be an active participant in the lives of their children.

Our government is not blind to the fact that paid parental leave is not just a social policy; it's an economic imperative. As the global economic landscape evolves and we work towards greater economic resilience, we must recognise the pivotal role that families play in sustaining our nation's growth. Our national birthrate matters, and it's absolutely imperative that governments of all persuasions do what they can to make sure that having a child does not become an economic burden. Expanded paid parental leave will ensure families are supported at a time when they are less likely to work. Businesses, unions, experts and economists all concur that one of the most effective ways to boost productivity and workforce participation is to provide families with more choices and flexibility and greater support. This isn't an economic theory; it's a reality that resonates across schools, homes and businesses in Bennelong and right across the country.

Paid parental leave, when done right, can be a powerful catalyst for advancing gender equality, and the Albanese government is committed to fostering an environment where women can thrive in both their professional and their personal lives. The reform proposed today is not an acknowledgement of the challenges faced by women; it is a commitment to dismantling barriers that exist and to creating opportunities.

For many families in my electorate of Bennelong, this reform means more than just financial assistance; it will signify the recognition of the immense value of the early years of a child's life. It'll mean the ability for parents to be present during those precious first months, to witness those amazing first milestones and to create a foundation of love and security for their kids. It'll help foster an environment where the burdens of balancing work and a newborn are alleviated, enabling parents to make choices that align with the unique needs of their households at a challenging time. It recognises that every family, regardless of its composition, deserves the support and flexibility to nurture its children in an environment of love and understanding. It's also a commitment to equality, acknowledging that all parents—irrespective of gender or circumstance—should have the opportunity to be active participants in the early days of their newborn's life.

In a world that often moves at a relentless pace, access to paid parental leave—and expanded access, for that matter—becomes a promise that, as a community and a government, we value and prioritise the wellbeing of families and newborns. This amendment is more than just passing a law; it's investing in the future and prosperity of Australians, and it's another sign of our clear commitment to an inclusive and well supported community. By providing flexibility in how parents can arrange their care, we hope to ensure that the support offered is adaptive to the unique circumstances that define Australian families. I commend this bill to the House.

Helen Haines (Indi, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in support of this bill, the Paid Parental Leave Amendment (More Support for Working Families) Bill 2023. As a former midwife and academic who researched maternal and child health outcomes and remembering my own experience in returning to the workforce and balancing work and care, I know the importance of support for parents in those early years. I'm particularly thinking of all the parents-to-be and growing families in Indi who this bill will benefit. Last year, more than 1,500 parents and families in Indi accessed government paid parental leave in our region. I really want to see this number increase, and I absolutely hope this bill will help do that.

This bill creates a pathway to increase paid parental leave to 26 weeks by 2026, in line with international best practice. It also increases the number of weeks of paid leave reserved for each parent so that by 2026 each parent will have four weeks of use-it-or-lose-it leave. I'm very pleased to see the government extend the weeks that are reserved for each parent and for which they can't transfer the paid leave entitlement to the other parent. It's a take-it-or-leave-it approach, and this is vital to improve gender equity in this country. Evidence continues to show that a significant gender pay gap between men and women persists in Australia. A major factor, if not the major factor, to this gender pay gap is the unequal division of unpaid caring labour, including caring for children. In Australia, despite 92 per cent of employers offering parental leave regardless of the gender of the parent, only 12 per cent of those who take up the offer of primary carer leave are men. This shows that women are leaving the workforce at a much higher rate than men to care for children, contributing to the gender pay gap. It's absolutely not good enough, especially when other western democracies like ours have made significant improvements to close the gender pay gap.

I spent many years studying and working in women's and children's health research in Sweden, a place to which, alongside other Nordic countries, we have looked for guidance on best-practice policy for families. In those days, my Swedish colleagues regularly asked me why we did not have paid parental leave in Australia. It was as fundamental to them as Medicare is to us. You can understand why: Sweden introduced a use-it-or-lose-it system in 1995, reserving a month of leave specifically for fathers. This increased to two months in 2002 and three months in 2015. It's absolutely incredible, when you think about it, that Australia is not offering four weeks until 2026, almost three decades after it was offered by Sweden.

The Swedish experience provides strong evidence for incentives for fathers to take up paid parental leave. The total proportion of leave days used by men has slowly increased from seven per cent of all parental leave in 1989 to 25 per cent in 2013. Furthermore, the percentage of couples that share parental leave is slowly increasing, indicating a more equitable distribution of child rearing. Evidence shows that a use-it-or-lose-it system of reserved leave for the non-birthing parent or father is particularly effective when combined with income replacement so those taking paid parental leave don't just receive the minimum wage. Evidence shows that the use-it-or-lose-it entitlement, alongside income replacement of 50 per cent or more of earnings, can increase the uptake of leave by non-birthing parents.

The government should consider whether wage or salary replacement should be implemented alongside the use-it-or-lose-it approach as we continue to strive to support unpaid carers, no matter the gender. Based on what we've learned from the long history of parent leave in Sweden, I encourage the government to fund an effective and targeted campaign to ensure that non-birth parents are actively encouraged to access these new benefits.

Paid parental leave is critical to support families, advancing gender equity and promoting greater workforce participation, but these measures will not be most effective without tackling the crisis in child care. Back in February, when the government introduced their first reforms to improve paid parental leave, I spoke about how important it is to also address the drastic shortage of early childhood educators and childcare places right across the country. Now, 10 months later, we have still not made enough progress on this important piece of the puzzle for parents.

In Indi, parents frequently contact me about how hard it is to find places with local early childhood education and care centres. One mother, who lives in a small town in Indi, has had her youngest child on four waiting lists for months—one for at least 18 months. For families living regionally, early learning centres can be an hour's drive away in a neighbouring town because local centres are at capacity or simply don't exist. This mother is struggling to keep her small business open, which means fewer shifts for her workers. She says: 'Families need child care here desperately. Something, anything, needs to be done. People can't work. Women in particular can't go back to work after maternity leave if there is no-one to care for their children.'

Another mother, a social worker, told me of the ripple effects of the lack of access to child care, the struggle to undertake work and further study, and the reliance on her supportive mother, herself an aged-care worker, and her sister, a childcare educator, who are both taking time off work to care for their grandson and nephew. This mother says: 'I understand that there's been government incentives for childcare rebates; however, there is inadequate staff to fill positions due to the underpaid staff feeling completely burnt out.'

That's what I'm hearing from owners and managers of early childhood education and care centres across Indi. In the past week I've visited three centres in Benalla and Wahgunyah. The predominant issue that these childcare providers shared with me was the difficulty they faced in trying to recruit, train and retain staff to meet the demand of their communities. One centre has more than 100 children on its waiting list. Another paused enrolment because of a lack of staff. One centre manager told me they've lost staff to the local supermarket because the pay there is better.

Early childhood educators teach children throughout the most foundational and formative years of their lives, yet our system does not recognise or remunerate that work appropriately. We must find practical outcomes to attract people to become early childhood educators to meet the demands of the community and help parents to return to the workforce after parental leave, particularly in regions.

One of my constituents, a local GP and parent of two children, wrote to me saying that she and her husband, also a GP, are both extremely motivated to live, work and raise their family in regional Australia, yet it's feeling too hard. This constituent said: 'The need for an urgent overall in the way child care is offered in this country, but particularly within the regions, is imperative in sustaining a productive environment, and one that continues to attract families to live and work.'

We need GPs. We need healthcare workers, teachers, social workers and aged-care workers to return to our workforce, and a lack of early childhood educators is one factor that's stopping this from happening. This is deeply concerning. Lack of affordable, available and high-quality early childhood education and care is having detrimental consequences for parents, for children, for the regional workforce and for the regional economy.

This problem, especially in regional, rural and remote areas, is not just anecdotal. In recent weeks, the Productivity Commission released their draft report on early childhood education and care, and their findings paint a pretty bleak picture. Only eight per cent of the country has enough access to centre-based day care to provide at least three days of care for every child up to five years of age. The commission found a big reason for the lack is a lack of workforce. A survey of 1,000 childcare centres conducted by the United Workers Union last month found that 90 per cent of centres have a current staff vacancy. The survey found that in regional and rural areas which don't have access to casual agency staff, providers were resorting to closing centres early and turning children away.

The Parenthood, an independent not-for-profit advocacy group for available, high-quality, affordable child care, published more evidence last month about the desperate situation of regional child care. Their report found that children living regionally or remotely are denied—and their hardworking parents and carers are denied—the opportunity to access early childhood education and care. This report included stories just like the ones I've shared from my constituents.

The evidence is mounting: early childhood education and care is inaccessible in regional, rural and remote areas, and the impacts of this are dire. I call on the government to implement the recommendations of the Productivity Commission to improve child care in this country, especially in regional, rural and remote Australia.

First, child care should be fully subsidised for three days a week for lower income families to ensure all children can access child care. Second, the Productivity Commission recommended that these families not have to meet work or study requirements to access three days of child care. More childcare support for low-income families would really help my constituents. Indi has the 50th-lowest median wage out of 151 electorates. This puts Indi in the bottom third of electorates for wages.

Third, the commission recommended that more must be done to improve career and qualification pathways for early childhood education. The Productivity Commission was very clear that workforce shortages must be fixed. Commissioner Stokie said:

Without addressing the educator and teacher challenges, we can't do anything.

They found that fixing workforce shortages is critical to setting Australia on a path towards universal child care. That path needs to be determined, but it is clear that increasing wages and workforce participation is key.

I acknowledge the government has provided additional funding for fee-free TAFE to provide more training for industries like child care, which is a really positive development. More work must also be done to acknowledge prior learning by educators who seek to upskill and stay in the sector, and I hear that consistently. The government also recently announced funding to open 55 new early childhood education services in regional communities and more support for existing services to stay open. These are great measures. I congratulate them on them, but, frankly, they're not nearly enough. I said this in February, and I'm deeply disappointed that I'm saying the same thing again 10 months later.

In addition to the Productivity Commission recommendations, I call on the government to look at the many intersecting factors that are causing worker shortages, including for childcare workers in regional and rural Australia. I support measures that make it easier for families to balance work and care, particularly in those crucial first months of a child's life. Measures such as the bill that's before us will make a difference. I very, very much welcome this for the families of Indi. I very much welcome it for both partners in a caring relationship with children.

If I step back to the research that I undertook many years prior to coming here, the transition to fatherhood, in particular, is stymied by the inability of many men to come back to the workforce. This measure that we are debating today is critical for getting both partners, of either gender, back into the workforce, and doing so in a financially sustainable way. It's critical.

I commend this bill as a step in the right direction to help working families. But I say that the government must do a whole lot more for families, especially in regional, rural and remote Australia, and especially when it comes to child care.

Zaneta Mascarenhas (Swan, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

When I found out about the Paid Parental Leave Amendment (More Support for Working Families) Bill 2023 I was very excited to put my hand up and say: 'Yes. This is something I wholeheartedly agree with and support.' This is an example of the way that governments can tangibly help families. I think it's really, really wonderful. This particular bill is a great example of a triple whammy effect: being great for children, great for parents and also fantastic for the economy.

Labor has a strong legacy on parental leave. One of the people I'd like to pay tribute to is Senator Pat Giles, who was one of the architects of the original parental leave, where we got to see parents leave and then return to their workplaces. We want to see parents return to the workplace, as opposed to what we've seen in the past, where people have left workplaces. This is something that's truly wonderful.

I have lived experience of this, and I would not be the only person. I'm sure that there are people here in this place, as well as people in the gallery, who have seen how wonderful it is that we have access to this. The Albanese Labor government is looking at the way that we can tangibly fix this and continue to improve it. We want to make sure that we continue to improve the lives of all Australians. As a working parent I recognise that there's this tricky balance of work and care, and it's a constant juggle. This is something that tangibly helps parents. The juggle is real. This is something that we're trying to help families with.

When people find out that they're becoming a parent, it's a pretty exciting time, but sometimes it can be quite overwhelming. The thought of taking time off work and what that means for household finances can be quite challenging. This will tangibly help families. I know that sometimes it can be a challenging time, where you think about financial, emotional and physical implications. These are choices that parents have to think about: whether to work or whether to care, and whether there is actually a choice to do one or the other. Sometimes it is about choices that are based purely on finances as opposed to their hearts and what they really want to do. So I think this is something that will help families be more flexible about what they really want to do and what they want to choose, and I think it's wonderful that this government is providing more tools to help households decide on what to do, particularly for the birth of their first child.

Ian Goodenough (Moore, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It being 1.30 pm, the debate is interrupted in accordance with standing order 43. The debate may be resumed at a later hour.