Jacinta Collins (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Despite some requests after last night’s adjournment to go down the path again of household hints and after the urgency debate in the Senate, today I will focus on Tony Abbott’s wonderful social policy adventure. I certainly have no intention to become a regular commentator on household matters but this is a very important policy issue. It is important not only because of the issue itself but because this is the issue with which Tony Abbott has chosen to lead with his chin over and above all other serious national policy issues. He has chosen what I characterise as this wonderful social policy adventure because, when you look at the detail of it, as indeed did Senator Barnaby Joyce, it is very difficult to take seriously.

I thought Tony Abbott was keen to characterise himself as a deep social thinker, but I seriously doubt he has made any detailed examination of the Productivity Commission report in this matter because his position since his attempt to launch a policy position on International Women’s Day has flip-flopped all over the place. He seems not to comprehend the seriousness of this as a policy issue and the angst being generated by the public at large. Indeed, because of a couple of headlines today, I suspect the Greens also do not have a full sense of the concern being generated by the public at large.

Why has paid parental leave become the issue of the day? We were told by Julie Bishop that it was poll driven and that the Liberal Party had concerns about the results they were getting from women under the age of 45 about their support for the Liberal Party or their support for its leader. I was surprised when I heard that from Julie Bishop because the Liberal Party had been very keen to suggest that it was a Labor Party myth, that women were quite fond of Tony Abbott and that it was a myth to suggest that there were any concerns with polling support for the Liberal Party. Apart from the polls which seem to concern the Liberal Party, I thought it might be interesting to look at the polls about the support for the different paid parental leave schemes. One report from Essential Media, which was part of today’s clips, had the concerning headline that came out of, I suspect, some Green backgrounding, ‘Parental leave needs to be six months to pass’ and the article said:

An Essential Media poll released yesterday found 40 per cent of voters backed the government’s scheme and 24 per cent backed Mr Abbott’s. Another 27 per cent liked neither.

So, despite the high-profile attention that Mr Abbott has carried on this issue and the very, very bold scheme, he is attracting only 24 per cent support.