Sarah Hanson-Young (SA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

“That, in the opinion of the Senate, the following is a matter of urgency:

The failure of the Rudd Government’s paid parental leave scheme to support parents for the World Health Organisation’s recommended minimum of six months, and address the great inequity between male and female retirement incomes.”

I rise today to speak on an important issue. The reason I have moved this motion is that it is clear that Australia is in the midst of a debate, not about whether we should have paid parental leave in order to support working families in Australia but about what type of paid parental leave that should be and what that form of support should look like. The only piece of current legislation before the Australian parliament is the bill that I introduced in this very same place almost a year ago. While we have not been able to debate that bill, because it was moved as a private senator’s bill, that bill outlined a plan forward for paid parental leave. It was offering six months plus superannuation at the minimum wage. When I introduced this bill, we were yet to see any commitment from the government or the opposition as to this issue. Haven’t we come far! We now have a commitment from the Rudd Labor government for an 18-week scheme and of course we now have a commitment from the opposition, the coalition, for a scheme of 26 weeks with superannuation at replacement income paid for by big business. While we are still waiting to see the legislation for either the government’s scheme or the opposition’s scheme, what we do know is that by the end of this year parents need to know what type of support they will get and what type of scheme they should be looking forward to. Hopefully, Australia can again hold its head high among our OECD brothers and sisters in being able to say, ‘Yes, Australia too believes that paid parental leave is an important aspect of any workforce participation action plan and of course support for working families.’

Australia lags far behind the rest of the OECD countries in relation to paid parental leave. It is often said that Australia is one of only two countries that do not offer a paid parental leave scheme, Australia and the United States. But of course even in the United States 50 per cent of women have access to some type of government funded system through various US states that offer a government funded scheme. It is just not universal across the federation. Of course here in Australia we have nothing. There is no government funded paid parental leave scheme unless of course you work in the public service. Federally we offer 14 weeks for mothers to be able to take time off with their babies. It is a really important step for Australia to take when we know that we have one of the lowest female participation rates in the OECD. Where does that drop in female participation come in, despite the fact that over 63 per cent of our graduates are women? It is during the child-bearing years. It is during that time when women are forced out of the workforce to have their child and that attachment to the workplace is lost because we do not have a properly funded scheme. In other countries around the world which have had schemes in place for quite some time, that female workplace participation rate is brought up and correlates with that level of support that they are given by their federal governments.

It is time for Australian mums and dads to have the best possible paid parental leave scheme. While I welcome the commitment from the government to putting something on the table, 18 weeks is pathetic. Eighteen weeks at the minimum wage without superannuation is really nothing more than a rebadged baby bonus. Not just that but the fact that it seems as though it will not even be an amendment to the Fair Work Act but rather an amendment to the Social Security Act means that it really is nothing more than a rebadging of the baby bonus. If we honestly believe that Australian working families—mums and dads, and women in particular—deserve the workplace entitlement of paid parental leave then, of course, it needs to be in the Fair Work Act. That is where all the unpaid maternity leave provisions are. It would make sense to have it in the Fair Work Act.

I look forward to seeing that legislation. We called the government on it yesterday. Let us see it. Let us see that legislation so we can get on and debate it because until now the only piece of legislation sitting in this chamber is that put forward by the Greens—six months plus super at the minimum wage. I would also like to see the detail from the coalition’s policy. It sounds good on face value but we need to see the detail. Where, in reality, are we going to be in 12 months time? I hope that we are able to, in this place, once we see the government legislation, agree on a six-month paid parental leave scheme with superannuation included. The compromise between the government and the opposition’s proposal would be for that to be at the minimum wage.

That seems like a pretty fair compromise to me. If you asked families right around the country if that would be a good way forward, most of them would say ‘yes’. Why should we accept the argument from the government that we should start with a paltry 18-week scheme that we will build on, even though it is only going to be in the Social Security Act? Why should we accept the argument from the government that is where we should start and we should not be asking for any more?

Let us not forget that it has been more than 30 years since we had the last amendment to legislation to provide unpaid parental leave. It has taken over 30 years to get to the point of talking about paid parental leave. I am not prepared to wait another 30 years to increase it to six months. The World Health Organisation, various women’s and children’s associations and unions—not just in Australia but globally—recognise that the minimum must be six months. It needs to be recognised as part of workplace attachment and, therefore, a workplace entitlement. It needs to include superannuation.

Let us touch on the issue of why superannuation is important. It is because we know already that we have generations of people worried about their superannuation to date and about whether they can actually retire. My mum and dad are worried about whether they can retire on their superannuation. I can tell you, the gap between the superannuation levels that men are going to retire on and the levels of superannuation that women are going to retire on are vastly different. Why? It is because of that gap during those child-bearing years. It is absolutely fundamental that any government that is committed to the rights of women in the workplace, to workplace participation and to the rights of people to have a secure retirement through their superannuation, must include, in any type of workplace entitlement, superannuation. That has to be in any type of paid parental leave scheme.

It is a scam by the government to try and convince Australians that 18 weeks without superannuation is anything more than a rebadged, glorified welfare provision otherwise known as the baby bonus. We need to move on from that. We need a paid parental leave scheme that has the guts to deliver the real action and support for parents. It has to be six months; it has to include superannuation. The compromise, I do believe, between the government and the opposition proposals, is that minimum wage component. Let us move forward from there. Let us not settle for something less simply because it does not taste politically nice to the government of the time. Let us strive for something that is worth supporting and worth building on, and that has to be that six-month time frame. Let us not wait another 30 years to have the debate just to make things better.