Michaelia Cash (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Immigration) Share this | Hansard source

The member for Corangamite has made these statements and they clearly show that he has no understanding at all of how a small business runs. If he honestly believes that the level of paperwork associated with this is appropriate, that it is not a great burden and that it does not take an unnecessary amount of time he should go to any small business owner in the Australian community, as I have done, and I can tell you that the first thing they will say is that they cannot afford the red tape and regulation that is placed on them by Labor's PPL scheme. If the first-class record of removing unnecessary red tape that the member for Corangamite refers to is in relation to the 18,089 additional regulations created by the Rudd-Gillard government since the beginning of 2008 whilst only 86 were repealed then, quite frankly, the Liberal Party has a very, very different definition of a first-class record—so different that we have committed to cutting red tape and the compliance burden on small businesses by $1 billion a year if and when we are elected to government.

The coalition's PPL scheme, unlike Labor's scheme, will release employers from the pay-clerk burden imposed by the Gillard Labor government, unless employers opt in for this additional regulatory and compliance task. Imposing such additional regulatory and compliance obligations on employers for no good reason adds nothing to ongoing workplace relationships and is an additional burden that most employers can well do without. Anybody who has spoken to an employer will know that red tape is not conducive to good business practice. Imposing such additional regulatory and compliance obligations on employers for no good reason makes ongoing workplace relationships tougher than they need to be and is an additional burden that they can well do without.

As always, it is a coalition government, not a Labor government, that wants to make life easier for small business owners, who carry our economy each and every day. This will be especially important for small business owners who, unlike big employers, do not have whole departments that can actually handle the PPL pay-clerk task imposed by the government's scheme. The coalition's PPL scheme will also help boost productivity in the workplace. Our scheme boosts productivity because it provides more encouragement to women to remain in the workforce, to continue gaining practical workforce skills, to learn on the job and to continue applying their knowledge, skills and abilities in the workplace. It provides more encouragement for workplace participation and it makes more workplaces more efficient by removing the onus Labor has put on employers to administer the PPL scheme.

The Productivity Commission estimates that when faced with a choice of resigning or taking paid parental leave almost one-fifth of mothers choose to resign their jobs. The coalition recognises that, for employers, replacing an entire role is expensive and time-consuming in terms of recruitment and training costs and the risk of loss of corporate knowledge that an individual has built up in a role. Our PPL scheme provides the right incentives for working mothers to return to work. The coalition's PPL scheme is a globally recognised productivity boost. In fact, Australia is the only country in the world with a paid parental leave scheme that is entirely based on the minimum wage. According to the Productivity Commission's report on paid parental leave, at least 37 nations around the world had introduced a paid parental leave scheme prior to the launch of Labor's minimum wage scheme. Of those schemes, 35 were based on full or part replacement wage. Many other countries offer replacement wage, just like the coalition's scheme, including France, Germany, Austria, Russia, Denmark, Serbia, Singapore, Slovenia, Estonia, Greece, Mexico, Morocco, Luxembourg, Poland, Norway, Portugal, Switzerland and Spain. They all deliver paid parental leave based entirely on a mother's prebirth earnings. I find it very interesting that in so many areas the Labor Party conveniently wants to be world leader.

Senator McEwen interjecting—

Senator McLucas interjecting—