Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Minister for Employment) Share this | Hansard source

In answer to the honourable senator's question, I cannot detail the exact information that she is seeking, other than to say that we as a government believe that the Paid Parental Leave Scheme is a very important measure to assist in our nation's tasks around population, productivity and the participation of women in the workforce. These measures are important.

They were the three aspects of the policy that we believe is vitally important and that is why we took it to the elections in 2010 and 2013. We believe that it is a good policy for the productivity of our nation to increase the participation rate of women. That scheme, might I add, includes and sustains their superannuation contributions, which under the current Labor scheme are not even considered and are forgone. This is a very important scheme for the benefit of the working women of this nation to deal with the population task, the participation task and also the productivity task, which are just so important for our nation.