Katy Gallagher (ACT, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is great to have the opportunity to take note of answers given. I want to confine my comments to the question I asked around paid parental leave changes that were introduced in the budget. It is appropriate that, two years on from this government being elected, we reflect on some of the language that the Prime Minister used at the time, prior to the election, about keeping commitments. He said he wanted to be known as the Prime Minister who keeps commitments. He said:

I will do what I say we will do.

…   …   …

... we will keep the commitments that we make. All of the commitments that we make will be commitments that are carefully costed and the savings to fund them will ... be well-known well before people go to the polls on Saturday, September the 7th.

What we saw with the Paid Parental Leave scheme was certainly an overpromise in terms of what has been delivered. We saw the changes that were made to the very generous scheme that the Prime Minister went to the election with to one that was more focused and much more in line with the scheme that Labor had introduced which was working so successfully. We then saw some comments in the election campaign by the Prime Minister in the document entitled Our plan. The Prime Minister said:

Australia is one of only two countries where parental leave isn't based on a mother's actual wage. If people receive their actual wage while sick or on holiday, they should ... receive their actual wage while on parental leave. Parental leave is supposed to be a workplace entitlement, not a welfare payment.

We can see how the situation has changed in such a short time. That is what was said before the election and, in this year's budget, what started as a workplace right, a workplace entitlement, all of a sudden turned the same women into welfare cheats. The language was that these women were double-dipping and that their families were double-dipping. Words like 'fraud' were being tossed around and words like 'rort' were being tossed around. In fact, the Prime Minister, in his press conference after handing down their budget, singled out the ACT, of course, because we are a fair target. He said:

For instance, here in the ACT, there are lots of Commonwealth public servants who have quite a generous paid parental leave scheme. Why should there be double-dipping—once, as a public servant and another ... through the social security system?

With that, he attacked hardworking public servants. At the same time as he was doing that, the nodding senator, Senator Seselja, the resident ACT senator, stood behind the Prime Minister, nodding away. Actually, the smile that he usually has on his face did wobble just a little bit as the Prime Minister launched his attack on Canberra public servants, because I think it did pass his brain that his constituents were being openly targeted by the Prime Minister. Nonetheless, there he was, still nodding away and congratulating the Prime Minister on such a wonderful attack on Canberra public servants. Then we saw, in the Senate committee that is now looking into it, the distress that this sort of language has caused women who have previously been unable to access this entitlement. There was the evidence of Sandra Croft, who appeared in a personal capacity to talk about how distressed she was at the language that was being used by the Prime Minister and senior ministers.

We did see one of the first cabinet splits post the budget on this issue, with Senator Sinodinos and Malcolm Turnbull distancing themselves from the poisonous language that was being used as the government went on a rampage attacking the rights and entitlements of women and families who were having a baby. Just two days after the budget was handed down, we saw quite a number of coalition members distancing themselves from that language, but by then the damage was done. Women who had previously had a universal entitlement to top-up payments that supported the employer funded component had been singled out by the leader of this nation as double-dippers, welfare cheats and rorters. The damage was done and it remains today. The language might not be used, but it is there in the budget papers describing the savings—'stopping double-dipping'. It is there for all to see. This impacts on women who are quite rightly trying to access an entitlement. They will remember this the next time they cast their vote. (Time expired)

Question agreed to.