Larissa Waters (Queensland, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

One of the strongest, clearest messages coming from the Jobs and Skills Summit last week was the economic and social benefits of expanding paid parental leave to 26 weeks. The Grattan Institute, The Parenthood, Chief Executive Women, the unions, the Business Council of Australia—everyone agreed that fairer paid parental leave will unlock women's workforce participation, will encourage more equitable sharing of care between parents and will give children the best start to life.

Australia has one of the weakest parental leave schemes in the developed world, especially for fathers. There was unanimous support from summit participants for that to change, and yet paid parental leave was nowhere to be seen in the summit outcomes. Women are sick of making the case for change, hearing words of support, but seeing no action.

The Greens went to the election with a fully costed plan for a fairer paid parental leave scheme that provides 26 weeks paid at replacement wage, capped to $100,000 pro rata, including superannuation, removing the rules that disadvantaged families where a woman is the higher earner, and creating effective incentives for both parents to share care right from the outset. If the government is serious about increasing women's workforce participation, it needs to do more than just nod sagely while a panel of expert women say these things; it needs to act.

The experience in other countries puts beyond doubt that more equitable parental leave, coupled with free child care, improves women's workforce participation and helps shape the long-term sharing of care work. Use-it-or-lose-it provisions in Scandinavian countries saw a huge jump in the number of dads taking leave, and that fairer sharing of care has been sustained for more than a decade. In contrast, Australia's parental leave scheme tends to lock mums into the role of primary carer and the loss of work opportunities that comes with it. Fairer paid parental leave and free child care are no-brainers that benefit everyone. If this government had the guts to scrap the stage 3 tax cuts, we could easily afford them.