Tony Sheldon (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in support of the Paid Parental Leave Amendment (Improvements for Families and Gender Equality) Bill 2022. This bill expands and improves the paid parental leave scheme legislated by the Rudd and Gillard Labor governments in 2010.

This bill makes six key changes to the scheme. It combines the existing paid parental leave and the dads' and partners' pay schemes into a single 20-week scheme, which provides more flexibility for families to divide their leave as best suits them. It reserves a portion of the scheme for each parent, which ensures that fathers and partners take a fair share of leave and tackles the gendered stigma around parental leave. It makes it easier for both parents to access the payments by removing the notion of primary and secondary carers and ensures that both parents are treated as equal partners under the scheme. It expands access to the scheme by introducing a family income test, where families can be assessed if they exceed the individual income test. It increases flexibility for parents to choose how they take their leave days. It enables fathers and partners to access the payments regardless of whether the birth parent meets the income test or residency requirements. This bill delivers a fairer, stronger and more flexible paid parental leave scheme. It delivers a better paid parental leave scheme for 181,000 families around Australia.

Like every meaningful workplace right and entitlement in this country, this bill reflects countless hours of work and advocacy by workers and their representatives in the trade union movement. No workplace right in this country was ever handed down freely by the Liberal and National Parties. It has taken the blood, sweat and tears of Australian workers, their families, and unionists. Whether it's the 38-hour week, the weekend, the minimum wage, paid leave, superannuation, job security arrangements—which particularly supports women in the workforce—or turning around and making sure that pay equity is properly administered in equal pay for women in the workplace, with its aspects of workers' compensation and, of course, paid parental leave, these are all examples of changes and importance in workplaces around our country. It also goes to arrangements like penalty rates, particularly for those people in precarious, temporary, part-time or casual work, which is dominated by women in the workforce. In those areas, penalty rates were slashed and burned under the previous government.

These are areas that the Labor government has been pushing to make sure are rectified, and of course, if the Liberals get back into government, they'll undermine and attack them again. Just in the last few years, we've seen the Liberals attack penalty rates and superannuation; we saw the Liberals happily stand by while big companies like Amazon exploited workers and undermined basic workplace rights; we saw the Liberals abolish all minimum standards in the road transport industry; and we saw the Liberals intervene in court cases on behalf of labour hire companies to strip paid leave entitlements from casual workers.

Just a few months ago, we saw the Liberals in opposition oppose the Secure Jobs, Better Pay bill. What was in that bill? The Liberals opposed making gender equality an objective of the Fair Work Act; the Liberals opposed strengthening the right to request an extension of unpaid parental leave; the Liberals opposed strengthening the right to request flexible work arrangements; the Liberals opposed making it easier for workers in low-paid feminised industries to bargain for pay rises; and the Liberals opposed prohibiting sexual harassment in the Fair Work Act. These are all protections introduced by this government at the end of last year, and the Liberals and their mates in a few recalcitrant employer groups—employer unions—fought them tooth and nail.

Every time Liberals get in, workers go backwards, because the Liberals and the Nationals have always been the parties of bad businesses, not of the good businesses that have made many of these changes in conjunction with their workforce, who are often represented by unions. Every time a Labor government is elected we see the Australian middle class grow. Whether it's workers or good employers who want to do the right thing by their workers, Labor is the party for the middle class.

Let's take paid parental leave as a case in point. In 1973, it was the Whitlam government that first introduced maternity leave for public sector employees and banned discrimination against employees who became pregnant; in 1979, unions successfully argued for maternity leave in the maternity leave test case, which extended unpaid maternity leave to all permanent employees in the private sector; in 1985, unions won unpaid adoption leave; in 1990, the unions won the parental leave test case; and, in 1993, the Keating government enshrined unpaid parental leave as a workplace entitlement in legislation.

But during the long, dark years of the Howard government, while universal paid parental leave became common across the OECD, Australian workers went backwards. Rather than paid parental leave, we got Work Choices. During this time, many unions fought for paid parental leave to be added to enterprise agreements. But, while unions led the charge on parental leave, the Howard government was attacking the rights of workers to join unions and to be able to successfully argue for those changes across companies and across industry sectors. In doing so, Howard attacked the rights of workers to access paid parental leave schemes.

I remember that, while I was the New South Wales secretary of the Transport Workers Union, we were winning paid parental leave for truck drivers in agreements in the late 1990s and early 2000s, and we were publicly attacked by people like 2UE's John Laws for going soft. Well, thank goodness going soft is recognised as something we should all be doing as a community, not based on gender and, hopefully, not based on politics.

By the time the Rudd and Gillard governments legislated paid parental leave in 2010, Australia was one of only two OECD countries without a universal paid parental leave scheme. That is where the Howard government left Australian families: with one of the two most antifamily workplace relations systems in the developed world. Now, after another decade of Liberal government, another decade of Australian workers going backwards, this Labor government has inherited a parental leave scheme that has slid back to being the second-worst among comparable OECD and EU countries. Again, every time the Liberals and Nationals sneak in, they send workers and families backwards, and, every time a Labor government is elected, we repair the damage done to Australia's middle class.

Of course, this bill is just the first step in strengthening our Paid Parental Leave scheme. Later this year the Albanese government will introduce legislation to expand Paid Parental Leave from 20 weeks to 26 weeks—another big step forward for Australian families. We should aspire to continue to improve the scheme.

I note the submissions by the Australian Council of Trade Unions and the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees Association calling for the scheme to gradually be extended to a full year of paid parental leave—52 weeks—with an increased rate of pay. They've also called for the scheme to be expanded to all workers, regardless of the length of service, including those who are on temporary or fixed-term contracts. Just as we've seen for a century, the trade union movement is always at the forefront of driving positive workplace reforms that benefit the entire community.

Just as we have seen for a century, the advocacy and campaigning of the union movement is often so successful that even the Liberals are shamed into supporting positive workplace reforms such as we're seeing today. That's why it's so, so hard to destroy unions and to stop workers and their representatives and working families from coming together to have a representation and a voice at work. Unions make workplaces and Australian society fairer. They make our middle class stronger. For the Liberals and Nationals, the party of the employers—the employers who want to rip people off—unions are something that they will never support. But I tell you what: good companies do support them, good employers do, and good politicians make a difference. We'll continue to drag the Liberals and Nationals kicking and screaming into the 21st century. Part of the way of doing this reform and bringing them into the 21st century is making sure there are programs that are actually of benefit, because this is also a productivity opportunity and is of assistance to employers.

Regarding the mandatory nature of these benefits, the employer's role can help parents to stay connected to their workplace while on leave, leading to the benefits of business, including increased retention and reduced training and recruitment costs. Crucially, the employer role also supports women's workforce participation. We know that time out of the workforce due to caring responsibility is a key driver of the differences between men's and women's economic outcomes. Keeping women connected to their employer while they are on parental leave is intended to encourage women to return to the workforce and have that productivity boost and opportunity across our community while also reducing employee turnover and, in turn, reduce the lifetime earnings gap between men and women.

Of course, part of that program is also to support employers of all sizes. Services Australia will ensure that information available to employers is updated to reflect the changes in this bill. This includes a Services Australia website for all employers, which provides information on what employers need to know about the paid parental leave scheme and detailed information about how to register and manage their role. Other resources available include the Paid Parental Leave scheme Employer Toolkit, a handbook maintained by Services Australia since the scheme's introduction. And of course Services Australia also provides a dedicated phone service for employers who require assistance in registering their business online or to ask for help about their obligation under the scheme. Services Australia staff who operate this phone line will receive training about the changes in this bill. This is a change for all Australians—a change that will boost productivity, participation and fairness in our workplace and provide an opportunity for employers to further advance a good workplace.