Slade Brockman (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I too rise to speak on the Paid Parental Leave Amendment (Improvements for Families and Gender Equality) Bill 2022 as a member of the Community Affairs Legislation Committee and a member of the coalition. The coalition will be supporting this bill. In fact, the bill reflects the coalition's policy when in government. Large parts of it are taken from the changes we proposed to the Paid Parental Leave scheme when we were last in government, and we acknowledge that Labor, in government, has adopted our policy in large part and is now implementing it.

I was lucky enough, when our third child came along, to be self-employed. That gave me the opportunity to take a few weeks out of the workforce at our own expense to spend time with our third child. That was an extraordinarily valuable time and something that I very much cherish. But I understand—and we on this side understand—that it's not always possible for new parents to take that time out due to their own financial circumstances. So we understand that these changes and the flexibility inherent in these changes are so important to families. That is why we proposed these measures when we were in government.

I would sound one note of caution. The one area where I think we still need to continue the conversation and where governments need to ensure that adequate supports and resourcing are put in place is assisting small business. Small business does still face a challenge, particularly small and medium-sized businesses with large staffing components. When they lose key staff members for a period of time in a tight labour market, replacements are not always available. So governments need to help and support those small businesses in dealing with those circumstances as well. It's a conversation that obviously needs to be had between business owners and their staff. I very much encourage those conversations to continue, because it is such a vitally important social measure that we take to ensure that new parents can spend time with their newly born babies.

The coalition does support these measures. We support the fact that these measures will see economic and social benefits that flow through society. In government, our Paid Parental Leave scheme gave families flexibility to choose how they access their payments and gave either parent the option, depending on individual household circumstances. When in government, the coalition made important amendments to strengthen Paid Parental Leave, including increasing flexibility and introducing special circumstances which allow a person to meet the work test if they've been impacted by family and domestic violence, natural disaster or a severe medical condition.

In March 2022, as part of the Women's Budget Statement, the coalition once again underlined its commitment to paid parental leave, by announcing the enhanced Paid Parental Leave system. Enhanced Paid Parental Leave would have seen an investment of $346 million over five years to expand Paid Parental Leave, giving working families full choice and control of how they use 20 weeks of taxpayer funded parental leave.

Through the course of the inquiry into this bill, as I said, there remained concerns, particularly among small family owned businesses, about the potential impact of cost changes in this area, particularly in light of tight labour markets. So I emphasise again that it's important that governments provide support to employers, particularly small and family businesses, ensuring that their obligations are made clear, that the administrative burden of these changes is minimal and to give the chance for these businesses to minimise the economic impact that may come in the future. Once again, we do support these changes and we do support paid parental leave.