Jana Stewart (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I'm pleased today to be speaking in support of the Paid Parental Leave Amendment (More Support for Working Families) Bill 2023. It's a piece of legislation that is very important to me and to our nation.

When I first entered this chamber in July 2022, I was 35-weeks pregnant. Already the mother of a six-year-old boy, I knew my decision carried a lot of weight, but I entered this place reflecting on the many women who paved a path for working mothers like me. For much of this country's history, our parliament has been unaccommodating for mothers. The Australian parliament didn't have a women's bathroom until 1974. It was in my lifetime that the Parliament House bar was replaced with a childcare centre. The Capitol Hill childcare facility is now used by elected representatives, staff and members of the press gallery. They are very welcome changes.

My hope is for an Australia that destigmatises working parents and changes the way we view the work-life balance and that workplaces that are supportive of their employee's choice to raise a family will become less of a novelty. Less than a decade ago, children were banned from the chamber. In 2016, the Australian parliament changed its strangers rule to allow parliamentarians to bring our children into the workplace. In February 2022, my little Ari made history as the first Koori baby to enter the Senate chamber. He was only the fourth baby on these red carpets. This year, my good friend and fellow Victorian Senator Raff Ciccone became the first father to bring his child into the Senate chamber. In the seven years since the strangers rule was lifted, the chamber has changed so much. Many of us in this place have accepted a new status quo and one that uplifts working mothers and fathers.

The reality couldn't be clearer. When we change the rules, we change our attitudes towards working parents. What we do here needs to pave the way for the rest of the country, but there is always more to be done. That's what the more support for working families bill does. This bill delivers on the second tranche of the Albanese Labor government's plan to reform the Paid Parental Leave scheme, building on the changes we announced in our 2022-23 October budget. Every Labor person in this place, in this government, believes in supporting our working families, encouraging greater gender equality and supporting greater workforce participation.

I've spoken a lot about my workplace, but not the experience so far of working parents across Australia. It is impossible to look at this reform without having a gendered lens. Women, by and large, are still the primary care givers in this country, regardless of whether they are an MP or Senator, work in an office building or on a construction site. Entrenched gender stereotypes frequently frame men as the household breadwinners while women are the stay-at-home mothers. In reality, the needs of every family are different, but an issue arises when the scales are tipped against working mothers. Too often, new mothers return to full-time work only to find themselves denied career progression. Mothers who may want to work full time might be forced to cut down their days in the office because they can't access adequate child care.

Raising the next generation of leaders is important work, but, shamefully, women are often penalised for it when they choose to spend time at home before returning to work. The ripple effects from this cannot be denied. Less pay, means working mothers face greater vulnerability and economic hardship, have fewer assets and less super in the bank when it comes to retirement. Big business, union secretaries, experts and economists know that the most effective way to boost our national productivity is by promoting the economic empowerment of women.

I'm proud to be part of a government, the Albanese Labor government, that puts women at the centre of everything that we do, and nothing is more clear than having a majority of women in caucus for the first time in any government's history. The bill affirms Labor's commitment to gender equality in every Australian workplace by providing more choices and more support for working families. These amendments expand paid parental leave from 20 to 26 weeks, extend the period reserved for each parent from two weeks to four weeks and double the period when parents can take leave at the same time from two to four weeks.

These changes are set to benefit approximately 180,000 families in Australia. It will provide much-needed support to mums after childbirth and empower dads to take on more care-giving responsibilities, because gender should not affect your access to parental leave payments—just like you shouldn't have to worry about spending time with your baby or about money to pay the bills.

When the Gillard Labor government established the Paid Parental Leave scheme in 2011, we knew that investing in paid parental leave would benefit our entire economy and bring Australia one step closer to achieving gender parity. We knew it then and we know it now. Those opposite cannot be trusted to support Australian women. Under their watch, Australia's global ranking in the World Economic Forum's global gender gap index plummeted to 43rd. Since Labor came to government, we have cleaned up the coalition's mess and unapologetically supported women across every workplace in Australia. We've supported working women and reformed traditionally feminised industries, like our care economy. This has included supporting aged-care workers with a historic 15 per cent pay rise, putting multi-employer bargaining on the table for industries like early childhood educators, and from 1 July this year every woman taxpayer will receive a tax cut under Labor. Ninety per cent of women in Australia will be better off under Labor's tax cuts.

The actions of the Albanese Labor government are already yielding life-changing results. In the last year, Australia has climbed 17 places on the global gender gap index, the largest increase since the index began in 2006. We had a record-high participation rate of women, at nearly 63 per cent, in May last year. And just last week, the ABS gender pay gap reached its lowest level in our country's history at 12 per cent. Throughout its history, Labor has been a progressive force for women. It is no surprise to me, looking at this side of the chamber and looking over there, that the Albanese Labor government, a majority women government, has continued to push for the economic empowerment of working women.

As I have already mentioned, when we change the rules to accommodate working parents, we change societal and cultural attitudes towards working parents. Importantly, this modernises our Paid Parental Leave scheme and delivers flexibility for modern Australian families. At the Jobs and Skills Summit and in the employment white paper, the Albanese Labor government heard loud and clear that support for families to balance care is critical to ensuring women's long-term economic equality.

What excites me most about this bill is the opportunity that it will create for Australian women and working families. Not only will it create opportunities for families who will benefit under a bigger and better Paid Parental Leave scheme, but this investment will also promote parenting as an equal partnership while boosting the economy. Data collected by the Workplace Gender Equality Agency reported that 62 per cent of employers offered employer funded paid parental leave in 2021-22. This is an increase from 2013-14, where only 48 per cent of employees saw paid parental leave as a workplace investment. This is a very positive trend, and I hope to see this trend continue to grow as it shows a necessary shift in cultural attitudes. Across Australia, businesses are beginning to recognise they too have a role in providing paid parental leave alongside the Commonwealth. They know that investing in paid parental leave delivers better returns for employers, parents and the economy. This is about making sure that every Australian family has more choice and better support, no matter their needs or how they choose to share care and responsibility.

There will come a day that every person in this place must put trust in the next generation to lead our nation and that the future of this country will rest with them. We cannot control what they will do but, right here and right now, we can make a difference to the quality of life our children have access to. We know that quality time with a loving parent can do wonders for a child's early cognitive learning and development in their formative years. This bill will deliver a paid parental leave scheme that is flexible and fair and will improve social and economic outcomes for both parents and their children. I commended the Paid Parental Leave Amendment (More Support for Working Families) Bill to the Senate.