Katy Gallagher (ACT, Australian Labor Party, Minister for the Public Service) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Darmanin for the question. Again, she raises a very important point, which is about how we encourage and improve the shared care when it comes to bringing up children so that the responsibility doesn't just fall to one parent, traditionally and more often than not the mother. The reforms we've introduced to expand PPL have meant that we have introduced reserved leave so that each parent has leave that's just for them, and, by 2026, this will be four weeks each. There's flexibility so that parents can share their remaining weeks however they want. Many of the men and second parents have told us they want to be there in those early days after a baby is born. They want to set that pattern from the beginning of being a partner not an assistant to the child's mother. This is what modern families are asking for, and this is what our reforms have been able to achieve.