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

I thank Senator O'Neill for such a good question—an important question as we continue to drive economic equality for women across this country—and for Senator O'Neill's long advocacy in this area. I acknowledge that today.

When we came to government, we had a long list of things that had been left undone or ignored relating to women in this country, and we started implementing changes and announcing new measures. One of those was about expanding paid parental leave, which the former Labor government bought in over a decade ago. It always takes Labor governments to do these important social changes that drive outcomes for women. We expanded that to 26 weeks by 2026, and we are seeing those increasing weeks come on board this year. We've introduced reserve leave for each parent. This will reach four weeks by the end of 2026, with the remaining week shared between parents however they may decide, and that's about making it flexible for families. An important part that we hadn't addressed was paying superannuation on paid parental leave. It was something that had been advocated for and campaigned about for years. It was the only employment condition that didn't have super paid on it, and we put that in place in this year's budget. It is due to come in on 1 July next year.

This is an important change to paid parental leave, but it's an important statement from the government about the value that we place on parents taking time out of the paid workforce to care for the next generations—whether it be the birth parent or the non-birth parent of that child. We want that condition to be flexible, but we don't want people to pay an additional penalty because they're doing that. This is work we value. It is important work, and we know that all the data shows women pay a penalty for taking time out for it.