Barbara Pocock (SA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak to the Paid Parental Leave Amendment (Adding Superannuation for a More Secure Retirement) Bill 2024. I can't remember when I first made a speech about the need for super on paid parental leave, but it was at least a decade ago—soon after PPL began in 2011—along with so many other women and advocates who have pushed so hard for this change.

The Greens welcome Labor's decision to finally get on board with the Greens' policy to pay superannuation on paid parental leave. For years we have been calling on the government to put their money where their mouth is on gender equality and to pay super on parental leave. We have even seen our own amendments to do this very thing rejected by Labor. While we are relieved the government is making this change, it is shameful it is making women wait until 2025. Paying super on paid parental leave is a simple yet very important change to make the super system more equitable, particularly for women. The evidence from community groups, academics and the work and care inquiry I chaired is so clear: super on PPL is necessary for improving gender equity in Australia. Parental leave is currently the only leave entitlement paid without superannuation. There is not a single reason justifying this double standard, and there are so many reasons supporting paying super on parental leave. It remains the only leave that is not at full wage replacement.

I chaired the Senate Select Committee on Work and Care, where we heard evidence about the impacts of the superannuation gender gap. The ACTU told the committee that women, on average, retire with super balances that are 47 per cent lower than men's. Missing out on super while taking parental leave contributes very significantly to this big gap. We heard from women, carers, older people and people who live in fear of poverty in old age who are worried that their super accounts will not be sufficient to support them during retirement. A grandmother, elder carer and permanent full-time worker told us: 'As a parent, grandparent and caregiver, full-time worker and unfortunately divorced, I feel like I'm running on empty, but the bills have to be paid. I worry my super won't cover me enough in retirement, even though I pay extra into it—stressed, tiredness, never very far away.' Professor Alison Preston told the committee of the inequity perpetuated by not paying super on paid parental leave when she said:

If a male has had a child, it has no bearing on their superannuation estimates. There is no difference with the superannuation of male counterparts who have never had a child. If a woman has had a child then her earnings are around 16 per cent less.

Sixteen per cent! It is with a collective sigh of relief that we welcome the government's decision to finally pay super on parental leave. But even with this change to the PPL arrangements in this country, Australia remains well behind the rest of the world on paid parental leave and gender equality more broadly.

During the work and care inquiry, we heard definitive evidence from stakeholders about the consequences of Australia's inadequate Paid Parental Leave scheme. Our existing scheme promotes and entrenches prevailing stereotypic gender roles: mothers as primary carers and fathers as primary earners. Women account for 88 per cent of all primary carers taking leave and men account for only 12 per cent. As a result, there is a huge gender division in the distribution of paid and unpaid work, which necessarily undermines equality between men and women. Caring patterns are established in the first year of a child's life, and they persist over that life, so the underutilisation of parental leave amongst fathers bakes in the gender division of labour in households—and in the workforce—for years to come. The skewed distribution of care work leads to reduced women's workforce participation, and time out of the workforce hinders women's career progression and contributes to the dominance of men in more senior roles and the concentration of women in low-paid, part-time and insecure work.

We know inadequate paid parental leave schemes have negative impacts on gender equality, but we also know that good paid parental leave schemes deliver social and economic benefits to women, to children, to parents and to the economy more broadly. We have buckets of research—very robust research, solid longitudinal studies—that tell us about the broad range of benefits of longer periods of paid parental leave, both in Australia and around the world. There are huge benefits for babies, very significant benefits for the life chances of children and enormous benefits for mothers and fathers. It assists breastfeeding, child development, the distribution of domestic work within families, and the mental and physical health of parents. It's also very clear that the benefits are there for the labour supply and the economy. Last year, the government's own Women's Economic Equality Taskforce recommended expanding PPL to 52 weeks and paying PPL at replacement wage, with employers making a contribution. This is not some random number; it is the international standard, the OECD average.

Australia has also fallen behind other countries in the rate of pay, the length of leave and how leave is allocated between parents. Australia's paid parental leave rate is currently one of the lowest in the OECD, even with the recent changes to bring PPL up to 26 weeks at minimum wage. For many parents, the minimum wage is well below their normal wage. This forces difficult decisions about how long parents can afford to take leave. As many witnesses at the work and care hearings pointed out, continuing to pay parental leave at minimum wage is not an effective incentive to induce more fathers to take leave.

The Greens are fighting for 52 weeks of paid parental leave at full wage replacement, including incentivising employers to top up the government's scheme. The ACTU have called for this pathway, yet the government is still ignoring the plea and the evidence. We've seen no commitment, not even to a pathway to 52 weeks of paid leave, to bring us into line with international best practice. We know this is possible, because lots of countries are already doing it and reaping the benefits—countries like Finland, Germany, Norway, Iceland and many others. They have more equitable and effective paid parental leave schemes, and we should be matching them. Norway has 49 weeks of parental leave: 15 weeks exclusively for one carer and another 15 weeks exclusively for the other, with the remaining 16 weeks to be shared. There are so many positive models out there.

We heard firsthand the benefits of adequate paid parental leave during our work and care inquiry, over and over again. Suvi, for example, lives in Sweden. She has a 13-year-old daughter and was able to take a total of 16 months paid leave. Her partner is taking seven months paid leave in his own right. That's based on Sweden's parental leave policy—a great model to look at. This helps explain the much greater sharing of domestic work that we see over the life course in those countries with good, lengthy periods of parental leave—paid close to ordinary earnings—and free child care. It's an arrangement which, together with paid parental leave, gives kids and their families such a good start and is associated with a much lower gender pay gap.

The experience in other countries puts beyond doubt that more equitable parental leave, coupled with free child care of high quality, improves women's workforce participation and helps shape the long-term sharing of care work, with really important positive outcomes for our kids. Where there is a more equitable take-up of parental leave, women have better paid-employment outcomes and children receive better support in the earliest stages of life. It's a win-win. This is not to mention the improved maternal health and the quality of personal relationships that exist for parents during a time when these things can be strained.

Research from the Parenthood found that, if we legislated 12 months of paid parental leave at full pay and with a significant portion of it shared, this would lead to a GDP increase of $116 billion—or 2.9 per cent—by 2025, largely due to the higher rates of female participation and the productivity that would result from them spending less time out of the labour market.

The Greens welcome the introduction of paying super on paid parental leave. The Greens, the community sector, academics—so many people across our community—have been calling for it ever since PPL was first introduced. But this is really the least the government could do. After decades of talk about what needs to be done, the action from this government remains insufficient. The government's main objection to giving Australian families 52 weeks of PPL is financial. 'We cannot afford it,' they say. Women and parents should not be asked to wait, when nuclear submarines and wealthy property investors are not asked to wait.

The Greens will continue to call for reforms that expand support for new parents and address the gender inequity of current childcare patterns in Australia. We are fighting for paid parental leave to be expanded to 52 weeks, giving parents that full year together, between them, to nurture and provide for the needs of their kids. It's time to act. We can afford it for the sake of our kids, and we must do it for those parents, women, workplaces and the economy. It's time we moved in a more powerful and lengthy way to make that longer term difference for our families and our economy.