Marielle Smith (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I also rise to speak on the Paid Parental Leave Amendment (Adding Superannuation for a More Secure Retirement) Bill 2024. In doing so, I commend my good friend Amanda Rishworth, in the other place, and Senator Gallagher for bringing this legislation before us today, and I also acknowledge the women sitting in this chamber today who have been working on these issues, calling for this change for many, many years. Some have been doing so with a megaphone, others with very sharp elbows to their colleagues, but many women in this room have been advocating for this change and I acknowledge that and their work today.

This bill invests $1.1 billion over the forward estimates to pay for superannuation on government paid parental leave. It delivers an additional 12 per cent of paid parental leave as a contribution directly to the superannuation funds of parents of babies born or adopted from 1 July 2025. This matches the superannuation guarantee rate on that date, and the contribution will rise alongside any future increases to the superannuation guarantee, ensuring that parents utilising paid parental leave receive their super on an equal basis to those who are working.

The super will be paid at the end of each financial year and will include an additional interest component to make up for any forgone superannuation fund earnings as a result of the payment not being made more regularly. Importantly, this will be an automatic process, and the process for applying for paid parental leave will not change. We're trying to make sure here that parents don't face any barriers in claiming this entitlement.

When the Gillard Labor government introduced paid parental leave, we saw a jump in the number of employers providing additional employer funded leave. It had a ricochet effect. It was a modelling effect. According to the Workplace Gender Equality Agency, 63 per cent of employers offered employer funded leave in 2023-24, up from 48 per cent 10 years earlier. Our schemes, as government schemes, have an impact on changing culture and changing workplace practices right across the employment sector.

This legislation will have a similar impact, I am sure. Not only will it continue to normalise paid parental leave; it will also encourage more employers to pay superannuation on employer funded leave as a way to attract and retain staff. It is good for employers as well.

Paid parental leave has been an absolute game changer for women. I have spoken in this chamber before about how I felt as a young woman in 2011 when these changes were introduced and how it opened up a completely different future in my mind to what I'd seen as possible before. It changed how I thought I could balance a career and how I could balance having children, and what it would mean for my ability to stay connected to the workplace, to have a family and to continue to work. Whilst my journey didn't quite go like that—when I was preselected my son's age was still being measured in weeks, not months, and I had my second baby in this place—it did completely change the way I saw my future, and it changed the things I thought were possible.

When we expanded paid parental leave to 26 weeks, all those ideas and possibilities opened up for a new generation of women in Australia. They suddenly now see different opportunities and different potentials in how they can be the parents they want to be and be engaged in the workforce in the way they want to be. It's a reimagining of their future which is only possible through paid leave, and we know paid leave on a scale like this is only possible when governments back it in.

Paid parental leave is good for mums, it's good for dads, it's good for their precious babies and it's good for our economy. There should be no remaining doubt in this chamber or anywhere in our community about that. Now it's time to make sure that when parents take this leave it will not affect their retirement income, an important investment to help close the super gap and help make decisions around balancing work and care easier for women, easier for mums and easier for dads. We know from the data that taking time out of the workforce to raise children impacts women's retirement outcomes. We know that women are retiring on average with about 25 per cent less super than men.

This bill won't fix all of that, but it sure will make a difference. It will help. I couldn't be more proud of it. I couldn't be more proud of the legacy we, as Labor governments, have in bringing about superannuation and in introducing paid parental leave. The big step changes—they're not incremental changes—which have happened in this place have had a dramatic impact not only on women's workforce participation but also on what women can imagine for themselves: how they see their futures, how they see that opportunity and how they plan for those futures. Our families make that decision as well. This is good for mums, good for dads and good for babies. I couldn't be more proud of it. I commend the bill to the Senate.