Mitch Fifield (Victoria, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Disabilities, Carers and the Voluntary Sector) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Just picking up where I left off before question time, allowing the government to drop small business right into paid parental leave obligations and duties simply sets up the machinery to fit up small business to pay the cost of fixing the shortcomings of Labor’s flawed scheme. While not impeding the introduction of the government’s scheme, the coalition will move substantive amendments to extend the role of the Family Assistance Office in administering the scheme indefinitely. I acknowledge here the ceaseless advocacy in this area by Mr Billson, the shadow minister for small business, and also the small business champion in this chamber, Senator Boswell. This measure will make ongoing use of the taxpayer investment in the establishment of the necessary payment and operating systems beyond the initial six months. The government is urged to embrace the coalition’s amendment to avoid the imposition of unnecessary and unjustified cost, regulatory burden and compliance risks to the small business community.

Labor’s second-rate scheme does not sufficiently recognise that parents have different patterns of family responsibilities and paid work. It fails to recognise the current economic circumstances Australian families are facing, from increasing interest rates to the housing affordability crisis to increased costs of living and the proposal of another great big new tax on everything. More and more families are now requiring two incomes just to make ends meet. In Australia today parental leave is available to parents through both private enterprise and the Public Service. Conditions such as the length of the scheme vary from very short periods to 18 weeks, yet few schemes provide the ideal leave period of six months. Mums working casual jobs who do not have accrued leave will lose out under the government’s scheme. Labor’s 18-week scheme was recommended by the Productivity Commission as a result of an expectation that an employer would effectively provide a top-up to the leave to reach 26 weeks, thus delivering the internationally recognised standard of six months. But of course casual workers will not have accrued leave and therefore it is unlikely that they would get the top-up.

The coalition has put forward its proposed scheme, which is in stark contrast to the Labor second-rate scheme. The coalition’s scheme is a wage replacement scheme that would provide primary carers, predominantly mothers, with 26 weeks paid parental leave at full replacement pay up to a maximum salary of $150,000 per annum or the federal minimum wage, whichever is greater. The coalition scheme would be available to all employees including full-time, part-time and casual workers, contractors and the self-employed who meet the eligibility test. It would include superannuation contributions at the mandatory rate of nine per cent and it would facilitate an easier transition in and out of the workforce for Australian women during their childbearing years. It would signal to the community that taking time out of the workforce to care for children is a normal part of the work-life cycle for parents. The coalition scheme would promote an increased female workforce participation, leading to productivity gains as it would create a financial incentive for women to be engaged in paid work prior to childbirth and to return to the workforce after their period of leave. The coalition scheme would provide paid parental leave for a period of 26 weeks to afford all mothers the opportunity to breastfeed their infant for the minimum six-month period recommended by the World Health Organisation. Labor’s scheme does not. The coalition scheme would provide women with a replacement wage to a cap or minimum wage, whichever is greater, to adequately support working families when they are at their most financially vulnerable. Again, Labor’s scheme does not.

The scheme Labor is proposing also fails to ensure that all Australian families, regardless of whether a mother is at home or in the paid workforce, are afforded the flexibility to choose what is right for their specific individual family circumstances.. Labor’s scheme is far from perfect but ultimately on balance having a second-rate scheme is better than not having a scheme at all. The coalition has a second reading amendment that further details our concerns with this legislation and our alternative approach. I move the second reading amendment circulated in my name:

At the end of the motion, add “but the Senate:

         (1)(a)    affirms its commitment to supporting all Australian families and supports policies which give choice and flexibility to parents to enable them to choose what is right for their individual circumstances, whether they are at home or in the paid workforce;

             (b)    recognises that parents have different patterns of family responsibilities and paid work over their life cycle;

             (c)    recognises that due to rising costs of living and a housing affordability crisis, the majority of families require two incomes to make ends meet;

             (d)    notes that Australia remains only one of two OECD countries that does not provide a paid parental leave scheme and that introducing a paid parental scheme is critical to the needs of working families and our national productivity more broadly;

             (e)    rejects the Government’s representation of a paid parental leave scheme as a social security measure and instead affirms that it is a valid workplace entitlement that must come with a superannuation component to arrest the gross inadequacy of female retirement incomes;

              (f)    notes the Government’s proposed paid parental leave scheme is inadequate in its current form and should be amended to better reflect the requirements of Australian working mothers, and families more generally;

             (g)    supports the ability of casual, part time and fulltime women to access paid parental leave provided that they have met the qualifying criteria; and

             (h)    recognises that a paid parental leave scheme is only one part of government’s important role in supporting families as they raise the next generation of Australians; and

        (2)    acknowledges that the bill does not:

             (a)    provide paid parental leave for a period of 26 weeks to afford all mothers the opportunity to breastfeed their infant for the minimum six month period recommended by the World Health Organisation;  or

             (b)    provide women with a replacement wage, to a cap or minimum wage (whichever is greater), and so does not adequately support working families when they are at their most financially vulnerable; and

        (3)    acknowledges that the bill places a totally unnecessary impost on Australian businesses by requiring employers to act as paymasters for eligible employees; and

        (4)    calls on the Government to make such amendments to the bill as would rectify these flaws.

Sarah Hanson-Young (SA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to add my contribution to the debate on the government’s Paid Parental Leave Bill 2010 and Paid Parental Leave (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2010. This is a historic day in this chamber: all three of the major players in this place are committed to some form of paid parental leave and are also committed to seeing that some scheme is up and running by the end of this year. I say this, however, with some disappointment that the legislation as it is before us does not provide enough support for parents and is not the best possible scheme that, if we had been able to work together, we would have been able to put in place from the word go.

While I have stated on the record before that the Greens will not be blocking the government’s attempt to introduce a statutory paid parental leave scheme, it is incredibly disheartening that this legislation is anything but a true reflection of what paid parental leave should be—that is, of course, a workplace entitlement. I am not the first person to voice concern over the direction the government has taken with its paid parental leave scheme and, sadly, I do not think that I will be the last. For more than three decades, men and women around this country have been lobbying governments of all persuasions to provide a paid parental leave scheme as a basic workplace entitlement, and I must say that the recent debate around this particular issue has been an interesting one.

Arguments such as, ‘This legislation is only a starting point and we can lobby the government to improve it once it becomes law’ have perplexed me, because we have waited 30 years already. It is 30 years since the unpaid provisions were given as entitlements to women for maternity leave. Thirty years on, we are now talking about the need for the true support of providing a paid parental leave scheme. I would hate to think that we would have to wait another 30 years in order to improve it when we could be doing that right here today in this place. We now have commitment from all sides that a government funded paid parental leave scheme is something that this parliament must deliver. It is surely the best opportunity that we have had, with all sides now saying that this is something that we should do and that this is something that we are committed to. Well, let us deliver it.

We should be able to improve and fix some of the most fundamental flaws within this legislation so that when it does pass we will be able to say that we did our very best to provide a good scheme. Of course this can be built upon in the future, but let us use the opportunity we have today to make sure that we get the best legislation that we can now. Why, after decades of inaction, would mums and dads out there not want us to come together and ensure that we get the best possible scheme in place simply because the Prime Minister has said today that the Senate should just get out of the way? Frankly, the Senate should not just get out of the way. The Senate is here to work with the government of the day to ensure that we improve pieces of legislation and that we make sure that any law enacted is in the best interests of all Australians. And, as the Senate committee process has shown, there are flaws in this legislation that must be fixed.

While I will come to some of the major concerns over the implications of this legislation in a few moments, one thing I would like state upfront is that 18 weeks is simply not enough. It is not enough when you compare it to international standards and it is not enough for all of those people and organisations, trade unions included, who have been fighting for this for decades. Eighteen weeks is nowhere near where comparable countries are at, when you consider that Sweden offers 47 weeks, New Zealand offers 28 weeks, Finland offers 32 weeks and even the UK offers 39 weeks. The fact is that Australia is still behind the eight ball, as we are not only introducing a scheme only now but introducing a scheme that is far behind those of our international counterparts and is not giving that basic support that families deserve.

The Greens have not been a lone voice in our push for six months paid parental leave. We believe that six months should be the minimum. It is the minimum set down by the World Health Organisation. There is strong support throughout the community for the introduction of a 26-week, six-month scheme. The National Foundation for Australian Women, Save the Children, the YWCA, the Commission for Children and Young People, the World Health Organisation, the Public Health Association, the Australian Breastfeeding Association, Unions NSW and the Community and Public Sector Union are all advocates for a six-month, government funded, paid parental leave scheme—and that is what we should be passing here this week in this place.

Given that women around Australia have been fighting for paid parental leave to be enshrined as a workplace entitlement for decades, this hard work must not be in vain when it comes to ensuring that the best possible support is provided for Australian mums and dads. Let us not use this as an opportunity to simply whack each other over the head politically. Let us use this as an opportunity to work together and get the best possible scheme. It is simply a cop-out for anybody to suggest that the will is not here, because the will certainly is here in this place, and that is what I think is so exciting about this debate tonight. It is also such an opportunity that we should be taking it with both hands and using it rather than squandering it simply because the Prime Minister’s comments this morning reflected that the Senate should simply roll over and not do its job.

I am sure that many in this chamber recognise that the idea of paid parental leave is not a new concept in this place. My South Australian colleague former Senator Natasha Stott Despoja, a staunch advocate on this issue, introduced Australia’s first paid maternity leave scheme back in 2002, and I introduced the first paid parental leave scheme last year. It was a 26-week, six-month scheme plus superannuation at the minimum wage. That was the best compromise that I could come up with then and it is the best compromise that I believe we could come up with here in this place this week to ensure that parents get the support they need, that we enshrine this as a workplace entitlement and that we give the support that new mums and dads should be entitled to, of course ensuring that women have a connection to the workforce and are not discriminated against or disadvantaged simply because they have ovaries yet are also workers. Let us ensure that the legislation that we pass here this week is one that offers six months leave plus superannuation and that it is a workplace entitlement.

Both of the pieces of legislation that have been before this place already, introduced by Natasha Stott Despoja and by the Greens—with the third being the government’s—recognised that taking time off from work to have a baby should be seen as a basic workplace entitlement and that, just as when on long service leave or sick leave, employees should continue to accumulate superannuation payments. That is a stark difference between the two previous bills introduced into this chamber and the government’s scheme as laid before us today—superannuation is not included in it. Surely, after all the independent studies, Senate inquiries and the recent Productivity Commission report into the feasibility of implementing a paid parental leave scheme, there is enough evidence out there supporting paid parental leave enshrined as a workplace entitlement rather than simply being a welfare handout. That is type of scheme that we should deliver.

Unfortunately, despite all the rhetoric from the government about supporting women to maintain their connection with the workforce and boost workforce participation—the exact words used by the government—this piece of legislation fails to accurately provide any entitlement to take leave and is a slap in the face for all those who have been advocating for a paid parental leave scheme to be viewed as a workplace entitlement. You can say it as much as you want. The reality is that this stand-alone bill does not provide a leave entitlement. It does not amend the Fair Work Act. It is not a workplace entitlement. Only in name is it a paid parental leave scheme not in reality.

This is the first fundamental flaw within this bill and the fact that it is not a paid parental leave scheme in the true sense of the term is concerning. Regardless of the spin, regardless of the fact that we want something through and we want to provide support to parents, it is very difficult to see how this scheme will be expanded or improved upon if we do not get the fundamentals right at the beginning.

Nowhere in this bill does it guarantee an eligible employee an entitlement to take leave, or the guarantee to even get their job back at the end of that leave period. Although the government may be spruiking this legislation as a historic recognition of the importance of maintaining women’s workplace attachment—an important aspect to any genuine paid parental leave scheme, and one of the key reasons advocates around the country have fought so long for some type of scheme—we know that this particular bill is nothing more than a dressed up version of the baby bonus.

This was my concern from the start. I said it 12 months ago when the government first announced this scheme and, unfortunately, it still stands. A true paid parental leave scheme would have been administered through the Fair Work Act, not simply through the Family Assistance Office. What I cannot work out is this: if unpaid parental leave provisions are contained within the Fair Work Act and if this Labor government truly recognises paid parental leave as a workplace entitlement, why would you create an entirely new act to contain only pay provisions and not leave provisions? This concern was articulated by Professor Andrew Stewart during the course of the Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee inquiry. He said:

I think there is no question; it is a social security entitlement. In fact it would be better titled the ‘parental leave pay bill’ rather than ‘paid parental leave’. That may seem a matter of semantics but I think it is fair to say that most people in the community would understand the concept of paid leave to mean you have a right to leave your job and come back to it.

This flaw still remains within this piece of legislation, which is why it is important that the Senate is able to fix it and amend it. It is important for the government to accept that as well, and important for the opposition to accept that. It is all very well and good to have the opposition say, ‘When Tony Abbott gets elected’—if he does and they are in government. It is all very well and good for them to say, ‘When we are in government we will put in a bigger, better scheme.’ The reality is that here tonight we have the Labor Party, the coalition and the Greens all saying: ‘We want paid parental leave. We want a good scheme. Let’s get it up.’ The opposition should be supporting our amendments to ensure that it becomes a leave entitlement and a six-month scheme, including superannuation—as of course should the government. If that is a scheme that the opposition wants then it should be supporting the amendments that we have circulated.

The issue of leave entitlement is just one of the many problems that the government has created for itself by drafting this bill. It fails to take into account the key concept of any paid parental leave scheme. The fact is that the legislation before us is nothing more than a parental payment. As to the credence of the argument that it discriminates against stay-at-home mums: what a ludicrous argument that somehow stay-at-home mums should get a workplace entitlement. Of course they should not. If they are not at work then they do not get the entitlement. They get another form of support. And that of course is through the baby bonus. But because the government has drafted this so poorly and not ensured that this is a workplace entitlement, it leaves that door open for criticism from those people who do not want to accept that women need to be supported—working women in particular—and not be discriminated or disadvantaged simply because they are in the workforce and are the people who have babies. They need that time off; they need to recover from childbirth and spend time with their newborns recovering and bonding. That is why a paid parental leave scheme that is a workplace entitlement is so important. There are other ways that we can support stay-at-home mums. There is the baby bonus—the system that we have. Maybe some things need to be fixed with that, but this is not the place to talk about that. This bill is meant to be about a workplace entitlement. The problem for the government is that, actually, it is not. That is why there is this criticism.

Another concern that was raised throughout the committee process was how this proposed scheme would interact with existing entitlements that an employee might already have. A number of witnesses expressed concern that the bill in its current form does not explicitly state that the government’s paid parental leave payment is an addition to any existing employer funded scheme. The government are saying: ‘This is a top-up scheme. We know it is not enough. We know it is only 18 weeks. We know it is only at the minimum wage for 18 weeks. We know it does not include superannuation. But it is all going to be okay because this is on top of what other scheme you may be entitled to.’ But it does not say that in this piece of legislation. It does not say that at all and that needs to be addressed.

Again, it is important for the Senate to work through these issues, fix the legislation and ensure that these issues are dealt with. The fact that Minister Macklin’s second reading speech said that she believed that this would be seen as a top-up, yet it is not in the legislation, indicates that it was an oversight or that the government does not want to see that in legislation. Either way, it will be interesting to see how the government responds to our amendments to ensure that this is seen and acknowledged as an addition to existing payments and not one that replaces or is simply absorbed by existing schemes.

Another ramification of not ensuring that paid parental leave is a basic workplace entitlement is that it would fail to ensure that, just like with long service leave or sick leave, employees would continue to accumulate superannuation payments. This is a really important aspect of any workplace entitlement and a really important aspect of dealing with the retirement income gap between men and women. We know that one of the biggest factors contributing to that gap is women taking time out from the workforce to have babies and raise their kids; and, in order to address that, any type of paid parental leave scheme should include superannuation. There is clear evidence that women struggle to ensure sufficient superannuation for their retirement, and this would be a clear, simple, good place to try to address that.

This comes from a government who have said that they are committed to better superannuation savings and a stronger culture towards supporting superannuation. Let us see that work for mums as well as for everybody else; because, under this scheme, it is not included. Superannuation must be included in any type of paid parental leave scheme. It should not be the case that superannuation is good for everyone else—but bad luck if you are a mum.

The Greens will be seeking to remedy this situation in the committee stage. We have an amendment relating to superannuation entitlements and requiring that superannuation is paid. While I do not necessarily expect the government to support that amendment—they clearly could have put it into their own legislation—I do expect that the opposition, who have said that they support superannuation, will support this amendment. Not only do I think that women should not wait another 30 years for an increased and better scheme; I also do not think we should wait for never-never when Tony Abbott is possibly one day elected as Prime Minister. We have the opportunity today to make this scheme a better one. Let’s make it happen. I say to the opposition: if you believe that superannuation should be included, make sure you back the Greens amendment. I would, of course, like the government to do the same. If their rhetoric is anything to go by, there is no reason why they would not back it.

On a final point, we need a review into this legislation. Whatever form it is in when it eventually passes, it needs to be subject to a review. We need to be able to analyse what impact it has on families, what impact it has on existing entitlements in workplaces and what impact it has on the retirement savings of individuals. While the government have said that they expect to run a review within two years of the scheme being up and running, let’s see that legislated for. Based on the past promises of this government, I am not prepared to take what the minister has said as gospel. If we are fair dinkum about making sure we have a good scheme, and if we are fair dinkum about making sure that we can improve it, then we need to know where we can do that and where the pros and the cons in the scheme are so that we can tweak it. That means that a review must be part of the legislation that we pass; so, of course, the Greens will be moving amendments to that as well.

In conclusion, I want to reiterate the Greens’ utmost support for a paid parental leave scheme that offers support to working families and to mums around the country who have waited too long. For those who, 30 years ago, fought for paid maternity leave provisions, to now see their daughters and their granddaughters being able to take advantage of a scheme like this would be such a wonderful thing. But let us make sure we use the best opportunity that we have before us to make sure that it is a scheme that is worth it and that we are not waiting another 30 years to try and fix it. Let us get it in place now and let us ensure that it is the best possible scheme it can be and use the opportunity of tripartisan support.

Jacinta Collins (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Rudd government’s Paid Parental Leave scheme is a historic reform for Australia and it demonstrates Labor’s ongoing commitment to supporting working families. As I go along, I will deal with some of the relatively glib criticisms that have been raised to date in this debate, and in the public debate as well, but we need to paint some background history to these proposals.

The government’s Paid Parental Leave scheme was announced in last year’s budget and is fully costed and fully funded into the future—unlike the opposition’s plan, which has no detail, no costings and no time frame. It was cheap politicking by a new opposition leader. The government’s scheme is based on recommendations from the Productivity Commission, which undertook an extensive, year-long inquiry to get the scheme right. Compare this with Mr Abbott’s thought bubble, which has created massive uncertainty for Australian families and businesses—more evidence of him talking first and thinking later, as the opposition’s scheme has evolved.

The government had extensive discussions with employers, unions and family groups about the implementation of this significant reform. The Productivity Commission found that Labor’s scheme would increase the amount of time new parents would have to spend at home with their newborn baby—around six months of exclusive parental care on top of existing entitlements. Under Labor’s Paid Parental Leave scheme, women on low incomes will have greater financial security when planning to have a baby. Around 30,000 working families with incomes less than $50,000 are expected to benefit.

The Productivity Commission found that industries which are female dominated and highly casualised, such as retail and hospitality, have the lowest levels of access to paid parental leave. In 2008, only 17 per cent of women on very low wages had access to paid parental leave, compared with 70 per cent of women on high wages, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics. It is simply time to act. Mr Abbott’s proposal, on the other hand, is for a paid parental leave scheme funded by a great big new tax on employers. The Deputy Leader of the Opposition, Julie Bishop, has said that the great big new tax is only temporary and will be replaced by taxpayers funding their proposals.

Under Mr Abbott’s plan, people earning up to $150,000 a year will have their parental leave paid at the full rate at taxpayers’ expense. Ordinary working families getting by on one-third of that amount or less will be forced to pay more tax or higher prices to fund these higher earners. The opposition’s scheme is targeted to high-income families. It does little to help the majority of families on low to middle incomes. This is perhaps why the polls that have been taken in response to these policies show that 40 per cent of respondents still favoured Labor’s government funded scheme, compared with 24 per cent who supported the coalition’s proposal. This is where the opposition has, in my view, been playing politics with serious policy proposals. You did not see serious proposals put to the Productivity Commission by the now opposition. All we have seen is relatively glib criticisms and a limited understanding of the policy debate.

Last week I attended Diversity Council Australia’s debate on paid parental leave, which was coined ‘Not if, but how’ and explored the government and the opposition’s paid parental leave policies and what they mean for women, families, business and the Australian economy. As I described to the audience, the paid parental leave debate is not about ‘if’ or ‘how’ but ‘at last’. Finally we have action which cannot be compromised by cheap politicking or glib criticism as we have heard to date.

When I first came into parliament in 1995, the contribution I made on the Keating government’s introduction of maternity allowance comes to my mind. This allowance was designed to meet half of our international obligation towards providing minimum income support for a mother taking leave following the birth of her child. The intention of the Keating government at the time, if re-elected—which it was not—was to then fund the other half of our international obligation through about 13 to 14 weeks of minimum income support, rather than the minimum wage, for mothers taking leave around the birth of the child. Many years later, the Howard government had introduced the baby bonus, which improved the level of income support available but still did not get anywhere near meeting our international obligations.

Much of the public discussion has centred on issues such as whether stay-at-home mothers will be worse off. The government, in dealing with our amendments in relation to the legislation and the Senate committee report, will touch in part on this issue. The clear objective of this legislation is to improve the circumstances of women and their workforce engagement when they have babies. It is not a debate about women choosing to stay at home or return to work; it is about improving the outcomes for women who remain engaged with the workforce.

I seek leave to continue my remarks at a later time—when I do so I will address in detail some more of those issues.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.