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

In my speech last evening on the Paid Parental Leave Bill 2010 and the Paid Parental Leave (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2010 I was highlighting the key intentions of this Rudd government scheme which are to enhance the circumstances for women who have a workforce connection and to facilitate that by continuing employment choices into the future. This scheme does not take away from women who choose to stay at home but seeks to enhance conditions for those who seek to continue working. This is an area where Australia’s performance has lagged well behind most other economies.

I would like to highlight the issues around the alternative policy proposal put forward by Mr Abbott where women at home may feel there is a differential in circumstances and payments—and much of this varies depending upon tax circumstances, how many children are in the family and such matters. If you look at the coalition’s scheme, you will see a very stark difference between families who might seek to maintain an employment connection and those where the mother chooses to stay at home. Under Mr Abbott’s proposal, taxpayers, average mums and dads whether they are working or not working, will fund the scheme that will pay very large amounts to some women on very high incomes. Some fortunate members of the community with a workforce connection will receive payments of up to $75,000. This coalition scheme will be a burden on the taxpayer.

I highlight that the government has listened to the Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee inquiry and will be looking at dealing with these objects as part of this bill. The other objective of this scheme is to improve the work and family balance and pay equity issues. The government’s scheme is not the only element of the total picture. There are new provisions in the Fair Work Act that seek to enhance what is available to maternity leave and to facilitate better connections to the workforce for mothers taking additional leave or more flexible work arrangements when returning from leave. These are some of the measures introduced by the Rudd government which complement paid leave. Because they are within the Fair Work Act is not a reason to say these measures cannot be complementary or cannot work together.

I think it is a furphy to suggest that the payment for leave should be within the Fair Work Act and indeed, as was suggested by Senator Hanson-Young and by the opposition, that the entitlement aspect of both schemes should match or be equivalent to each other. I was somewhat astounded to hear, particularly from the opposition spokesperson, Sharman Stone, that the coalition thought the eligibility criteria should match. It is unclear whether this is a new policy or a new policy flank, because once again the coalition have failed to consult. Any suggestion that the longstanding provisions for access to unpaid leave should be changed and that any woman who is eligible for paid parental leave should also be eligible to return to their employment is an interesting concept, and one that has not been flagged with the employers. I will be very interested to see how they respond to that notion.

Why Mr Rudd has suggested that the Senate should get out of the way of this proposal is that, through the Productivity Commission and countless years of consultation and debate, we have a scheme that was built on consensus that finally introduced in Australia prudent, funded and sensible proposals. Instead, now, particularly from the opposition, ideas are being thrown in without consultation. The suggestion is that that they are simply seeking to destroy the consensus.

The final comments I would like to conclude with focus on the issues between the two schemes. As I said, the Rudd government’s scheme is prudent, affordable and fair both for families and for business. Mr Abbott’s scheme is economically irresponsible and will cost $2.7 billion a year. It has been universally opposed by business groups who say it will hit jobs at a time when business is recovering from the impact of the global financial crisis. Those businesses can be expected to pass on this additional cost of the great big new tax on employers which will cost working families more through higher taxes at the supermarket and at the petrol pumps as well as gas and electricity charges. According to the Business Council of Australia, big business is already doing the heavy lifting on paid parental leave as most of their members already have fully paid parental leave arrangements in place averaging six to seven weeks. The Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry’s Chief Executive, Peter Anderson ,says the proposal is an ‘unfair impost which will not be well received by Australian employers.’

This is where the opposition has been in absolute denial. Last week, at the debate I was referring to last night, the opposition spokesperson, Sharman Stone, suggested she had heard of only one employer who was complaining about the coalition’s scheme—only one employer. Yet here we have, from the quotes I have just referred to from the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the Business Council of Australia, instances essentially saying ‘Please don’t destroy this consensus that has been developed to finally introduce sensible, prudent and fair arrangements.’

Under Mr Abbott’s proposal, offsets will be provided for businesses already paying parental leave, so there is no net gain, so to speak, because some businesses will simply be able to offset or absorb the payments that will be essentially taxpayer funded. This will result in employers having their current parental leave entitlements absorbed into Mr Abbott’s proposal instead. Working families will be looking at Mr Abbott’s sudden conversion, however, to the cause of paid parental leave and comparing it to his inability to declare Work Choices dead. He keeps coming back to it, supporting a return to elements of it. So on the one side we have Mr Abbott refusing to declare Work Choices dead and on the other side we have Sharman Stone suggesting that we are going to improve workers’ access to leave entitlements in a way where they have not even consulted business.

Before I conclude on this point, I should say the other area is another recent plank in the coalition’s policy area here is access to childcare support. Last week again, Sharman Stone—plucking ideas out of her head—suggested that if you were receiving parental leave then you would not have access to childcare support. Once again, she has not thought through this idea. Countless working families have more than one child in the period before school who, if they lose access to their childcare support, are going to be seriously financially affected. Again, I think the opposition has just plucked another idea out of the head and said that if you are getting paid leave to be at home you should be a full-time mother—this is Sharman Stone’s language—and you would not have access to childcare support. I think many working families rightly would query whether that means for one child, for two children, for three children—what are we talking about here? The potential loss of support for families receiving childcare support for their second or third child could be enormous. Once again, this plucking of ideas out of the head by the opposition has not been seriously managed and has not been competently demonstrated.

This is why people look at the opposition’s proposals and say they are just not real. Yesterday, Sharman Stone suggested that if Mr Abbott became Prime Minister their scheme would be in place within 12 months. This is simply just not real. They have not got the details of what they would propose. Senator Hanson-Young suggested last night that what the government was dealing with might not be gospel. I am sorry, but that is more of a reflection on what Mr Abbott says and whether it would be gospel truth or whether, once again, we are dealing with phoney Tony.

Families—let me conclude—need certainty from 1 January next year. They will be able to access paid parental leave because the Rudd government has introduced the Paid Parental Leave Bill and it will become an act. The government’s paid parental leave scheme is fair, balanced, economically responsible and, unlike the Liberals’, does not involve a big new tax on employers. For 12 years in government Tony Abbott refused to deliver a paid parental leave scheme. Now he wants to hit business with a big tax that will hurt Australia’s economy. Families have been waiting too long for paid parental leave and only the Rudd government has delivered it. The Senate should get on with the consensus that has been built around this issue and make this bill an act.

Kerry O'Brien (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I seek leave to incorporate Senator Xenophon’s speech in relation to this debate.

Leave granted.

Nick Xenophon (SA, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The incorporated speech read as follows—

There’s no doubt that the Paid Parental Leave Bill 2010 and the Paid Parental Leave (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2010 are a landmark for all Australians. Until now, Australia and the US were the only two OECD countries without a legislated paid parental leave scheme. So we should be very proud that we have finally, albeit belatedly, reached this point.

Sweden was the first country to introduce paid parental leave in 1974. Since then, countries across Europe, the Americas and Africa have introduced varying forms of paid parental leave schemes, the majority providing for between three and six months leave. In his submission to the Productivity Commission’s 2009 inquiry into Paid Maternity, Paternity and Parental Leave, Dr Andrew Scott, Senior Lecturer at RMIT University, stated that Sweden, along with Norway, Denmark and Finland, is regarded as one of the most economically efficient nations in the world by the World Economic Forum. What is interesting, as Dr Scott points out, is that all four of these Nordic countries have the world’s highest labour force participation rates for women, and all four of these countries have substantive paid parental leave schemes in place, and have done so for years. So there is no question that the benefits of statutory paid parental leave extends beyond direct positives for families; it also helps the wider economy in the long term.

Today, women make up around 45.7 percent of Australia’s workforce, around half of those on a full-time basis, and this scheme will improve retention and long-term attachment of women to the workforce. Ultimately, paid parental leave must be about encouraging women to return to work after they have had a child; giving a woman the comfort of knowing she will be able to take 18 weeks off to nurture her newborn, during which time she will supported by the government on the minimum wage. Furthermore, the government’s Paid Parental Leave scheme will work in addition to schemes already in place within some businesses.

The Paid Parental Leave scheme will be extended from 12 weeks to 13 weeks. Combined with the 18 weeks to be paid by the government, this will mean that parents who have worked for Westpac for at least 12 months will be able to access 31 weeks of paid parental leave from January 2011. Retail giant, Myer, provides 6 weeks parental leave at full pay for employees who have been with the company for at least 18 months, which will mean a total of 24 weeks leave once the government scheme comes into effect. And car manufacturer, Holden, gives women who have worked with the company for at least two years, 14 weeks maternity leave. Add that to the government’s Paid Parental Leave scheme and there are eight months for a new mum to spend at home with her newborn.

The government’s scheme will benefit those who are already able to receive paid leave, and will benefit those who may not otherwise have this option available to them. Research by the Australian Institute of Family Studies shows that women are inclined to return to work faster if provided with scheduled time off work in the first few weeks and months after the birth of their child. Experts agree that the first few months of a newborn’s life are crucial. It is a time for parent and child to bond; to nurture and be nurtured.

I know there are those who say this bill is still not enough—that the scheme should be for 26 weeks, not 18 weeks; that it should include superannuation; that it should be a percentage of salary, not set at the minimum wage; that it should include all women, not just working women. But, regardless, we can all agree that it is a start. It is a significant step for Australian parents. And it is something women —and men —around the country have been waiting for.

Let us not pretend this is just a woman’s issue. This affects men as much as women, because if a mother is restricted it also restricts the options of the father. We should be very proud that, for every baby born after midnight on 1 January 2011, his or her parents will be supported in their decision to take time off work. A 2008 report by the Australian Institute of Family Studies found that about five per cent of women return to work within weeks or days of leaving hospital. If you ask me, a woman returning to work within days of giving birth cannot be a good idea, not for her baby’s wellbeing and not for her own health.

The longitudinal study also showed, specifically that of those mothers who returned to work within three months of giving birth, 44 per cent was due to a lack of paid maternity leave, while over 45 per cent said it was because of lack of money. In these instances, thank goodness this scheme will assist these women with support for 18 weeks on the minimum wage. Indeed, although paid maternity leave schemes in the private sector have certainly been on the rise in recent years, over half of employed mothers still do not have access to paid maternity leave in any form. According to the Productivity Commission, these employees often resign when they have a baby, or if they remain employed, take a shorter time off work to care for their babies than other employees.

An estimated 290,000 babies are born every year, to around 280,000 mothers. Of those, Treasury expects 148,000 mothers—and some fathers—will take up the Paid Parental Leave scheme. Others will opt for, or will receive, the Baby Bonus and Family Tax Benefit instead. Under the Paid Parental Leave scheme, parents will receive just under $10,000 while they take care of their newborn in his or her first 18 weeks of life.

Juggling a family with work is not easy—and going from two incomes to one is harder still. But this scheme gives parents the freedom to choose what is best for them and their baby, and the space and time to bond with their child, while being supported on a base wage. It is important to remember that while this scheme will mainly benefit women—mothers—it will also help fathers in some instances who choose to be the primary caregiver. And there is flexibility in this scheme to allow for parents to decide between themselves what works for their family and their child.

There is no question stay-at-home mums have it tough as well. No one questions the dedication and commitment of women who choose to be full-time mums, and the challenges these women face on a daily basis—some might even say it is even harder than working in an office. For these women, the Baby Bonus and the Family Tax Benefit are applicable, while paid parental leave will encourage working women to return to the workforce.

While I believe this bill is significant and something we should all be proud is finally here, I do believe there is one key feature missing—superannuation. On average, women, once they reach retirement age, have less in their superannuation than their male counterparts. This is because women, on average, earn less income during their careers and of course, they take more time out of the workforce than men. It is estimated that a typical woman will have 35 per cent less in her superannuation fund at retirement than a typical man. So it is crucial that we do what we can to help women save for their retirement while they are taking small periods of time out of the workforce to become mothers.

However, I acknowledge the position of the government and the Productivity Commission as to why superannuation has not been included within the scheme at this stage, and I look forward to the review of this legislation in two years’ time when the global financial crisis is no longer applicable as a reason not to include super under the scheme.

At this time, I note the amendment that will be moved by the Australian Greens for the review to begin in 18 months, rather than after 24 months, and to be completed within three months, rather than 12 months. May I indicate at this stage that I will support this amendment —and I believe that the review will also be an opportune time to assess whether the scheme should be extended beyond the 18 weeks. It will provide us with the information required to adequately review the legislation in 18 months time so we can continue to improve it for Australian parents.

This bill does not present a perfect scheme. But it is a start, a good start. This bill puts Australia alongside almost every other country in the world when it comes to having a mandated paid paternity leave scheme in force. I applaud the government for making this significant step for Australian families. I look forward to this scheme being introduced and I expect there will be improvements made to it in the years to come.

Mary Fisher (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This is a convenient point in time to take up Senator Collins’ forecast that Australian families will, with the Paid Parental Leave Bill 2010, get certainty as from 1 January. Australian families will not get certainty about much at all under this bill because the government is promising Australian families paid parental leave. They will not get paid parental leave under this bill. The government is promising that the provisions of this bill will result in topping up employers’ existing schemes, yet this bill fails to guarantee that that will occur. There is hardly certainty delivered for Australian families in this bill—indeed, far from it. Whilst we clearly support the spirit and the intent of paid parental leave, what is evident in this bill is yet another example, sadly, of the Rudd Labor government breaking promises and botching their delivery.

What about employers’ potential liability for payroll tax? Senator Collins suggests that the government’s regime will be ready to roll out from 1 January. Well, this Labor government has not started in some cases and certainly has not concluded discussions that it needs to have with state governments to sort out potential liability for employers in respect of payroll tax when employers become the government’s paymaster, as is intended by this bill in its current form. The Rudd Labor government and the various state governments have not sorted out the extent to which those additional payments would add to an employer’s threshold for payroll tax or to the amount on which an employer’s payroll tax liability is assessed. So this is potentially another botched delivery of one of the government’s promises.

What of the government’s promises? This bill breaks two key aspects of the government’s promise to Australian families—firstly, that it would legislate paid parental leave and, secondly, that it would legislate it additional to schemes currently offered by employers. Let us go first to the prospect that the government’s parenting payment, which is what this bill is about, will always be additional to existing schemes. The government promised this, but the bill does not compel this outcome. Worse than that, the government’s bill fails to clarify how the parenting payment under this bill will interact with existing schemes. There is no certainty in that for Australian families and there is certainly no certainty for Australia’s employers.

Senator Collins, as the government’s Special Adviser for Work and Family Balance, was quoted in the Australian Financial Review on 9 June—after, I understand, she addressed a conference to this end—as saying the government scheme’s 18 weeks at the minimum wage was intended to be on top of existing corporate schemes. Marsha Jacobs reported:

She told a Diversity Council of Australia event that this intention was not in the legislation but that employees would not view favourably employers that used the payment to reduce the benefits they paid.

Well that may be so, but, Senator Collins, if the Rudd government has the courage of its policy convictions why is this promise not in any of the Rudd government’s legislation?

The article goes on to quote Gilbert and Tobin’s senior lawyer, James Pomeroy, as saying:

… there was a “reasonable argument” that companies that provided paid parental leave by policy, rather than in a contract or enterprise agreement, could withdraw the policy or change it.

It is very clear from evidence given by the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations and the Department of Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs to the Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee inquiry that, once an employer is in receipt of a payment from the government intended for a worker entitled to receive the parenting payment, there are provisions in the bill to compel the employer to pass the payment on. But it is equally very clear that there is nothing in this bill or in any of the Rudd government’s other legislation that prohibits or prevents an employer from using that payment in full or part satisfaction of their obligation to an employee in respect of parental leave. Indeed, why would an employer not contemplate doing so? Why would a small business not contemplate setting one off against the other when, after all, the Rudd Labor government scheme is funded by taxpayers, and small businesses are taxpayers? Particularly, why would they not contemplate it when there is nothing in the bill to prohibit it happening? If the government means what it says, if it has the courage of the policy conviction that its parenting payment will be additional to existing schemes offered by employers, then why hasn’t it tried to legislate it?

The second aspect of the government’s broken promise that I want to focus on in the few minutes remaining is that this is supposedly a paid parental leave scheme. It is not. The government promised that the scheme meant what it said: paid parental leave, not a government handout. But that is what this bill is about, and it is all that this bill is about. It is about money, money, money; it ain’t about any sort of leave. Professor Andrew Stewart, who gave evidence to the Senate inquiry into the bill, said that the bill would better be called the ‘parental payment bill’ than the Paid Parental Leave Bill. I could not agree more, given that the bill creates a right to payment but not to leave from work. It does not create, preserve or guarantee a right to any sort of leave to accompany the 18-week payment yet the government continues to hold out that paid leave is being delivered under this bill. An 18-week payment is delivered under this bill but not an 18-week period of leave.

Why does that matter? It matters in respect of workers who are eligible to receive the parenting payment—let us call it that because that is what it is—under the Paid Parental Leave Bill but are not guaranteed commensurate parental leave as of right by their employer. Workers in that invidious position have to decide if they want to receive the government’s parenting payment, because if they want to get the payment they cannot be at work. They have to decide if they want to receive the government’s parenting payment and be prepared to quit their job for the duration of that payment so that, after all, they can achieve what should be the object of paid parental leave: help with work and family time and bonding between dad, mum and bub. It should be about family, mum and bub, but the legislation is more about money. This bill places some workers in the invidious position of choosing, potentially, to quit their job in order to access the government’s parenting payment. In the words of Professor Andrew Stewart:

The title of the Bill is a misnomer, since the proposed scheme does not confer any entitlement to paid leave … There will be workers who can receive payments, but cannot take leave from their existing jobs … This means that an employee—(could face)—

I inserted the words ‘could face’ without affecting the meaning—

the prospect of having to quit her job without any guarantee of a return to work … It is hardly unreasonable for employees (or indeed employers) to believe that a right to ‘paid parental leave’ means what it says!

I could not agree more. If the government really means its promise that this legislation delivers paid parental leave, then why has it not tried to legislate as such? Particularly, why does it not legislate as such when Senator Collins opposite criticises the coalition in respect of stay-at-home mums?

What this legislation does in failing to ensure leave for every worker eligible for the parenting payment conferred under the legislation is potentially add to the queue of stay-at-home mums. It adds to the queue of stay-at-home mums those workers who are in the invidious position of not being guaranteed leave to accompany their entitlement to the parenting payment. It places those workers in the invidious position, as I said before, of choosing to quit their job or forget about the parenting payment. And, if they quit their job, where are they? They are essentially in the queue of stay-at-home mums, courtesy of the Rudd Labor government. That is what this legislation does and it is about time that the government faced up to that and admitted that this is a paid parenting bill rather than a parental leave bill.

We have got botched delivery in terms of the uncompleted negotiations with states in respect of payroll tax. We have got two broken promises because this legislation is all about money and little about leave, and breaks the promise that the 18-week parenting payment will top up existing employer schemes. If the government means these promises, why hasn’t the government tried to legislate them? The government knows that it cannot comprehensively and universally legislate either of those two things in this legislation. And why not? Because each of those two things goes to the heart of workplace relations matters: guaranteed leave from work and preventing an employer from satisfying, in whole or in part, a workplace relations obligation through some other means. Both of those things are properly the province of workplace relations laws. And guess what? The federal government gloated about its successful referral of powers deal with the various states to the Commonwealth at the end of last year, and indeed this parliament passed laws to that end. But part of the deal over which the government gloats compels the government to have detailed consultations with the states prior to amending its workplace relations law and, in this case, its Fair Work legislation.

The government has bound itself up in red tape as part of the deal it did to get the states to refer their workplace relations powers. That red tape is around the amount of consultation needed, the amount of time it will take and the ability for states to potentially veto workplace relations amendments by the federal government. Once again the federal government did not really think about it until the eleventh hour. It did not realise until too late, I would suggest, that it could comprehensively keep these promises by putting provisions in this legislation. The government could not comprehensively and universally ensure both those things in this legislation but it woke up to that too late. It is another botch. It has now woken up to it. It has realised that it is behind the eight ball were it ever to contemplate keeping those two promises by adding them to amendments which it has said it is in the process of attempting to make to the Fair Work legislation and in respect of which it has kick-started consultation with the states.

The government has realised too late that it cannot keep its promises by amending the paid parenting bill in those respects, and it has also realised that it has left it too late to do so through the Fair Work legislation in time for the paid parenting bill to kick off on 1 January next year. With that not particularly favourable prediction about how the legislation will hit the deck in practice as of 1 January, if it be passed by this parliament, I express my regret that, while I support paid parental leave, this legislation is not about that. I express my regret that this is going to be yet another example of the Rudd Labor government’s broken promises and botched delivery.

Sue Boyce (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would firstly like to congratulate and thank my colleague Senator Mary Jo Fisher for her contribution as a participating member of the Community Affairs Legislation Committee in the inquiry that was held into the Paid Parental Leave (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2010. I do take her point about this being a bill on parenting payments, but I am going to use the term ‘paid parental leave’ because that is the one I am used to using.

I think almost everyone in this chamber and in the other house would be delighted that we finally have before us legislation that somehow relates to the idea of paying families to stay out of the workforce to care for their children for a short length of time and to try to bring together in a more seamless way the idea of having a family and being a worker. I certainly support and reiterate the comments made by the Leader of the Opposition, Mr Tony Abbott, about regarding paid parental leave as an industrial relations issue, not a social welfare issue. When we think about where we were perhaps just five years ago, we realise we have come a long way in developing, understanding and accepting the need for paid parental leave in Australia. I think we can be particularly pleased about the Productivity Commission’s work here, the work of Ms Elizabeth Broderick from the Human Rights Commission and the work of many people who developed this. I pay tribute especially to probably a pioneer in this field, Ms Pru Goward, who is a member of the state legislature in New South Wales and who was the first ever Sex Discrimination Commissioner. She was appointed by the Howard government. I think there was a little shock when her report first came out well over 10 years ago on the topic of paying mothers to stay home. We have moved a long way since then. We no longer talk about maternity leave; we talk about paid parental leave. We are, I hope, getting more along the road to actually accepting that this is about parents and children. Whilst mothers still tend to be the ones who do the majority of caring, it is about supporting families and not only about supporting women.

As I said, I was delighted to have Senator Fisher involved in the Community Affairs Legislation Committee inquiry into this. The coalition, whilst accepting this as a first step along the way, have suggested a number of amendments, many of which Senator Fisher has outlined to us. We are not the only ones suggesting amendments. If you look at the little list here, you see there are government amendments, Family First amendments, Greens amendments and coalition  amendments suggested to this legislation. Many of them are extremely sensible and the fact of their existence makes the little performance of the Prime Minister yesterday even more bemusing when he rushed out and tried to take over someone else’s press conference, which in itself made you wonder why a petition with 25,000 signatures needed to be presented yesterday asking that this legislation be passed. It was very obvious that this legislation, with amendments, was going to be accepted by all sides of the house. We had a stunt by the ACTU then turn into a superstunt by the Prime Minister. We had the pusillanimous person standing there and saying: ‘It’s now down to crunch time. We have a very simple message for the Senate: get out of the road, guys, just get on with it. We can’t delay any longer.’ How incredibly bizarre and how incredibly pathetic, given that the work has been done by many others—some of whom I have named—over a very long period of time, that the Prime Minister thinks that he can run in just as the game has finished and say, ‘Hey, it’s my game and if you don’t finish it straightaway I’ll be really upset and get angry and everything.’ It was the most pathetic and sad little effort I think I have seen in a very long time from anyone claiming to have the ability to lead or to be a leader.

I will now just go through a few of the other areas in this legislation that I think need immediate consideration. Firstly, where is superannuation in this scheme? It is not there. There is no requirement for superannuation to continue to be paid. Senator Collins was earlier talking about gender pay equity—a very real issue and one which is about to be addressed in the courts but which is only the first step along the way to fixing that. Nevertheless, one of the biggest reasons for the lack of pay equity is the fact that women do have broken careers: they work part time and they work in lower paid jobs. Because of that lack of super and lack of savings, they end up as the poorest group comparatively in our community. Women over 65 are the poorest group in our community. This bill begins to assist women to continue to save and grow their assets while out of the workforce and having children, but only in a very small way. One of the key measures is superannuation. That was not in the legislation that was brought to the Community Affairs Legislation Committee for inquiry.

I think the most bizarre aspect of this legislation for business, and one that certainly would not be maintained under a coalition government, is the fact that employers have to be the paymasters of this scheme. There were a lot of questions asked at estimates about this, many of which I asked. For the first six months of this scheme the Family Assistance Office will pay everyone. So the Family Assistance Office will set up their systems, they will get the computer programs, they will organise the resources and they will get the staff so that for six months they can pay everyone. Then they will stop paying everyone and just pay about one-third of them. The other two-thirds will be paid by employers. Why? Why is this scheme like this? Why are they insisting that small business and others become the paymasters for staff who are away? It is a lovely theory but it involves new computer programs and in many cases it involves a lot of expenditure—for a few staff to replace something that the government is already going to do. It just does not make sense. It never has made sense. It never will make sense. Why would you do it this way?

The other problem is that it sets up all these liabilities for employers and uncertainties around workers compensation and superannuation—and payroll tax, for heaven’s sake. I remember the last time someone said: ‘Oh, it’s all right; the government is going to talk to the states and sort it out.’ Yes, and in time for 1 January what’s more! I do have concerns about this. Under a coalition scheme the FAO would administer 100 per cent of the paid parental leave scheme. They would be the permanent paymasters. This is not a job that would be duckshoved off to small business and others who, in many cases, do not have the resources to do it and are waiting, trustingly, for the government’s money to arrive so that they can make these payments.

The amount of red tape and the cost in this system is bizarre. It adds to those many little problems—the subtle discriminations that might make an employer think: ‘It’s all too hard. If I have a choice between a man and a woman for that job, I’ll take the man because I don’t have to worry about it then.’ So, instead of making it as easy as they can, they have come up with other bizarre little ways to make it complicated and complex. Certainly we would be making many changes to this legislation to improve it and turn it into a scheme that acknowledges and respects families, parents and the way they fit within the industrial relations framework.

I am pleased that, despite the Prime Minister’s ‘concerns’ about ‘crunch time’, this legislation is to be supported, with amendment, in the House. I think we have come a long, long way that this can be done with the support of both sides of the House.

Claire Moore (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I think it is really positive that we can actually agree on something. I am pleased to be able to pick up on Senator Boyce’s comment that we can move forward with support from both sides of the House for this legislation, the Paid Parental Leave Bill 2010 and the Paid Parental Leave (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2010. One of the most pleasing aspects of the debate we are having is that we have people from around the chamber agreeing that there needs to be a paid parental leave scheme in Australia.

Over 25 years ago, I was involved with a group of women in Queensland who were talking about workplace issues. At the meeting—I was a public servant—a number of women came forward and talked about their own workplaces and the situations they faced. One of the strongest issues that came up in that discussion was the lack of any form of respect from their workplace when they chose to have children. They explained that there was no protection for them, there was no paid leave arranged for them and they felt that there was no support from their employers for the very necessary decisions that had to be made about what we know is so important for all families: work-life balance—although the term was not then known.

The really disappointing fact is that, after 25 years of ongoing discussion and consideration and processes being put in place recognising that this is an important issue, during the Productivity Commission inquiry, which went on for an extensive time last year—and many of us followed that very closely—and during the Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee hearings on this bill, women were still coming forward telling us exactly the same stories as before. In fact, one of the most confronting aspects of consideration of this bill was (1) the fact that it must happen and (2) the fact that the kinds of stories that women and their partners were telling us at the community affairs committee and the Productivity Commission showed the same pain, the same lack of respect and the same need that was expressed so many years ago.

At one of the committee hearings there was a young woman who told us her story very openly. I want to put on record my respect for Mrs Puriri-Giblin, who spoke to us about her experiences as a new mum with a child that had care needs and her inability to have any support in her workplace as she was working through the very difficult aspects of having a new child and a partner who had lost his employment—and her sense of desolation. She told us her story in great detail. She took us through the fact that there was a need for her to return very quickly to the workplace because there was no paid leave entitlement in her employment. She told us about the struggles she had when she came back to the workplace, including the lack of respect for her need to breastfeed, and the trauma that this caused her relationship.

All of this shows the absolute need we have today as a parliament to say, ‘Yes, we are going to support the introduction of a paid parental leave scheme.’ People want to talk about whether it is a ‘paid parenting scheme’ or a ‘payment scheme’. What it is is a piece of legislation which finally, after so long, respects the rights of mothers and their children, allows them to balance their linkage with their workplace and gives them that time—that period of 18 weeks. There has been lots of discussion about whether that is the right period. During the discussions of the Productivity Commission the period of 18 weeks came up as one that we could introduce in the legislation, and it is being put in place to kick the scheme off. We now have legislation which we can agree to and which will in some way put in place true respect for women who are workers as well as parents, and that is the core aspect.

In the process of discussion many issues came up, and those will come out through the debate we are going to have about proposed amendments, but I just want to touch on a few of them. Certainly one of the key aspects that were raised many times was the aspect of the employer taking on the role of ‘paymaster’. It is a term I do not use very often but it came up consistently during the discussion. I was surprised by that because I thought employers were the people who paid their employees. I did not think it was any different; I thought that employers made payments to employees. No-one seemed to debate that during the inquiry; there was just an overwhelming concern that, when you have an employee who is receiving a paid parental leave entitlement for a maximum period of 18 weeks, there would be some adjustment in the payroll systems of employers so that they would maintain that link with their employees, keep that respectful relationship and continue to engage with the employee who is taking her—mainly her—entitlement to paid parental leave.

I went through with a couple of the witnesses step by step how complex the process would be. Whilst it is another work impost, it is strictly a relationship agreement between the employer and the employee. Certainly we did discuss the fact that there may need to be some adjustment to computer systems and those types of arrangements, but in the overall scheme of a relationship between an employer and an employee it is my firm belief that that is part of the job. As an employer working with an employee, you make payment. You stay in contact. You have that linkage. And that is a relationship which is earned by the employee who is eligible for paid parental leave having an established work relationship. Entitlement to this leave is dependent upon having employment with the workplace over a period of time leading up to making the claim. It is not someone who has just arrived in the job; it is someone who already is part of that employment relationship. So on the issue of whether the employer should retain the job of making the payments, I strongly support that.

How it will operate will, of course, be one of the issues that the implementation team that is being put together by the government to oversight the implementation of this payment will take into consideration. Over the two-year period there will be an implementation team which includes representatives of employers and employees. They will work with the participants to ensure that they will be able to see exactly how it is working. The scheme will take time to be introduced and to settle, as indeed any scheme will, but I think that the issue about the employment relationship should be, most rightly, between the employer and the employee. The government will provide the funding, but the relationship must continue for those workers with the immediate employer. For those workers who have left employment but who have still gained entitlement to the payment, that will be done through the Family Assistance Office, an organisation which has great experience in working in this way and which will be able to provide advice and support for employers along the way.

Another issue was some kind of competition between those people who would be eligible for the paid parental leave and those parents who make the choice to stay at home. It was an issue very strongly felt by people who gave evidence to our committee, but my personal view, and that which the committee put forward, was that what we have here are two separate payments. They are not competing. There is no value judgment about the choices that mothers make in terms of their payment. What we are doing as a government is introducing a Paid Parental Leave scheme for workers who are in the workforce and who, when they choose to have their child, leave the workforce. They are entitled to take up the Paid Parental Leave scheme. For mothers who are making their choice to stay at home, there always will be the baby bonus in place and also the family tax benefit.

It was quite disappointing in many ways that there seemed to be some competition being established—a division between parents, between mothers and between families. That is not the intent of the legislation. There are two separate payments. Indeed, one of the things we will need to do—again, as the scheme is cemented and put in place—is to work out exactly how it operates and to see the different responses that we have when we are talking to women about how it is affecting their choices.

No-one pretends that this scheme by itself will be the solution for all the issues that face families when they are raising children, particularly when they are starting a family, with all the expenses. Many other things have to be put in place as well. We had considerable evidence about the need for family-friendly workplaces and effective breastfeeding processes in workplaces. That needs to be worked on, absolutely. We also have to look at the issues of child care. But this is an important step towards ensuring that women and their families are able to effectively work and continue their linkage with their employment.

It has taken a long time. Many, many people have been involved, and I know we have mentioned, across the chamber, people who have played a role in this area. I particularly want to mention the role of Sharan Burrow. I know that has been mentioned before, but I have worked with her on this issue for many, many years. Ms Burrow in her evidence to the committee talked about the link between employer and employee in this case. She said:

They know that it generates the kind of loyalty and appreciation that you get when somebody feels that they have the backing and the trust that comes with the income security and the job security of paid and unpaid parental leave.

This scheme hopes to ensure that employers and employees will continue to talk and will continue to have a relationship, and, during the process of making the choice to return to work or not, this payment will be some help in making that job a little easier. I also want to put on record my appreciation of Marie Coleman, from the National Foundation for Australian Women, who worked with me consistently through the Productivity Commission process, making sure that I knew what was going on, and my appreciation of all those women and their families over the past very many years, for only 25 of which I have been involved.

This is an important step forward. It is but one step, and we will have to look very carefully at how the review process will operate. But in this legislation there will be an effective review process within two years of the bill being introduced to look at, amongst other things, the exceptionally important issue of superannuation and other issues that may come, to make sure that this bill is a very valuable consideration for all workers and all employers in this country.

Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for the Murray Darling Basin) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is a pleasure to rise to speak on the Paid Parental Leave Bill 2010 and the Paid Parental Leave (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2010, and to follow some distinguished and admirable comments from many of my colleagues in this place from all sides of the chamber on this very important issue. I do not intend to take long in my remarks today; however, I do want to associate myself with this debate and particularly with the remarks of my colleagues on this side of the chamber—especially those of Senator Fifield, who introduced our concerns about this proposal whilst acknowledging that it is a step, at least, in the right direction.

Senator Fifield rightly highlighted concerns around the uncertainty surrounding the implementation of this proposal—the ‘trust us’ approach of the Rudd government that has been shown to be so flawed so many times before. He highlighted concerns about the impact on business and especially the impact on small business: the administrative impact, the cost impact, and the potential for double the payroll tax impost. Those are real concerns, and they are concerns that need to be addressed and considered in a debate such as this one.

Of course, at the heart of this are the measures relating to the assistance for families. The fact is that we have contrasting policies now on this issue from the two sides of the chamber, and it is a delight and a pleasure to know that we have reached the stage that we have of contrasting policies, both of which are a step forward. But they are in contrast, and they provide real and marked differences: the difference between the 18 weeks of support that the government is offering and the 26 weeks that is the international standard, which the coalition believes is reasonable and should be pursued; and the difference between a minimum wage payment and a real wage payment providing an actual, real, genuine income stream for families at the time when they most need it. These are fundamental differences and they are differences that obviously we will take through to the next election.

I join with others in challenging the government to improve their scheme, to make it better, to make it more reflective of the model outlined by Tony Abbott and this side of the chamber. But, if they reject that, we will take any step forward—rather than take no step at all—and that at least is what they are offering.

I do want to reflect on some of those who have brought this debate to this stage, because it has, as many have reflected, been a long debate—one spanning many years, many ministers, many senators, and many public policy advocates outside of this place. They have all done an outstanding job in raising awareness of the need to provide this type of practical assistance for Australian families, for working families—to coin a phrase; it is a phrase that has been used so often in this place—and, in particular, to provide a better form of choice for many Australian women and to make sure that they are supported in the family and workplace choices they make in their lives.

I look back to the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission’s 1999 pregnancy and discrimination report, Pregnant and productive, which investigated some of the discrimination on the grounds of pregnancy and the management of pregnancy in the workplace. It started a process that has led us ultimately to this debate today, and I am sure will lead to subsequent debates to improve the proposal that is on the table. That report recommended the inclusion of a review, by HREOC and the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations, of funding options for a paid parental leave scheme.

That work was continued under the Howard government by HREOC, the department and, in particular, the government’s Sex Discrimination Commissioner at the time, Pru Goward—who, I note, is now the member for Goulburn in the New South Wales parliament and the shadow minister for community services and for women. Then Sex Discrimination Commissioner Goward presented several options for extending paid maternity leave in the report Valuing parenthood in April 2002. That was followed by a final report, Time to value, later that year. Those were the types of policy development processes that have laid the foundations for the broad acceptance of the policy that is being undertaken today, and I want to pay particular tribute to Pru Goward for her work in all that she did in getting us to that point.

I also want to acknowledge some before us in this place who have championed the issue, and one in particular: our former colleague, a former senator from South Australia, Senator Stott Despoja. Natasha Stott Despoja was an early advocate for, and she long advocated, paid parental leave options. Indeed, she, on behalf of the Australian Democrats, developed a proposal, for the 2001 election, relating to paid parental leave, and tabled the first legislation specifically seeking a paid parental leave scheme in May 2002. At the time of tabling that bill, then Senator Stott Despoja said:

Action on this issue simply requires a commitment to get things right for Australia’s working women and their families. We do not need more deferral strategies—more costings, options and talk. It is time to act.

From talking to Natasha when she was in town just the other week, I know that she is delighted that—although eight years have passed since she made those remarks in this place—it is, finally, indeed time to act, and that action has ensued on this very important issue. She wishes that the scheme were more than is proposed—many of us wish that—but she acknowledges the steps that have been taken. I know she would have been delighted, had she still been in this chamber, to make a thorough contribution to this debate—to argue, I am sure, for improvements that she would have been passionate about. But she would at least certainly have welcomed this step forward.

So I want to pay tribute to the many people—on all sides of the chamber and, especially, outside of parliament—who have carried this public policy debate forward. This will be a positive step forward. It will help many of Australia’s families. It will help in terms of our economic productivity in the future. It should not be seen just as a welfare measure or a social policy measure; it should be embraced equally as an economic and productivity measure that will allow Australian families to maximise their productive place in the workforce.

In closing, I again urge the government to consider the very significant improvements that the coalition advocates—improvements which would make a good step forward a great step forward and which would ensure that we get the best of benefits for Australian families and for the Australian economy into the future.

Steve Fielding (Victoria, Family First Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I believe we should be increasing the assistance we give to families with children, because having children is expensive and families need all the help they can get. But the Rudd government’s Paid Parental Leave scheme goes about doing this in the wrong way. The scheme is a long, long way from perfect. Instead of having a policy that benefits all families, such as the baby bonus, the government has come up with a scheme that discriminates against parents, depending on how they choose to raise their children. It is a scheme that places higher value on mothers who leave their children in child care, to quickly return to the workforce within a few months after having a baby, and devalues mothers who want to spend more time at home looking after their children. It is a policy that gives money to prisoners and prostitutes but ignores stay-at-home mums and the important unpaid work that they do. Mums who stay at home and look after their kids will be about $2,000 worse off because of the decision than those mums who rush back to the workforce.

Clearly put in this context, this policy hardly seems a fair policy at all, especially to stay-at-home mums. Under the Rudd government’s Paid Parental Leave scheme, mothers will be required to have worked 10 of the last 13 months before giving birth in order to be eligible for the payments. Because of this work test, thousands of stay-at-home mothers will miss out on these payments. This work test is unlikely to affect too many mothers having children for the first time, but what about those mothers who are having their second or third child or, like my mother did, who have 16 children? The Productivity Commission has noted that only 51 per cent of all mothers are engaged in paid work 18 months after giving birth. Many parents like to have their children close together, often two or three years apart. The government’s strict eligibility criteria will now force many parents to delay or decide against having more kids. How can anyone consider this to be sensible policy?

Under the proposed Paid Parental Leave Bill 2010 and related bill, mothers will now be faced with the following scenario after the birth of their first child: (1) rush back to work after only a few months so that they can get 10 months of work time under their belts and still qualify for paid parental leave for their next child or (2) stay at home and look after their newborn and miss out on thousands of dollars in assistance as a consequence. How fair is this choice? What about stay-at-home mums? The government’s policy is designed to discourage women from staying at home and looking after their children during their important formative years and intent on getting women into the paid workforce to help stimulate the economy and increase the tax revenues available for the government. I have no problem with businesses offering a paid parental leave scheme, because it makes economic sense for them to offer attractive incentives to their staff to encourage them to return to work, and ultimately business is about increasing the bottom line. However, profit-making should never be the one and only consideration of the government. If that were the case, no government would ever pay pensions to the elderly or disabled and rural communities would be even more underfunded than they already are. A government’s responsibility is to govern in the best interests of all Australians, not just a select few. A government must also consider the social cost of every policy, not just the economic cost.

Numerous studies show that there are enormous benefits to children who are cared for by their parents and given personal attention rather than being put in the care of strangers with 50 other children in long day care centres, and it would seem that the Rudd government has failed to properly consider this benefit. I am not suggesting for a moment that women should not want to have careers. I also understand that there are many women who would like to spend more time at home looking after their children but their financial situation makes this next to impossible. Similarly, I am in no way advocating cutting the amount of money that we give to families, rather quite the opposite. I believe we should be increasing the assistance that we give to families with children, because having children is expensive and families need all the help they can get. However, this help should be across-the-board, not just for those families with mothers in the workforce. Instead, we have the government scheme which enshrines into law a policy which ignores the value of the work performed by mothers who stay at home and look after their children. It makes a judgment call on what is real work and what is not. I do not think any parent who has ever spent a day at home looking after a one-year-old will claim that it was a relaxing day off.

The government’s scheme treats underpaid childcare work as the lowest form of work. In fact, it does not even classify it as work. Most incredibly, even prisoners and prostitutes are valued more highly than stay-at-home mums. It is a disgrace, and this is part of Labor policy. That is right. Under the proposed scheme, a criminal who does paid work in prison or a woman who works as a prostitute can each meet the work test requirement to qualify for government payments, but an exhausted mother looking after three small children at home cannot. It is outrageous. What kinds of values is the Rudd government sending the community when prisoners and prostitutes are more highly valued than stay-at-home mums? It is a disgrace. The truth is that the government scheme does have holes in it, probably more than Swiss cheese. Also, unlike the baby bonus which stay-at-home mothers can apply for and which is means-tested based on whether the total family income exceeds $150,000, the Paid Parental Leave scheme looks only at how much money the mother earns. Again, this is further discrimination against stay-at-home mothers by having one set of rules for them and another set of more generous rules for women in the workforce.

The government’s scheme also imposes a huge financial cost on businesses and forces small businesses to wade through even more red tape. It makes employers the paymaster instead of the Family Assistance Office, costing businesses $197 million in the first year alone. It makes no sense to set up the Family Assistance Office to be able to administer these payments and then force businesses to take the responsibility for some of these payments at a huge cost to their bottom line. Family First believes that all payments should come through the Family Assistance Office, leaving businesses without the headache of more red tape and allowing them to get on with running their business.

Another huge flaw in the bill is the fact that people who have late-term abortions would still be eligible to receive paid parental leave payments. That is right. Under this bill drug addicts and welfare cheats can rort the system and get paid parental leave money for nothing. Drug addicts and welfare cheats can get pregnant, then after 20 weeks have an abortion and still pocket the government’s cash. It is absolutely ridiculous and it makes you wonder whether the government is making policy on the run again. This was a loophole which was discovered in the baby bonus legislation, and I cannot understand why the government has been so careless as to make the mistake again and is then too stubborn to fix it up.

A recent Galaxy poll showed that 68 per cent of people thought there should be equal funding for all mothers. I will say that again. A recent Galaxy poll showed that 68 per cent of people thought there should be equal funding for all mothers irrespective of whether they engage in paid work in the workforce or do unpaid work as stay-at-home mothers. This is something the Rudd government clearly has not understood. What is more, hundreds of people signed up to my petition calling for equal help for all mums just a couple of hours after it was put up on my website. These figures are compelling and prove that the Rudd government’s scheme as it currently stands is out of touch with the views of the general population.

Ursula Stephens (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Social Inclusion and the Voluntary Sector) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank everyone for their contributions to the debate. The Paid Parental Leave Bill 2010 and related bill are important pieces of legislation because the package of bills will introduce Australia’s first national government funded Paid Parental Leave scheme from 1 January next year. This is a significant economic and social reform for Australia’s families and for Australian employers.

The Rudd government has produced a Paid Parental Leave scheme that will provide financial support and certainty to families at a time when they need it most. Importantly, we will also be helping business to retain their skilled staff and to reap the benefits of family-friendly policies. This government has committed $1.042 billion over five years to establish a national Paid Parental Leave scheme that will encourage women to stay connected with the workforce and with their careers while helping them to balance their work and family lives. The primary objective of the Paid Parental Leave scheme is to enhance child and maternal health and development by enabling mothers to spend longer caring full time for their newborn child. Again, we want to facilitate women’s workforce participation because this, of course, will improve Australia’s productivity.

The scheme promotes gender equity and encourages work and family life balance. This is particularly so for Australian women who have long been juggling family responsibilities with the responsibilities and aspirations of their careers and their working lives. Taking time off to look after a newborn baby is a normal part of a woman’s working life not an abandonment of her working life. This scheme is a culmination of much consideration and consultation with a range of groups over a two-year period and before that it has been a conversation that has been had for more than a decade. Many of the speakers in today’s debate have contributed some perspectives around that long period of consultation, and we believe that the scheme balances the needs of all parties, businesses and families. The opposition, while having affirmed paid parental leave as a valid workplace entitlement rather than a social security measure, has also asserted that this bill:

… places a totally unnecessary impost on Australian businesses by requiring employers to act as paymasters for eligible employees …

It is precisely because this government sees our Paid Parental Leave scheme as an entitlement for women participating in the workforce that we are asking employers to provide parental leave pay to their eligible long-term employees just as they currently pay these employees their other workplace entitlements, their annual leave, their sick leave and other forms of leave.

Paid parental leave should be considered a normal part of employers supporting women to take leave from work to care for their new child. Employers will only have to pay parental leave payments to their long-term employees not to people who will be returning to work for them. The Family Assistance Office will make payments to other women. These arrangements balance the interests of women and employers, and employers will reap the benefits from their participation through their retention of skilled staff.

Despite complaints from some, women on low salaries are the big winners from this new scheme. Precisely because these women usually have no paid parental leave under their employment arrangements, the government is funding 18 weeks at the national minimum wage for all eligible women who meet the paid parental leave work test. In relation to superannuation and paid parental leave the government has said that we will review the scheme in two years time and the introduction of superannuation will be one of the matters considered then.

The Productivity Commission has estimated that women will take an extra 10 weeks off on average further to the 37 weeks they take now. This means that many mothers will be taking most of a year off to care for their babies, which is well above the minimum six-month period recommended by the World Health Organisation to give mothers the opportunity to breastfeed their infants. This again is real support for mothers and their families.

Some have commented that the new legislation is an impost on business. Well, employers will have six months to understand and adjust to the scheme before they are required to pay paid parental leave pay from 1 July 2011. They can, though, choose to participate earlier if they want to. To give business this adjustment time, the Family Assistance Office will provide parental leave pay during the first six months to claimants who are not paid by their employers. This scheme has been designed so that employers will not have to work out if their employee is eligible; the Family Assistance Office will do all of this work and then inform employers of their role. Employers will not be out of pocket through making the parental leave payments. The Family Assistance Office will send sufficient funds to the employer before the payment date, and their cash flow will not be affected. Businesses will not need to change their payroll systems, because full funding will be provided before the payment date so that payments can be made in line with their existing pay cycle.

The system will soon become familiar to businesses once they start to make payments. Many small and medium-sized businesses that currently offer no or minimal parental leave pay will find this scheme most beneficial. This is what businesses have actually told us. This scheme will allow business to benefit from employee loyalty and retention of skilled labour without having to pay for it and without a new tax or levy.

There is no scope for employers to absorb parental leave pay into existing employer funded schemes and withhold parental leave pay owed to an employee. Employers cannot use this parental leave pay to offset an existing employer funded scheme. The legislation requires employers to provide parental leave pay to their employees if they have been funded to do so.

In summing up this landmark legislation, I remind the Senate that this scheme is based on sound evidence, on rigorous analysis of that evidence by the Productivity Commission and on consultation with all stakeholders over more than two years. We have released an exposure draft and we have had a Senate inquiry into the main bill, and this is considered open and transparent policy development undertaken over a very reasonable period of time. The scheme meets the needs of a broad range of women and their employers and balances many interests, and we believe that that balance is right. Women get 18 weeks of parental leave pay to take time off work, and this is in addition to their current workplace entitlements. Their employers are funded to make the new payments and are not subjected to any new taxes or levies. Costs involved in paying employees will be tax deductible for businesses, and the Australian people get an affordable scheme which will help to increase women’s workplace participation and alleviate the impacts of an ageing population on the workforce. This is a scheme that Australia’s working women want us to deliver, and I urge all senators to support the bill.

Question negatived.

Original question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.