Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Minister for Social Services) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for her question. The government supports paid parental leave and recognises that it provides much-needed support and assistance for families. The safety-net paid parental leave scheme that is in place—the safety net is there—is provided to those families that were not getting anything from employers: absolutely nothing. Of those, 92 per cent of employees who work in the private sector—particularly for small businesses, who simply cannot pay more for paid parental leave, as the Minister for Small Business would know—are unaffected by these arrangements. Only eight per cent of those who are unaffected by the arrangements work in the public sector.

I should stress that anyone who has a child now and is getting paid parental leave, and anyone who is expecting a child now, is unaffected by these changes as well, because these changes come into effect in July of next year. But the principle is this for large employers, be they large Commonwealth employers or large state and government employers: is it really fair that small business employees and their employers actually have to pay more in taxes or in high deficits and higher debt to ensure that they can subsidise the schemes put in by the public sector? Is that fair? Is it fair that someone who is getting $20,000 a year in employer-provided paid parental leave should then also get another $11½ thousand in taxpayer-funded paid parental leave?

We support a safety-net paid parental leave scheme and we support a fair paid parental leave scheme—a fair scheme—but we are not going to support the one cooked up by those opposite with the unions.

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