Matt Thistlethwaite (Kingsford Smith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

Woolworths is one of Australia's largest employers. Woolworths has a paid parental leave scheme through which full-time and part-time employees can access eight weeks of paid parental leave after they have completed two years of service. The World Health Organization recommends that new mothers should spend a minimum of six months with their new baby to nurture development. That is not only a World Health Organization recommendation; it is common sense that new mothers spend some time with their babies. In our community, the cost of living is increasing. Housing, in particular, is becoming ridiculously expensive. Families need two incomes simply to get by in our community. For a mother who spends six months with her newborn baby, with an employer that only offers eight weeks paid parental leave, the question needs to be asked: how do families get by? How do families get by when an employer provides eight weeks paid parental leave? How do they fund the remaining 18 weeks that the World Health Organization recommends that a mother should spend with a newborn?

That is the question that the previous Labor government answered when we implemented a government Paid Parental Leave scheme of 18 weeks at the minimum wage to ensure that mothers could top up the 18 weeks with whatever their workplace scheme was—in this case, Woolworths, eight weeks—to get to the 26 weeks, to get to the six months that is recommended by the World Health Organization, to support families at one of the most vulnerable times in a family's life, when a new baby is born. It was to help mums spend that vital first six months with their babies but still be able to pay the bills.

Well, for anyone that is accessing the government scheme and then topping it up with their employer's scheme, these are the people that the Treasurer, Joe Hockey, has described as undertaking basic fraud. These are the people that Scott Morrison, the Minister for Social Services, has said are undertaking 'a rort'. How dare they? How dare two senior ministers in this government tell new mothers on low to middle incomes who are struggling to make ends meet, who are doing the right thing by World Health Organization standards, staying home with their kids for the first six months, accessing a government scheme and topping it up with their employer based scheme—how dare this government tell those people—that they are rorters, that they are engaging in fraud?

This scenario perfectly sums up this government's approach to this year's budget: the well-off in our community are protected, but middle- to low-income Australians will struggle to make ends meet and will be worse off because of the changes that are proposed in this year's budget. The government is proposing to stop working mothers accessing both the government Paid Parental Leave scheme and any top-up scheme that their employer may be providing. It will force families to make a wicked choice: the choice of spending more time with their newborn or going back to work to make ends meet before those six months are up.

I am not intending to single out Woolworths. Woolworths actually provides a paid parental leave scheme, and it was one of the first employers within the retail industry to do so. But Woolworths is a large Australian employer. It provides a lot of jobs in our community as well. If people who are working for employers like Woolworths are faced with this choice, they are no doubt going to be worse off. What this will do is that it will force new mums to make that choice. Many of them will choose the government scheme, and workplace schemes will become redundant. They will eventually be phased out.

That is not only my view. That is the view of experts who work in this field every day. Indeed, it is the view of some employer associations in this country. Kate Carnell, the Chief Executive of the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, has said of what the government is proposing with Paid Parental Leave:

It's hard to see why employers would continue to pay parental leave if it meant the government stopped paying and they were simply footing the bill for the government …

That is the view of the chief executive of one of Australia's largest employer associations: employers will eventually phase out paid parental leave. That is not in the interests of Australia. That is not fair for families, as the Prime Minister claims this budget will be.

An analysis has been done by The West Australian newspaper, which looks at exactly how much working mothers in the retail sector will be worse off. They have found out that checkout operators at Woolworths will be $6,550 worse off and Coles checkout operators $6,376 worse off. IKEA workers will be, remarkably, $11,539 worse off if this government's intention of stopping working mothers topping up the government scheme through paid parental leave is delivered through this budget. That is why this element of the budget must be opposed, and that is why I will fight on behalf of the people of Kingsford Smith to ensure that this element of the budget is not passed.

The government has also introduced some new changes to child care. It proposes a new activity test so that anyone who works less than eight hours per week will now no longer be able to access the government subsidy. I say to the government: what about those mothers who are trying to get more than eight hours a week of work who cannot access more than eight hours? Perhaps they may have a disability. Perhaps they may be unable to get work because they are in a region where there is high unemployment. Does that mean that they should be denied the right to access child care? I think not.

The income thresholds for the subsidies associated with the childcare rebate have also been changed. The great shame about this change is that it is not additional funding to pay for the changes; it is coming off the back of cuts to family tax benefit B. When a child turns six, family tax benefit B will now cut out. I say to the government: what about the single mum who lives in my community who may be studying, who may be just about to finish a degree, who works two jobs to make ends meet and who has a kid in the later years of primary school or high school? She is struggling to make ends meet and now faces the prospect of losing family tax benefit B. What does that working mother do? Does she stop her studies that she is just about to complete and go and get more work to make up for the difference that she is going to lose?

These are the wicked choices that this government is foisting upon working families in this country. It is robbing Peter to pay Paul. But Peter is middle-income Australia; Peter is the vulnerable, those on low incomes and middle incomes in Australia. Paul is some of the wealthiest corporations and individuals in our society. If these changes are implemented, we will see an increase in poverty in Australia, without a doubt. In a modern context that is not something Australia should be encouraging. Families will be the big losers in this budget. NATSEM modelling that was released today shows that a single-parent family with two children will lose $3,715 this financial year under the government's budget. That will increase to $6,108 in 2018-19. Take-out No. 1 from this budget: Australian families will be worse off. That is what we can guarantee from what is contained in the government's budget.

In health, this budget continues the dastardly cuts to hospitals funding in the last budget, with $57 billion cut from public hospital funding. The Prince of Wales Hospital in Randwick in our community is under stress, with $30 million having recently been cut from its operating budget—a whole ward closed, nurses not being replaced when they leave, two physiotherapists sacked and the perinatal mental health unit under pressure. This is how some of these cuts manifest themselves in our community. This budget continues the four-year freeze on the Medicare rebate, which will force doctors in our community to charge a co-payment or, perhaps in some cases, to undertake longer consultations. The budget cuts $125 million over four years from the Child Dental Benefits Schedule.

In our community, we are again facing cuts to and closures of health services. I have been informed by the Minister for Human Services that the Medicare office at Eastgardens will close over the coming months. That office will be transferred to the local Centrelink office at Maroubra. Anyone who has been to the Centrelink office at Maroubra would know that the waits there are at least two hours long. The parking is not as convenient as it is at Eastgardens. For elderly people, this will mean a greater impost. Let's face it: most of those who access Medicare office services are the elderly, because they cannot access some of those services online. These people will be worse off because of this government's budget cuts that manifest themselves in the closure of our local Medicare office at Eastgardens. This comes on top of the New South Wales government announcing that the RTA office at Maroubra will also close. What is the lesson from this? Liberals cut services and they hurt our community.

In education, parents know that the key to a good job, to a stable income and to good living standards for their kids is a good education. That is why Labor invested much more money in the Gonski reforms. That is why Labor invested in trade training centres—to provide kids who may not be academically minded with a pathway to employment through providing trade training while still at school. Champagnat Catholic College in Pagewood recently opened their brand-new trade training facility, having received $1 million from the Gillard government to assist those kids to get the beginning of a trade in the automotive, construction and hospitality industries. Those kids will now finish year 12 having completed the first year of their apprenticeship. What a wonderful opportunity for an education pathway for kids. What has happened to the Trade Training Centres in Schools Program? It has gone. It was completely cut by the Abbott government. There is no support for education for those kids in our community. Also in this budget, we have seen $30 billion cut from the final two years of the Gonski reforms.

University fee deregulation remains in this budget. It may not have got much media attention, but the government still plans to try to implement deregulation of university fees to force kids to pay $100,000 for degrees. Universities like the University of New South Wales, where many courses are in high demand—engineering, medicine, commerce, law and the like—will be able to charge whatever they like because the demand is there. Kids from working-class backgrounds in our community will not have access to the education that they need for a good job. This budget also makes changes to pensions, but what remains is the pension age increasing to 70 years.

In terms of the economy, this budget forecasts that unemployment will rise to 6.5 per cent. The reality of this budget is that tax as a proportion of GDP increases from 21.4 per cent to 22.3 per cent. So this fallacy that the Abbott government will be a lower taxing government is a complete farce. It is a lie to the Australian people, because tax increases as a proportion of GDP. Net debt also increases from $250 billion to $285 billion. So not only is this budget bad for the economy; it is definitely bad for working families and for kids in terms of support for education. The one thing we can say about this budget is that Australians will be worse off.

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