Jacinta Collins (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Cabinet Secretary) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answers given by ministers to all questions without notice asked today.

I take note of all answers to questions to ministers in question time today as a special request from the National Party, so I look forward to their contribution to this debate. I hope that they will not shy away from the opportunity that I will provide when I focus on the questions to Senator Cormann and his answers regarding this year's budget.

As was canvassed clearly in question time today, the Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, promised—perhaps not in writing but he did promise—that this budget would not come at the expense of the family budget. So let us look very clearly at where the arrangements in this budget are coming from. The focus on families and, in particular, on mothers is astounding. I was shocked to hear Mr Hockey admit that, on Mother's Day, he had failed to ring his mother, but when I saw the budget I understood how ill informed and insubstantial his understanding of some very important issues is, because this budget locks in the family tax benefit cuts to single-income families, where a family on $65,000 a year can lose $6,000. But, on top of that, there is a bonus. It is not like the John Howard family bonuses, or baby bonuses. Instead we have a different bonus in this budget: we have savage new cuts to parental leave arrangements that will impact on 80,000 mothers.

When you look at the design of what is in the budget, you understand that the only person in this place that comprehended the Productivity Commission report recommending the arrangements for paid parental leave is Senator Arthur Sinodinos. He understood the design of the system and the plan. He would not get up and suggest that these mothers were rorting or double-dipping. It is extraordinarily insulting. Let me run through the detail of why. What the Productivity Commission recommended was that we set up a publicly funded scheme to provide for 18 weeks paid parental leave, because here in Australia we could work towards an objective of mothers taking 26 weeks, or six months, to care for their child, and a fair proportion of Australian mothers had access to other leave arrangements as well.

I wonder what this government—now that Senator Brandis is here, he will be interested to hear this—will now say to the international community. We were able to say we had a publicly funded scheme designed to support mothers to take six months leave, but we will no longer be able to say that. What we have now, according to this proposal, is a scheme based on a bare bones period of 18 weeks. But we also have a fairly unworkable scheme. I look forward to seeing the design, how this government proposes these arrangements will work industrially, because I cannot fathom how they will even be able to make that work.

Senator Cormann tells us today that we, the Labor Party, focus on politics over substance. Well, where is the substance in this budget, seriously? I see no detail about how they can make a workable scheme to deny these 80,000 mothers access to paid parental leave arrangements to allow them to spend that six months. I see no comprehension other than the government's attempt to back down and say, 'Oh, we'll negotiate about family tax benefit B cuts.' And what do we see from the National Party? 'Oh, um, we'll take this out of the budget context and, um, oh, gosh, we'll deal with it in the tax white paper.' Well, I am sorry, but families who are looking at losing their family tax benefit B—$6,000 a year—are worried about this now. Senator Canavan might talk about two tax-free thresholds and other options in the tax white paper, but he needs to deliver a result on this now, before these single-income families lose $6,000 a year. This is what cannot wait. And this is what Senator Cormann is able to avoid because, in the coalition, the National Party has gone silent.