Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak on the Paid Parental Leave Amendment Bill 2014. I think the presentations we have had, the speeches we have had, from both sides of the chamber on this policy area certainly put into stark relief the difference in values, the difference in qualities and the difference in understanding of policies, because we have had such a befuddled presentation of logic and reasoning coming from the other side of the chamber.

Let us put things in context up front. Step 1: the government has said there is a budget emergency. That is the mantra I have heard for the last nine months: tough decisions need to be made because there is a budget emergency. I could spend half an hour dismantling that argument, but that is the prism through which this legislation was presented to the chamber by the government. Step 2: let us remember that there is a Paid Parental Leave scheme, put in place by Labor, operating right now. It is not a perfect scheme, not the most generous scheme in the world, but a scheme that does give some comfort and takes up some of the slack for the costs associated with having a child. I do not think anyone would be rushing off to have a child in order to receive that pay, but it is of some benefit.

The reality is that we did this in the context of appropriately means-testing payments associated with having a child. Deputy Speaker Vasta, I know you have had a child recently. Obviously the baby bonus was means-tested by Labor. I think when you were first in parliament the baby bonus was not means-tested. Labor appropriately brought in the fact that it is means-tested. This is a very bad example because my wife was pregnant on budget night when Wayne Swan announced it. I would have thought it might have been logical to have a nine-month lead-in, but that was not the case. My son was born on 19 January, and my wife constantly reminds me that she received no baby bonus, because it was appropriately means-tested. It was a good policy for the nation—not so good in my home!

The reality is: we have to have schemes that are affordable and appropriate. This comes in the context of a so-called budget emergency—sure, it is a AAA credit rated economy ticking over and doing quite well, with a couple of long-term challenges and some medium difficulties approaching us, but, still, that is the prism through which the minister has presented this bill. Let us have a look at the context in terms of the difficult journey for women to have a child in Australia. I am proud to say that we were one of the first countries in the world to give women the right to vote. New Zealand might have been the first, although I think South Australia—and I note the member for Mayo at the table—might have been the first in the world to give women the right to vote at the state parliament level. But New Zealand was the first to do it as a nation. Since then, progress has been difficult. In fact, it was not until 1949 that our first female federal cabinet minister was appointed, and, if you look at those photographs of cabinets back in the sixties, seventies and eighties, they are still mainly men sitting around that cabinet table. Obviously things are much better now—oh no! Sorry; the current cabinet has gone back to the 1960s.

But things have changed. When I was born, women working in the federal Public Service were required to resign when they were married. That is not that long ago. But in the last 50 years much has been achieved for women in terms of equality in education and in the workplace. There are still some glass ceilings there in terms of the number of female graduates versus the number of positions on boards and as senior partners and the like, but obviously much has changed over that time, particularly with safe contraception and access to childcare facilities facilitating more career opportunities. In 1984 the federal government banned discrimination on the basis of sex. Today more women than men are educated at secondary schools and universities, and more women graduate from university with bachelor degrees. According to ABS data, of females aged 15 to 64 years, the proportion enrolled in formal study rose from approximately 17 per cent in 2001 to 20 per cent in 2013. There is still more to be done, but nevertheless we are slowly seeing change. However, paid parental leave is not the final frontier. There are still many rows to hoe, including wage equality, where there is still a significant difference between what males and females make.

In 2009 the Productivity Commission's inquiry into paid parental leave identified a number of benefits of providing support for parents with newborn children, including: the improved wellbeing of families, and in particular child and maternal health, associated with an extended period of absence from work around the birth of the baby and secure financial support during this period; in the face of the incentives against work provided by the social welfare and tax system, encouragement of women of reproductive ages to maintain their lifetime attachment to the workforce; and the expression of community norms. This includes the view that having a child and taking time out for family reasons is part of the usual course of work and life for many people in the paid workforce, including fathers. Obviously it is all about society recognising the value of children, particularly when they are very young.

Labor has a proud tradition of bringing in policies that support the hard work of mothers, whether they are at home or in a paid job. Having had two young children during my time in parliament, I know that having a baby on the scene is both a rewarding and—as I can tell by the circles under your eyes, Deputy Speaker Vasta!— challenging time of life. New parents usually have to adapt to life without sleep as well as to the loss of an income. That is why I am proud to be a part of the Labor team that implemented legislation that supports families through the baby bonus, the family tax benefit and Australia's first paid parental leave scheme, a scheme that was responsible and fully costed and did not impose an unfair big new tax on business—a big new tax that will be passed on at the checkout, a big new tax that will be passed on at the petrol bowser, a big new tax that will be passed on by the bigger companies every time we buy their products. That is what happens. Remember all those arguments for the three years of the 43rd Parliament about how the carbon price cost would be passed on? Well, they are exactly the arguments for what will happen when the government implements this scheme and passes on those costs to big business. They will just send it straight back to their clients and customers.

A properly considered paid parental leave scheme should take into account the varying responsiveness of different groups of people to its generosity and duration as well as considering how the welfare system affects that responsiveness. A paid parental leave scheme needs to give particular attention to lower income families. The beneficial employment effects of a leave scheme are most likely to be experienced by less well educated and lower skilled females. Empirical evidence shows that higher effective wages do more to encourage these women to work than more educated, higher paid women. Poorer families have less recourse to savings, because they are just trying to manage from week to week with food and other cost-of-living increases, and they cannot necessarily support themselves on a low single income, hastening their return to work. Lower income families face the greatest barriers to work, given the incentives of the welfare system, although that is being changed rapidly at the moment.

This legislation does not support those who need it most. The reality is: it is going to reward the higher end of people that are having children, people that are not necessarily going to be looking at every dollar to make a decision about whether or not they have children. This should be seen in the context of a community that is receiving cuts to pensions and increases to petrol taxes, which are going to go up and up and up. The Queensland government has just flagged an increase of 13 per cent to electricity bills, coming on top of, I think, 23 per cent and 10 per cent before that. There will be $2.8 billion cut from our public hospitals. There will be a tax every time we go to the doctor. There will be cuts to family payments and an obscene forcing-up of the costs of university, for those smart enough to get there.

The current government wants to impose this Rolls-Royce paid parental leave scheme, while howling at the same time that we are in the middle of a budget emergency. These things jar, and you can see why the Nationals have been so insistent on changing this policy. I am hoping that they will find their voice in the next little while. Sadly, they seem to have lost it a little bit in this coalition government.

This government is hiding the true facts about Australia. As I said, we have low inflation, low interest rates and a AAA credit rating from all three rating agencies. When the Prime Minister—it might have been the Treasurer—tried to suggest otherwise, they were quick to come out and say, 'No, you are incorrect.' We are one of only eight countries in the world with this achievement.

I note that the government is doing its best to try to talk down the economy. It is having a horrible effect on business confidence. But the reality is that we are in a healthy position. The budget needs to be seen for what it is: basically a cheap attempt to justify unnecessary taxes and unfair cuts, part of the Tea Party program rolled out in the United States.

The Prime Minister has shown that he simply does not understand the needs of Australian families, by taking the axe to early education and care that parents rely on every day while funding $50,000 payments to women with a child. At the same time the government is providing a wage replacement bill, the government is also cutting funding from child care. If the purpose of this bill is to have more women return to the workforce, then surely a logical step would be to improve the availability of child care for Australian families.

At a time of record demand, with around 335,000 children now using outside-school-hours care so that parents can go back to work, the Abbott government has also cut $450 million that would have seen extra programs and places in over 500 schools.

The childcare benefit threshold will also be frozen, cutting access to child care for those who can least afford it. Indexation of the childcare rebate will also be stopped.

These are aggressive attacks on family budgets and on women who are doing their best to return to work. On top of this, we have cuts to pensions that will make life harder for pensioners, who, as grandparents, are often involved in caring for kids.

I received an email on 26 May from Lorna, one of my constituents. I will read part of what she said:

I am a pensioner 78 years old … I & many others have contributed income tax for over 40 years & have never received any of the many benefits that are now available to other generations except our aged pension.

I have been quite happy with this & do not expect more than the small increases to cope with inflation & the rebates to help with the utilities which have risen above belief. However, these are now under threat—

in fact, they are more than under threat; they've just been abolished by the decision made in the budget—

but it is OK to give the wealthier thousands of dollars in maternity leave payments. Where is the justice in this for pensioners paying fees to visit the doctor & having their benefits cut.

I never thought I would receive such unfair treatment from a Government who has such little care for its disadvantaged citizens.

Lorna certainly was a Liberal-National Party voter in the past but, from the tone and tenor of this email, she will not be in the future. She understands that it is impossible to argue budget emergency at the same time as you are providing this Rolls-Royce Paid Parental Leave scheme.

If we did a demographic analysis of Australia and saw that our population was going backwards and the budget was super healthy, perhaps we could look at this scheme. I do understand superannuation and its importance to women. I note that, overall, women miss out on superannuation because they take time out from the workforce. Labor gets superannuation; we are the party of superannuation. I could go back through the speeches of the Prime Minister, railing against increases to superannuation. This is a bloke, who, in his 50s, was saying that over his dead body would a paid parental leave scheme come in. Labor understands superannuation and the impact it has on most women, with that time out of the workforce to raise their children. The government has brought in a policy which takes away the superannuation bonus for lower paid workers, 2.1 million of whom are women.

The Paid Parental Leave scheme put forward by the government totally jars with the budget narrative they are trying to put together. Every time we hear the words 'budget emergency,' all I can hear is Paid Parental Leave scheme and Lorna's words, saying: 'Where is the justice in this for pensioners, paying fees to visit the doctor and having their benefits cut?' That is what I will hear every time I hear a speaker opposite talk about how wonderful this Paid Parental Leave scheme is. Labor is fair dinkum about supporting women in the workforce. This policy in front of us today is ill-considered.

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