Christian Porter (Pearce, Liberal Party, Minister for Social Services) Share this | Hansard source

What the members opposite oppose is a policy position which is two extra weeks and $1,300 extra to 60 per cent of the recipients of paid parental leave, where those recipients of paid parental leave are the lowest income earners in the system. There once was a time where members opposite believed that welfare, that payments, that paid parental leave should focus on those in the system that are the least well off themselves, that earn the lowest incomes themselves. There once was a time when members opposite believed the focus of payments in the government system should be on those who are unable to provide for themselves, and what we say is that the focus should be on those people who earn the least and who receive the least. That has been the focus of our reforms in paid parental leave, those have been the reforms that we have focused on in child care, and they are the reforms that you oppose: reforms that benefit those people at the lower end of the system.

Ms Burney interjecting—

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