House debates

Monday, 15 February 2021

Private Members' Business

Paid Parental Leave

6:51 pm

Photo of Graham PerrettGraham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Education) Share this | Hansard source

I'm pleased to speak on the motion moved by the member for Warringah which acknowledges the benefits to Australia from increasing female workforce participation, gender equity and outcomes for children by lowering the cost of early childhood education for all families. Sadly, women in Australia continue to take on the lion's share of family and caring responsibilities. Australian women do almost twice as much unpaid household work and caring work as men—and I'm making this speech here in Canberra while my wife Lee is in Brisbane with our children. Hopefully, she isn't listening to the Federation Chamber at this time. Of course women's career paths are often negatively impacted by pregnancy and caring responsibilities. Affordable care for Australian children is crucial. Without it, many parents, most often the mother, are forced to give up or turn down work.

We are just two and a half years into the coalition's childcare system—the one the Prime Minister dubbed a 'once-in-a-generation reform' and that he personally promised would make child care more affordable. Sadly, ABS data shows that, for parents in Brisbane, child care is now more expensive than when the Morrison system was introduced. The Morrison system has done the opposite to what Prime Minister Morrison promised. Families are struggling and yet the 2020 budget had no plan for child care. Families are being crippled by ever-increasing childcare fees. They've seen an increase of 7.2 per cent in just one year—and, guess what? Wages aren't increasing at 7.2 per cent. In fact, wages are flatlining.

We know that having more women in the workforce is better for the economy. A recent Productivity Commission report confirmed that the cost of child care is prohibiting parents from working the hours they want. The report revealed that almost 300,000 Australians are not in the labour force due to caring for children—all that potential. More than 90,000 of these parents say that they are not working mainly due to the cost of child care. The boost to our economy from reduced childcare costs has been modelled by KPMG and the Grattan Institute. That modelling revealed the boost to our GDP from increased workforce participation was at least $7.5 billion and up to $10 million. So it makes sound economic sense to reduce childcare costs. Every family with young children in my electorate of Moreton knows that the high cost of child care is a hit to household budgets and a brake on women's workforce participation—all that potential being untapped. It's also a huge hit to our economy as a whole.

This motion notes that Australia has one of the least generous paid parental leave schemes in the OECD generous paid parental leave schemes in the OECD. Parents, both mothers and fathers, should be able to take time off to look after their newborns without having to worry about how they can pay the rent. Since the coalition have been in government, they've tried to slash paid parental leave five times. The coalition have called mothers rorters, double-dippers and fraudsters.

Labor actually understands how important it is for parents to spend those early weeks with their child. You don't get that time back. It's good for the babies and it's good for the parents' wellbeing too. When in government, Labor implemented the first national paid parental leave scheme and introduced dad and partner pay. From opposition, Labor blocked the coalition government's attempt to slash paid parental leave. As a dad and as a former teacher, I know how important those early years are in a child's life. It's important to have those days and weeks after the birth of a child to bond and for babies and parents to settle in. It's important for parents to have access to good-quality, low-cost child care so they can get back into the workforce when they are ready.

Unlike this government, Labor, under Anthony Albanese, has a plan to bring down the cost of child care and keep it down. Our cheaper child care for working families policy will scrap the $10,560 childcare subsidy cap, which often sees women losing money from that extra day's work, will lift the maximum childcare subsidy rate to 90 per cent and will increase childcare subsidy rates and taper them for every family earning less than $530,000. Labor will ask the ACCC to design a price regulation mechanism to shed light on costs and fees and drive them down for good. With the aim of implementing a universal 90 per cent subsidy for all families, the Productivity Commission will conduct a comprehensive review of this crucial sector.

It's time that working families were rewarded. We value the family. It's time that we put that extra reward in there. It's time that second household income earners, who are usually women, were encouraged, rather than discouraged. That's the current set of arrangements engineered by Prime Minister Morrison. It's time that second household income earners were encouraged to work more and contribute to our economic recovery after the pandemic. It's time to fix the coalition's broken childcare system.

Debate adjourned.

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