Allegra Spender (Wentworth, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I seek leave to speak again.

Leave granted.

I move an amendment to the amendment moved by the member of Deakin, as circulated in my name:

That all words after "House" be omitted with a view to substituting the following words: "

(1) acknowledges:

(a) that parenting in Australia is a disproportionately unequal activity, with mothers significantly more likely to undertake parenting obligations than fathers, at significant economic and professional loss; and

(b) the essential importance of shared parenting for the healthy development of children, gender equality, women's economic empowerment, and paternal fulfilment and mental health;

(2) notes the bill expands the 'reserved period' from two to four weeks; and

(3) calls on the Government to provide at least six reserved weeks in the next tranche of Paid Parental Leave reform".

I'd like to start by acknowledging the important steps that have been taken by the government and the Women's Economic Equality Taskforce. One thing that motivated a lot of voters at the last election was the very real sense that we had a government that didn't understand the concerns and priorities of women and wasn't acting on them, so I'm grateful to acknowledge the change we've seen over the last 18 months and the progress that has been made against some of those concerns.

The Paid Parental Leave Amendment (More Support for Working Families) Bill 2023 is part of that progress. It is a step towards equality and equity that so many Australians wish to see, and I welcome it. It implements a further expansion of the Paid Parental Leave scheme, expanding the total leave entitlement for partnered parents to 26 weeks over the next three years, up from the current 20. It also increases the amount of reserved weeks—that is, the leave that can be taken by the second parent only—from two to four and does the same for concurrent leave.

These expansions are important and they are welcome. They will make a real improvement in the lives of many new parents, but we should not believe for a moment that these changes are sufficient.

In particular, I am concerned that they will fail to change the culture in parenting in Australia, which is that it is predominantly the responsibility of the mother. This is borne out by research from the Australian Institute of Family Studies, which shows that the average number of hours worked by fathers doesn't change significantly after the birth of a child, while the situation for mothers is completely different: the number of hours they work falls by around two-thirds on average. This is one of the major drivers of the motherhood penalty, which is the 55 per cent reduction in women's earnings once they become mothers.

We are a country that invests heavily in educating our women and promoting an equal and equitable society, but the fact is that these efforts are not translating into the outcomes we want to see. Research by the Grattan Institute has shown that, on average, female parents do around two hours more unpaid care work per day than male parents, and male parents do two hours more paid work.

There's a wealth of evidence around this extremely gendered division of child care, which is driving the gender division of our workforce and our labour markets. For example, Australia's rate of primary care undertaken by a male partner is one of the lowest in the OECD. While in Sweden and Iceland the male partner is the primary carer in 40 per cent of cases, the rate in Australia is just around one or two per cent. The average in the OECD is around 18 per cent. We are incredibly gendered in how we bring up our children.

We see that this plays out in our workforce as well, because Australia has one of the highest rates of part-time work for women in the world: 37 per cent, one of the highest in the OECD, versus the OECD average of 25 per cent. Australian men, when they have children, don't really change the amount of time they work. When Australian women have children, they dramatically change their workforce participation and their economic engagement in the workplace. I've seen this personally in Wentworth amongst a whole group of different people, with parents who had had relatively similar levels of careers, aspirations, seniority and earning capacity before they had children. In the vast majority of cases where women took on the primary caring, those things dropped back significantly for them, and that persists and persists and persists.

These are cultural issues in Australia that have a very significant impact on women's economic empowerment, but they also have an impact on fathers' engagement with their children, fathers' mental health and also the health of our children. We want more men to feel free to become equal or even primary caregivers, to embrace the joys of parenthood and to realise closer, more meaningful relationships with their children. We know that, if they do this, if they take up that initial significant amount of parental leave, they will have increased job satisfaction, increased happiness and a new sense of purpose in many cases. We want women, at the same time, to maintain their careers and their professional aspirations and not feel like these need to be sacrificed for motherhood. It is remarkable and regrettable that so many women make this sacrifice even when they have the higher income in the relationship.

So there is a question that I think we have when we look at this bill. Obviously, this is a very positive bill and it is a step forward, but how do we change the culture of parenting in this country? How do we make sure that parenting is about men and women and is truly a shared endeavour between parents, not a burden that continually falls on women almost solely? How do we change these norms?

One lever obviously is providing more reserved weeks. This provides a significant incentive for the second parent to take more leave and become more involved in the child's early weeks and months. The government's proposal shifts us from two weeks to four weeks, and this is welcome. But I'll be honest: I'm really concerned that this is just not far enough and that we need to move to six or eight weeks to ensure that the incentive is really significant, is properly utilised and starts to change the culture of care in our country. If we're going to achieve a culture of shared parenting, we need to ensure that dads are involved from the very beginning, because we know that the norms started when babies are first born often persist through childhood. We need shared and equal parenting to become more widely acknowledged and accepted within our community.

I have spoken to the government, and I appreciate that the government has further to go in this policy space. But I will continue to urge them that they need to go further to, particularly, support a culture of shared parenting and that we need to see further progress on this in the next round of paid parental leave reforms, which I hope are not going to be too far away. Thank you.

See this speech in context