Jenny Ware (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I was in the chamber to hear the member for Perth's speech, and I would just remind him that, on various occasions, the ABC has applied an equal blowtorch to those on the other side of this chamber. Other than that, I will leave that commentary to the ABC.

I rise to speak on the Paid Parental Leave Amendment (More Support for Working Families) Bill 2023. I am always very happy to rise to support and speak about measures that will improve the lives of Australian women, Australian mums and Australian families overall. Therefore, I do support this bill, which builds on the existing Paid Parental Leave scheme that has been implemented since 2011. It will expand paid parental leave by an additional six weeks of government paid leave, overall increasing the scheme to six months by 2026.

However, there is one impact of this scheme—and that's the administration of it only—where there is a disproportionate burden placed on small business. I think that needs to be acknowledged and I note that the coalition has moved some amendments to support small business. That change applies only to administrative support. Overall, the fundamental principles behind this legislation are, of course, supported by the coalition.

As a preliminary point, the benefits of a government paid parental leave scheme are well known. As I said, the scheme has been in place since 2011, and numerous studies have shown that paid parental leave provides invaluable assistance to Australians—Australian parents, Australian workers, Australian employers and the Australian economy overall. Without doubt, paid parental leave is one of the most important economic measures that governments can adopt to support Australian women. When Australian women do well, their families do well, the economy does well and our country does well. The coalition, therefore, remains committed to supporting Australian women's participation in the workplace.

At its highest level, the clear benefit of paid parental leave is to increase female workforce participation. However, the benefits for mothers cannot be overstated. These include assisting with bonding with a newborn baby, breastfeeding and recovery from childbirth. Studies have also shown it can assist with lowering postnatal depression rates and improving new mums' mental health. Paid parental leave can also lower infant mortality.

Paid parental leave ensures that women are not disadvantaged in their employment by their intrinsic role in childbearing. It supports economic security for women throughout their lives. It supports the health and welfare of mothers as well as their newborn children. It assists Australian parents to manage their work and parental responsibilities so that the needs of children and families may be met in the context of a modern Australian society. It also supports dads and partners, which is also very important.

This amended scheme will go some way to ensuring that working women do not unwillingly delay or avoid having children because of the financial ramifications that will occur or because of difficulties that they may experience if they take a career break. The scheme particularly supports first-time mums by assisting childbirth recovery and perinatal and postnatal health challenges, including premature birth. Most importantly, paid parental leave supports fundamental Liberal Party principles that the role of government is to facilitate an environment to enable Australians to have choice and to make decisions that are right for their individual circumstances. It helps Australian women decide when they will have children.

The drawback to this scheme at present is administrative in nature only. The scheme disproportionately and adversely impacts smaller businesses—and by that I mean businesses of 20 or fewer employees. It imposes an additional red-tape burden on small businesses by making them the pay clerk for the government's Paid Parental Leave scheme. Small businesses—those with under 20 employees—do not have a human resource department, and they are drowning in red tape, ill-equipped to administer these payments. At present, there is a situation where Services Australia administers these payments in circumstances. Therefore, the coalition proposes amendments that enable small businesses to allow Services Australia to pay those instalments direct to the employee. It will still be possible for small businesses to have an opt-in provision, where they can pay those payments themselves.

These amendments have been proposed following consultation with various stakeholder employer groups, including the Motor Trades Association of Australia, the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and the National Electrical and Communications Association. Small businesses reported to these organisations that when administering the payment they had an increased administrative burden and an increase to their payroll processing time. The Australian Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman, as part of the consultation process, stated:

For many small and family businesses, the costs associated with administering the scheme are magnified as they do not have the existing organisational capability or internal expertise to implement complex processes.

Look at just how many payments there are currently under Australia's Paid Parental Leave scheme: in 2022-23 there were over 170,000 parental leave pay claims and more than 88,000 dad and partner pay claims. In 2021-22, of the more than 31,000 employers that provided paid parental leave to their employees, 38 per cent were small businesses. That means around 15,000 small businesses were administering this scheme in one year.

At present, the Paid Parental Leave scheme includes a mandatory employer role, which requires employers to pay government-funded paid leave payments to eligible long-term employees. However, employers are only required to provide parental leave pay that is taken by their employees in a continuous block of at least 40 consecutive weekdays at the beginning of their entitlement. Services Australia provides any parental leave pay dates taken outside of that block. Therefore, Services Australia—one of our largest government agencies—already has the processes, staff and resources in place to administer this scheme. In those circumstances, it is strongly recommended that the process payment of paid parental leave move from burdening small business to the appropriate government department. This would be compatible with strengthening and insuring the scheme into the future.

I've spoken in this place on paid parental leave on a number of other occasions. On all occasions, I had asked the government to consider, in any future amendments to this scheme, that superannuation guarantee payments be placed on parental leave pay. Disappointingly, this has not been included in this legislation, and I say that this is a missed opportunity for the Albanese Labor government. It's a missed opportunity in bridging the disparity between the superannuation balances of Australian men and women, where women—even in 2024—still lag substantially behind our male counterparts. Working Australian women should not be financially disadvantaged for their choice to have children and for their innate role in childbearing. Furthermore, as a mother of twins, I would also draw to the government's attention recent submissions made by the Multiple Birth Association around the cost of raising multiples and the need, in many cases, for more flexible arrangements with periods of parental leave.

These two issues, however, are not before this place at present. They are not for this current legislation, disappointingly—particularly in relation to superannuation. However, both of these are major issues for women and families across this country, whether they are parents of multiple births or they are seeking to have superannuation paid on their paid parental leave.

To conclude, this is a good bill overall. Paid parental leave is vital for Australian mums and vital for Australian dads. It is integral for women's workforce participation, for mothers' physical and mental health and for giving fathers the opportunity to be more fully involved in their children's early care. We need to support Australian families, but we also need to support Australian small businesses—many of which are family businesses. For all the reasons I have mentioned, I commend this bill to the House.

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