Tanya Plibersek (Sydney, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Social Services) Share this | Hansard source

I want to thank the member for Macquarie. I know she's a big supporter of paid parental leave, and I know that, like me, she remembers that Australia was one of the few developed countries in the world that had no government funded paid parental leave before the Rudd and Gillard governments.

We are so very proud, on this side, that we have not just established paid parental leave but are expanding it, and, from 1 July this year, we're going to expand it again. Families will get the full six months of paid parental leave. In fact, under this prime minister, we have almost doubled paid parental leave. Since Labor was elected, families are $12,000 better off when they have a child, and 180,000 families every year will benefit from this. These families will get more time, more weeks together, more money, higher payments and, of course, superannuation paid on paid parental leave. That means they will be about $4½ thousand better off in retirement, as well as while they're getting paid parental leave. There's more flexibility; more time parents can spend together; of course, more people are eligible; and, when mums and dads get back to work, they'll get cheaper child care as well. Of course, those opposite have been a shambles when it comes to paid parental leave. The now shadow Treasurer, the member for Goldstein, said, 'Paid parental leave, to me, is a very bad scheme.' He said this about the Liberals proposed paid parental leave scheme. He said:

… it's not my choice that women have children. It's genetic!

He said:

I despise this attitude that is creeping into society, where we increasingly look at children as a burden and not a blessing … people have choices in their lives, and they have to live with the consequences of them, both positive and negative.

We've got a shadow Treasurer that doesn't understand that children are not simply a private blessing; they are a public good. They are a blessing for all of us, and that's why, on this side, we want to help families when they're having children.

Those opposite had a leader that went to the last election arguing for higher taxes and lower wages for working mums. They've got a deputy leader who said that she wanted to get rid of work from home. She still says that. She says, 'That's a policy whose time will come.' And we've got a shadow Treasurer who doesn't back paid parental leave.

On this side, we're clear about what we support. We support paid parental leave. We support cheaper child care. We support higher wages and lower taxes for working mums. We support flexibility at work. We support lowering the gender pay gap. The biggest risk to all of that is those opposite.

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