Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. I refer the Prime Minister to the paid maternity leave scheme available to his own staff and to the employees in his own department, which provides for full salary replacement while on maternity leave and is therefore much more generous than the arrangements that he is proposing to give to Australian families. Why shouldn’t the future mums and dads of Australia be entitled to at least the same benefits as those of his own staff? Will the Prime Minister now join with the coalition to give Australian families a fair go by backing a paid parental leave scheme that will affect less than half of one per cent of Australia’s businesses but help up to 146,000 Australian families every year?

Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I take it this is the policy which the member for North Sydney was consulted on prior to it being announced by the Leader of the Opposition over the last 24 hours—and the shadow minister for finance as well was consulted. We understand there has been a pretty active debate in the joint coalition party room this morning because they were not consulted on this policy or ‘sort of’ policy before it was dropped out.

Can I simply say to the Leader of the Opposition as he seeks to try and rake over some of the difficulties which have arisen in what could be described as the ‘policy development process’ underpinning their approach to paid parental leave, paid maternity leave, that it follows that we on this side of the House are proud of the fact that we are the first government to introduce paid parental leave. For 12 years those opposite sat there and occasionally pontificated on the subject, occasionally bleated solidarity about the issue, but did absolutely nothing. The Leader of the Opposition of course was a cabinet minister in that government. One would have thought that if he was committed to paid maternity leave or paid parental leave that just something, just something, might have happened in the period when he was around the cabinet table. But nothing—until yesterday.

There was fun and games in the joint party room today as people scratched their heads and said, ‘Where did this policy come from?’ What happened within, shall we say, the economic leadership of those opposite in deciding whether the approach they put forward was financially sustainable? It did not happen because, once again, this was policy making on the run, ill-considered and without any costings attached to it.

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Regrettably, as they bleat their opposition, it would be nice to know that, just once, a fully costed and considered policy was put out by those opposite. We have not seen one so far.