Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker has received a letter from the Leader of the Opposition proposing that a definite matter of public importance be submitted to the House for discussion, namely:

The Government’s failure to recognise the true value of women’s participation in the workforce.

I call upon those members who approve of the proposed discussion to rise in their places.

More than the number of members required by the standing orders having risen in their places—

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

Every year about 280,000 Australian women have children. All of those women deserve help and, under the former government, all of those women did receive help. Today’s debate is about a subset of those women. It is about the 62 per cent of those women who are in paid employment immediately prior to having their baby. That is 170,000 employed women who have children and who, under the regime which this government proposes to put in place, will inevitably suffer a serious loss in their salary. They are the women who should be helped. They are the women who the coalition wants to help. They are the women who Unions NSW wants to help. They are the women who members opposite know ought to be helped but who, they know in their hearts, will not be helped by the mickey mouse paid parental leave scheme that this government has introduced.

Of the 170,000 employed women who have babies every year, some 60,000 return to work within the recommended six months. They return to work too soon, invariably because of financial pressure. They are the women who desperately need help. They are the women who the coalition will help. They are the women who will miss out under the mickey mouse scheme which is being put forward by this government. Labor’s mickey mouse scheme gives those women just 18 weeks, not the 26 weeks which everyone knows is the minimum that should be spent at home by mothers with newborns. It gives them just the minimum wage, not the wage that those women are earning, not the wage that those families need and not the wage that those families need if they are to sustain the kind of life that they are used to and if they are to meet the commitments that every Australian family almost inevitably and necessarily has.

Unlike the government, this coalition is proposing a fair dinkum paid parental leave scheme. Our scheme is for 26 weeks. Our scheme is at the actual wage of the mother, capped at $150,000 a year. It is real money, it is real time and it is a real benefit for the women of Australia—a benefit that they are not getting from this government.

Government Members:

Government members interjecting—

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

The reaction of members opposite in question time and now betrays the fact that they have been completely unnerved, completely unsettled and completely taken aback by this scheme which we have introduced—a scheme which has been widely welcomed by the employed women of this country.

Let us examine the government’s scheme for a moment. As I said, it is for just 18 weeks and it is at just the minimum wage. Labor’s scheme costs just $260 million. It offers just an extra $2,000 on top of additional benefits. Any paid parental leave scheme which offers just an additional $2,000 to cover the absences from work that are inevitable when a mother has a baby is a mickey mouse scheme. A scheme which offers just an extra $2,000 is not a scheme which is going to establish real justice for the women of Australia. It is not a scheme which is going to drive up participation in the workforce. It is not a scheme which is going to give women the real choice that they need—to have a career and to be mothers at the same time. It is, in short, a cruel hoax on the families of Australia.

I understand that giving real benefits to the working families of this country is expensive, but our scheme is funded. We will make less than one per cent of Australian companies pay a modest levy on their tax. We will make this small minority of companies, this tiny minority of companies, pay a modest levy on their tax so that 170,000 women every year can get the help, the assistance and the justice which they need and for which they have been crying out for so long. No-one likes paying more, even in a good cause. I accept that. We all think that other people should pay for the good things that society needs.

I am not surprised that we had a succession of big business representatives stand up yesterday and say that they would prefer that this levy not be imposed. The ancestors of those same big business representatives stood up 20 years ago and criticised the superannuation guarantee levy, which they now accept, and 40 years ago they stood up and criticised the imposition of holiday pay and sick pay and all the other things which are now part and parcel of life. I am not criticising those big business representatives who stood up yesterday to say what they had to say, because all they were doing was representing their constituency. I am just disappointed that they did not think first as Australians, first as citizens, and only then as representatives of big business. The time has come for paid parental leave to be as much part and parcel of working in this country as sick pay, holiday pay and retirement benefits. The time has come and we will implement a fair scheme.

Let me say to the representatives of big business who spoke yesterday that, if Labor had not blown the surplus, if this government had not turned a $20 billion surplus into a $30 billion deficit in just 12 months, things could have been done differently. If Labor was not wasting money hand over fist on Julia Gillard memorial school halls and on a pink batt program which has been the most comprehensive administrative disaster in recent Australian history, if all this waste and management was not happening, we could have funded this scheme in a different way. I say to members opposite, I say to the Australian people, that if we want a fair dinkum paid parental leave scheme now, this is the fairest way to have it.

I also say to the representatives of big business who spoke out yesterday that the coalition does have a plan—a prudent, fiscally responsible plan to get the nation’s finances under control. First, we will pay off Labor’s debt, then we will reduce personal taxes and then we will reduce general taxes. We would like to be able, in the medium term, to reduce company tax so that this levy constitutes only a temporary increase in the taxation even of big business. If we are going to have a fair dinkum paid parental leave scheme, it has to be funded. Everything has to be funded, and if this scheme is going to happen any time soon, this is the best way for it to be done. It has to be funded by business because if it is not funded by business it is not fair dinkum parental leave. It has to be funded by business generally because if it is funded by particular businesses on the basis of the leave taken by their own staff, it will inevitably discriminate against younger women who do not deserve to be discriminated against in the workforce, and it has to be funded by big business because big business has the greater capacity to pay. This coalition that I lead will never be party to anything which involves discrimination against the employment prospects of younger women or anything that involves putting an added burden on small business, which is the economic engine room of this country.

The scheme that the coalition put forward yesterday is pro-family, because it takes the pressure off the budgets of tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of families every year; it is pro-women because it gives them the real choice that they have not had in the absence of a fair dinkum scheme; it is pro-children because it acknowledges the real cost of having children and acknowledges the real need that children have, particularly newborns, to bond with their parents; and it is pro-small business because, effectively, larger business will be paying for the parental leave costs of small business and for the first time many women will have the opportunity to be employed by small business because they will have their parental leave met under this scheme. It is actually pro-big business too, in the long run, because if we have more people, and we should have higher fertility with a scheme such as this, big business will have larger markets and we will have a higher participation under this scheme and higher participation means a much more productive economy.

There has been a lot of talk in this parliament over the last few months about the demographic destiny Australia faces of an ageing population, a situation where we will have not five employed people to pay for every person on benefits but just 2½. There are three keys to avoiding the so-called democratic time bomb. The first is a higher population, the second is higher participation and the third is higher productivity. This scheme that the coalition announced yesterday is absolutely central to achieving two of those three things. If we have a meaningful, fair dinkum paid parental leave system we will have greater participation by women in our economy and we will also have higher productivity because women who have been in the workforce will be able to stay in the workforce, and they are some of the most productive workers we have.

This is a visionary scheme. What we saw from members opposite today was the carping of small-minded men and women who know that they have been trumped by something that is truly visionary. What we had from those opposite today was almost ludicrous talk of this 1.7 per cent levy on total company incomes over $5 million somehow leading to artificial avoidance, as if a 1.7 per cent difference in a rate is going to lead to massive avoidance—and these are people who have personal income tax rates varying from about 15 per cent to something like 45 per cent. Then we were told that the fluctuations in income were somehow going to make this scheme administratively possible, as if people’s incomes do not fluctuate all the time and as if people and companies and the government that rely on tax revenue cannot cope. It is as if those on the other side are supporting a flat rate of tax for everyone, because that is the only thing that prevents tax minimisation schemes and revenue fluctuations.

Then we heard that there had been insufficient consultation—the charge of insufficient consultation from a government whose cabinet ministers come into the room and are told that some star chamber has decided already what is going to happen to their submissions and the charge of lack of consultation from a Prime Minister who announces health reform to the premiers who are necessary to its carriage with a take-it-or-leave-it letter an hour before he gets up to announce the reform. That is a joke. Then there was the accusation that there was no detail from a government which is proposing a $30 billion health reform, almost none of which can be detailed at this point in time—from a government that is experimenting with the health of Australians.

This is a very important new policy from the coalition, but it is certainly not the last word from us when it comes to helping families. We are the party of Australian families. We are the party that has helped Australian families. We were the best friend of Australian families in government—we were, we are and we will be again. This is outstanding policy and I challenge members opposite—(Time expired)

Jenny Macklin (Jagajaga, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I think the one thing that the Leader of the Opposition got right just then in this matter of public importance debate was that this is not going to be the last word we hear from him. We know it is not going to be the last word because a month ago he said that he would not be increasing taxes to fund policy promises. Now he wants to introduce a tax to raise $2.7 billion to pay for his latest thought bubble. So you are dead right about one thing, Leader of the Opposition: we know this will not be the last word. In a month’s time we will have another backflip from you. We know that this Leader of the Opposition has absolutely no consistency not just on the issue of tax but fundamentally on the whole question of paid parental leave. We can go back to the time when he was a minister in the Howard government. Back in 2002 he said:

I am dead against paid maternity leave as a compulsory thing.

He went on to say:

I think that making businesses pay what seems to them two wages to get one worker. Almost nothing could be more calculated to make businesses feel that the odds are stacked against them.

I think that really says, in a rather convoluted way, that he is against it. He was against paid maternity leave then. He said then—and this has become the famous quote from him: ‘Compulsory paid maternity leave, over this government’s dead body. Frankly it won’t happen under this government,’ and, of course, it did not. When they were in government, for 12 years they had the opportunity to stand up for families in the way that he just described in his flowery language, but we know who the real Tony Abbott is. This is all about him trying to say to Australian women that he really is their friend.

Australian women, Mr Abbott, are a wake-up to you. They know that this is a complete and total sham from the Liberal Party—no detail at all, no timing. We have heard nothing about when this is going to be introduced. We have nothing from the shadow Treasurer—who I gather did not know anything about this policy—about when this great new tax is going to be introduced. When is it going to be introduced, Joe? When are we going to see this great big tax from the Liberal Party? This is the great new tax from the opposition—a $2.7 billion tax. That is what this is about.

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

Mr Abbott interjecting

Jenny Macklin (Jagajaga, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Oh, it is now temporary. This is a new development in the policy. The policy changes every minute. As the Leader of the Opposition said at the end of his remarks, this will not be the last word. He is just making changes as he goes along. It is a levy; it is a tax. Some people like the shadow minister, the member for Murray, say it is not even a tax or a levy; it is something to do with human capital. Goodness knows what she was thinking when she was asked that question. What everybody out there in Australia, and every business person, knows is that this is a new tax. It is already a broken promise from the Leader of the Opposition, who said that he would not introduce any new taxes. As he said to Neil Mitchell, ‘No, no, we will go to the election campaign, Neil, with a list of promises, a list of commitments, and we will fund them without new or increased taxes.’ Was this said 10 years ago or even one year ago? No, on 3 February 2010, the Leader of the Opposition said ‘No new taxes, no increased taxes’. Here we are just a month later with a massive new tax of $2.7 billion to be paid by companies, who will then pass it on to consumers.

In contrast to the ramble from the Leader of the Opposition, who basically cannot be believed on this issue of paid parental leave, what we have from the government is a very detailed and carefully worked out proposal. As I said in question time, when we came to government we asked the Productivity Commission to conduct a major inquiry into support for parents with newborn children and they delivered a very substantial piece of work. It was the result of a considerable number of consultations and submissions that they received from businesses, unions and many families who talked to them about the type of support that they wanted when they have their babies.

We announced that the government would commit itself to the first national paid parental leave scheme in this country, and we made the announcement in the budget. I gather that the Leader of the Opposition had a bit of trouble finding the reference to this in the budget. Just in case he is still having trouble finding the reference, the Leader of the Opposition might like to know that it was actually in Budget Paper No. 2, on page 236.

By contrast to those opposite, who think that they can just deliver a major policy in a few sheets of paper, we have based our policy on this very substantive piece of work that the Productivity Commission did for us. The shadow minister is maligning the Productivity Commission and does not seem to have actually read the recommendations of the Productivity Commission. Right at the front it says:

Key points

• The Australian Government’s statutory paid parental leave scheme should be taxpayer-funded, and should:

provide paid postnatal leave for a total of 18 weeks that can be shared by eligible parents, with an additional two weeks of paternity leave reserved for the father … who shares in the daily primary care of the child

Sharman Stone (Murray, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Early Childhood Education and Childcare) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

With business making up the rest.

Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Murray will get her turn later—or not.

Jenny Macklin (Jagajaga, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Plainly she has not read this. It goes on:

… provide the adult federal minimum wage (currently $543.78) for each week of leave for those eligible, with benefits subject to normal taxation.

The government is introducing a statutory paid parental leave scheme, taxpayer funded—

Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Taxpayer funded!

Jenny Macklin (Jagajaga, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

fully funded in the budget, with no extra tax on companies of $2.7 billion, which the shadow Treasurer must now have signed up to.

Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Hockey interjecting

Jenny Macklin (Jagajaga, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Oh no. He laughs at this, so maybe that is not true. Maybe the shadow Treasurer still has not signed up to the $2.7 billion tax. Maybe they have not signed up to it yet. The shadow Treasurer plainly did not know anything about this proposal. It has not gone to cabinet. The finance spokesperson did not know anything about it either.

The government is delivering on the key recommendations of the Productivity Commission report for a taxpayer funded scheme of 18 weeks at the federal minimum wage. The legislation is being drafted now and will come into the parliament shortly.

Sharon Bird (Cunningham, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Will they support it?

Jenny Macklin (Jagajaga, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The question for the opposition is exactly that: will they support the government’s scheme—which has been carefully worked out, with the advice of the Productivity Commission? Will the opposition provide support to make sure that parents have some certainty and that businesses also have certainty about the introduction of this very important scheme?

Parents right now are thinking about having a baby, bringing a new child into their family, and they want certainty. They want to know whether or not, on 1 January next year, there will be a paid parental leave scheme introduced. The government’s scheme will be introduced into the parliament shortly. The question for the Leader of the Opposition and those opposite is: will they provide certainty to Australian families so that they know that they will get a paid parental leave scheme, which those opposite were never prepared to deliver when they were in government?

Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What about the baby bonus? The baby bonus doesn’t exist anymore!

Jenny Macklin (Jagajaga, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am very pleased that the shadow Treasurer has raised the baby bonus, because this was actually a subject on the Alan Jones program today. I am so pleased that the shadow Treasurer has introduced the whole question of the baby bonus, because not only are those opposite making policy on the run on paid parental leave; they are also making policy on the run on the baby bonus—the other form of support for mothers who have new babies. Alan Jones said:

You’re removing the ceiling that the Rudd government put, a ceiling of $150,000, so the baby bonus is available to all women who have babies.

Tony Abbott: Well, well, what I’m talking about at the moment is paid parental leave. I’m not revisiting, at this point in time, the government’s decision to put a means test on the baby bonus.

Alan Jones: I thought you said you’d scrapped that yesterday.

Well, so did we, but of course that was last week’s policy. Now we are into a new week and a new policy from those opposite—once again, policy on the run, just endless thought bubbles coming out of those opposite. They certainly cannot be trusted when it comes to paid parental leave. They cannot be trusted with other family tax benefit policy. They cannot be trusted with the baby bonus—all of these issues, different positions, different policies, different places. Australian families deserve so much better than that.

Of course, it is a Rudd Labor government that is going to deliver the first paid parental leave scheme to this country. You had the opportunity when you were in government to introduce paid parental leave, but you did not want to do it. In fact, the current Leader of the Opposition said he was dead against it. He said it would be over his dead body. Now, somehow, parents are supposed to believe what he says—that he somehow has had a complete transformation and that somehow he is actually supporting paid parental leave. Australian parents are not going to be conned. They are not going to be conned by this latest thought bubble from the Leader of the Opposition.

Not one business group supports it. Plainly they were not consulted. Not one business group was consulted. We have had the Business Council of Australia, ACCI, the Australian Industry Group—all of these people—out there making absolutely clear that they think that this latest thought bubble from the Leader of the Opposition just is not serious. They know that the truth about this is that it just is not serious. It cannot be believed. It has a massive new tax at the centre of it. It has absolutely no detail and no timing. We have no idea when this is going to be put in place. We have no idea whatsoever when the tax will apply. Some people in the opposition call it a tax and some do not call it a tax. Some people—they include, of course, the economic spokesperson opposite—have no idea how many companies it is going to apply to.

There are so many questions that remain unanswered, because it is all about policy on the run. We have seen all of the main media commentators today showing us what it absolutely is: policy on the run. It is a complete sham, and Australian parents know exactly that. They know that the Leader of the Opposition cannot be trusted when it comes to family policy. This government will deliver the first national paid parental leave scheme in this country. It is what parents deserve. They deserve nothing less.

Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Oh, Jenny; how you have sold your soul! One would have thought that a left-wing member of the Labor Party would have welcomed the opportunity to remove discrimination against women in the workforce. You would have thought the same of Tanya, the member for Sydney. How welcome this initiative should be to remove the in-built discrimination against women in the workforce! Under our proposal, businesses will no longer have a significant financial disincentive to employ women.

Overwhelmingly, women are the ones who take parental leave. Overwhelmingly, women are the ones who take time off to care for a newborn child. Every business during the course of employment ultimately considers behind closed doors the potential costs associated with turnover of staff and maternity leave payments. Under our scheme, whether you are BHP with a small proportion of women workers or you are Woolworths or Coles with a very large proportion of female workers, you are treated exactly the same and there will be a financial incentive to put in place mechanisms that treat women as the equal of men.

Tanya Plibersek (Sydney, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Housing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Ms Plibersek interjecting

Jenny Macklin (Jagajaga, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is a sham, Joe.

Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I say to the cowering members of the government—the ones who are so loud; the plethora of left-wingers who are parading as neocons today—that they should understand that this is an opportunity to address what has been a structural flaw in the economy for some time. This government has been talking for months and months, and the Prime Minister has been talking for years, about improving productivity. But what has the Prime Minister done about it? Nothing. He has done nothing about improving productivity. The government brought forward the Intergenerational report two years in order to say, ‘We are going to do something about the economy and about productivity.’ The three key aspects of the Intergenerational report are population, participation and productivity in order to drive an increase in real GDP. This government’s solution is to say, ‘We’ll have a big Australia with 36 million people.’ I am just not sure that Australians are willing to embrace it. Do you know why they are not willing to embrace it? They are worried that the next generation of Australians are going to inherit a lesser quality of life than that which we have if the population goes to 36 million.

If you want to know how you can improve GDP growth and participation, I can tell you that one of the ways to do it immediately is to encourage people—those people who have been trained and educated at great cost to the economy—to get back into the workforce and to give them a real incentive to stay in employment. As my leader today enunciated in this place, there is a significant dropout by women once they have a child. One of the things that we need to bear in mind is that, if we want to improve the participation rate in Australia, we have to encourage women to come back to the workforce. One of the ways to do that is to have a generous parental payment scheme that puts in place a mechanism that ensures that those people, if they have a second child, a third child or even, happily, a fourth child or more, will have an opportunity not to be financially punished for having a child. That is what this is about. On no issue in the last two years have I been more convinced than on this issue. I will tell you why. It is because for so long I have worked and fought against discrimination against women in the workforce.

Tanya Plibersek (Sydney, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Housing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Ms Plibersek interjecting

Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have always believed in that.

Jenny Macklin (Jagajaga, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

For how long?

Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The louder they are, the more embarrassed they are about the fact that they are trying to oppose a policy such as this. We came to the conclusion that, if we were going to do something about the structural challenge facing the Australian economy over the medium and long term, we had to do something about participation rates and we had to do something about productivity. Here is a policy that does not discriminate against the fast-growing employment centres of small business or against businesses that are generous in their maternity leave payments to women today. Significantly, this is a policy that removes the structural discrimination against the employment of women. You receive the opportunity to continue to have financial security for the six months immediately after the birth of a child—an incentive to keep going—and, at the same time, the cost to Australia is borne by the slightly more than 3,000 companies that are the biggest company taxpayers in the country. We are talking about the biggest company taxpayers in the country—for example, BHP, Rio, the Commonwealth Bank, National Australia Bank, ANZ, Westpac, Telstra and Optus. These are the biggest company taxpayers in the country. We are saying that we are going to increase, as a levy, the contribution of those companies so that we can put in place a structural change that will deliver greater participation in the workforce and, significantly, will grow the economy—and, as it grows the economy, it will pay for itself and the benefits will flow.

The hypocrisy of the Labor Party is once again writ large. It is writ large when they talk about ‘funding promises’. Oh my goodness! You remember the $1 billion computers in schools program that is now $2.2 billion and the Julia Gillard memorial halls that were $14.3 billion and are now $16 billion. How about the blow-out in Medicare—$1.4 billion? How about pharmaceutical expenses—a blow-out of $1.8 billion? How about the Labor Party’s $150 million solar panels program that is now $1 billion? Hello! There are no interjections now!

Government Members:

Government members interjecting—

Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The National Broadband Network—what a cracker that was! Wasn’t the National Broadband Network going to be $4.7 billion? Now it is $43 billion. Oops! That is an Ian Thorpe ‘Oops’. What happened to it? What happened to those tens of billions of dollars? And, by the way, what about the great iconic moment when the now Prime Minister said, with his hand on his heart, in those ads with Brisbane as a backdrop, ‘My fellow Australians, I am a fiscal conservative’? Well, in those days we used to have budget surpluses. In those days, we actually had money in the bank. What happened to those days? The $30 billion deficit—seven years of deficits—to fund one-quarter of negative growth. ‘And, by the way, sometime in the 2020s we will manage to pay off that debt.’

Kevin Rudd will never deliver a surplus budget. Kevin Rudd will never pay off Labor’s debt. Ultimately, the buck stops not with the Prime Minister—in his own words—but with taxpayers. That is what Labor does, writ large. Labor spends and says: ‘It comes out of this tree. It falls from the tree like the leaves in autumn. The money comes down and we will scoop it up and we will dish it out to the poor.’ Well, it does not quite work like that. Money has real value. The money that comes in is taxpayers’ money. It is not Kevin Rudd’s money, and thank God it is not Wayne Swan’s money. It is actually real money. We are saying: if you want to grow the tree into a forest, if you want to grow the economy, you have to invest. When you invest, Australia reaps the rewards. Our policy is costed, it is funded, it is real and it removes discrimination. The louder the Labor Party protests, the more I am convinced this is a damn good policy.

Danna Vale (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I call the Minister for the Status of Women.

Luke Simpkins (Cowan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

How many houses have you built, Tanya?

Tanya Plibersek (Sydney, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Housing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We have more than 8,000 underway at the moment. Thanks very much for asking. What an extraordinary question.

It is great to have this opportunity to talk about paid parental leave. I went to see Alice in Wonderland with the kids on the weekend, and it feels like I am still there. The only thing that is missing here is the 3-D glasses. We had the Red Queen, the member for Indi, talking earlier about big business and how appalling big business is and how they should be punished with greater taxes. It is like everything has turned upside down. And just then we had the member for North Sydney, the shadow Treasurer. The character he probably reminded me of most was the Cheshire Cat, because he would sort of start off on one train of thought over here and then disappear suddenly and turn up here on the National Broadband Network or on something else—I do not even remember where he went.

He went through the discussion of whether the Prime Minister was a fiscal conservative. We certainly know who is not a fiscal conservative. We know that the shadow Treasurer is not a fiscal conservative. We know that the shadow finance minister is not a fiscal conservative. We know most of all that the Leader of the Opposition is not a fiscal conservative, because every time a thought pops into his head he makes some half-hearted announcement, some uncosted, unfunded announcement that sometime in the future, perhaps, they are going to levy something—I do not know whether we are describing it as a ‘temporary levy’ now or as a ‘new tax’. Is it a temporary levy? Oh, it is a tax, because the shadow finance minister said it was a tax today. They are going to levy that sometime in the future. We are not sure when. There is no start date for this. There are people out there now considering whether they will have a family next year. They do not know whether they will benefit from this policy that has been floated by the opposition. We know that they are not fiscal conservatives.

It was extraordinary to hear the shadow Treasurer talk about the structural inequalities in the Australian workplace. Wow! Where did those inequalities come from? After 12 years in government, yes, there have been structural inequalities in the Australian workplace. There have been structural inequalities in the Australian workplace for years, as the shadow Treasurer said. He very conveniently neglected to say how many years he was talking about. The other extraordinary thing the shadow Treasurer said in his disjointed comments was that this is a scheme that pays for itself because of increased workforce participation. I reckon that there have been women in the Australian community for decades saying that paid parental leave will pay for itself because of increased productivity over time. They were saying it every single day of the previous 12 years of the coalition government. They were knocking on John Howard’s door, they were knocking on Tony Abbott’s door, they were knocking on Joe Hockey’s door, they were knocking on Barnaby Joyce’s door, they were probably even knocking on Sharman Stone’s door and they were saying, ‘It is an outrage that Australia is one of only two developed countries in the whole of the Western world that has no paid parental leave scheme.’ Women and men in the Australian community have been saying for years that it is wrong socially, it is wrong for babies, it is wrong for mothers, it is wrong for families and—guess what—it is wrong for the Australian economy and for the Australian workplace not to have this benefit available to families.

And what did Labor do? On coming to government we said immediately that we would provide this paid parental leave scheme. We asked the Productivity Commission to examine the best way of doing this to allow maximum benefit for babies, for families, for mothers and fathers, and for business. The Productivity Commission undertook extensive consultation right across the country. They talked to business leaders, community members and families about what they need in their lives, and they came up with a very sensible proposal. It was a proposal that this government was prepared to back with a fully funded, fully costed scheme that would, absolutely guaranteed, be introduced from January next year—unless, of course, the opposition vote against it. We do not know yet whether they are going to vote for the paid parental leave scheme that they know is a commitment of this Labor government.

Jenny Macklin (Jagajaga, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You can tell us, Sharman, in your remarks.

Tanya Plibersek (Sydney, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Housing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It would be terrific if the shadow minister were to confirm, in her remarks, that the opposition will be backing this paid parental leave scheme that the government has proposed. Now let us just say that sometime in the future, in years to come, Tony Abbott does become Prime Minister. He would be able at that stage to introduce a different, expanded paid parental leave scheme should he wish to. But I will tell you what: there are Australian families out there now trying to work out how they are going to pay the mortgage next year if they have a baby. If the Labor scheme, the government’s scheme—

Sharman Stone (Murray, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Early Childhood Education and Childcare) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Dr Stone interjecting

Tanya Plibersek (Sydney, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Housing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Oh, the minimum wage is not good enough to pay for people’s rent or mortgage! There are a lot of people who are surviving on the minimum wage, and you fought every increase in the minimum wage when you were in government. Every increase in the minimum wage was opposed by the previous government—and now you are saying it is not enough for people to pay the mortgage or the rent. It might have been worth remembering that when you opposed increases to the minimum wage at every opportunity you got.

Let us talk a little bit about the record of the opposition when it comes to Work Choices. It was fascinating to hear the questions today from members of the opposition who were asking, ‘How are these people on middle wages going to survive when they are on paid parental leave?’ When they were in government, did they ever take the opportunity to improve people’s pay and conditions? Every single change they made was detrimental to the interests of workers, particularly low- and middle-income workers. Let us think a little bit about what happened under Work Choices and AWAs. Sixty-three per cent of AWAs cut penalty rates, 52 per cent cut shift work loadings, 51 per cent cut overtime loadings, 48 per cent cut monetary allowances, 46 per cent cut public holiday pay, 40 per cent cut rest breaks, 36 per cent cut declared public holidays and 22 per cent provided workers with no pay rise—some for up to five years. It is worth remembering, isn’t it, what happened when they were in government and the record that they have for delivering worse pay and worse conditions than previously.

Sharman Stone (Murray, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Early Childhood Education and Childcare) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Dr Stone interjecting

Tanya Plibersek (Sydney, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Housing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The shadow minister is defending Work Choices because it is actually Liberal Party policy to reintroduce it. We know that. They might change the name, because the name does not poll very well, but they are not going to change the policy, are they? Women working full-time on AWAs took home on average $87.40 less per week than their colleagues working on collective agreements.

Jenny Macklin (Jagajaga, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That was equal!

Tanya Plibersek (Sydney, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Housing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It was very good, wasn’t it? The former minister over there is very proud of that record. Women working on AWAs in casual jobs earn $94 per week less than women on collective agreements—another proud moment for the Howard Liberal government. Do you remember the examples of AWAs that we had? There were workers at Chili’s Restaurant in Wollongong who had to pay out of their own pockets if a customer left without paying their bill. Sixteen-year-old Amber Oswald, who worked for Pow Juice, was presented with an AWA that dropped her hourly pay rate from $9.52 to $8.57 and abolished her penalty rates altogether—sign up or lose your hours. Remember Spotlight’s Annette Harris? She was told that she was going to lose shift penalties and other benefits worth $90 a week in return for a pay rise of 2c an hour. Do you remember the six mums from the mushroom farm who were sacked after they refused to sign up to AWAs with a 25 per cent pay cut?

When we hear this concern for the working women of Australia, I do not believe it, and I will tell you what: the working women of Australia do not believe it, because they remember your record in government.

Sharman Stone (Murray, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Early Childhood Education and Childcare) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Australia and the United States are, shamefully, the last two countries to introduce mandated paid parental leave. Therefore you would think that, when Labor introduced their paid parental leave policy in May 2009, there would have been universal rejoicing in this country. You would think that there would have been full-page ads from the unions. You would think that there would have been women, children and family advocates popping champagne corks around the country. Instead, there was an eerie silence. There was embarrassment. There were shamed faces and there was mass disappointment amongst those who had put in a careful submission to the Productivity Commission, who had begged Labor to present a paid parental leave policy that would make a difference for families who wanted to have children and maintain their careers.

In fact Labor ignored the advice of the Productivity Commission, international experience and the pleas of families. What did it produce? A cheapskate, miserable 18 weeks of paid parental leave at the minimum wage. You are actually being encouraged to take out a calculator to see if you would be better off remaining on a baby bonus payment—it depends when you have your baby—than taking Labor’s new paid parental leave option. That is how cheapskate and mean-spirited Labor’s policy proposal is. Since it is such a miserable, cheapskate scheme costing only $280 million for a year, why is it not coming in until 2011, after the election? Because I do not think anybody in the Labor Party wanted the public really to focus on what their paid parental leave consisted of. You are ashamed and the public out there are disappointed.

The coalition have said: ‘Enough is enough. We have to have a paid parental leave scheme which gives families the opportunity to have children and for the primary carer to take six months off work but still be able to pay the mortgage.’ That is not the case under Labor’s policy. Can you imagine a teacher, a nurse or someone else on the average Australian wage asking: can I survive with our $200,000 to $300,000 mortgage, on average, with a huge drop in income over six months—Labor offers only four months, of course—on the minimum wage? It is simply not on. We would see primary carers in families unable to take up parental leave. We do not think that is good enough for this country, so we have offered six months paid parental leave at a person’s wage, up to a salary of $150,000.

Advocates of big business might be out there saying, ‘We don’t like that,’ but why are we surprised? Big business has stood apart from paid parental leave and have refused to offer it, except in a very small proportion of cases, for women in the workforce, so why would it now be embracing the notion that we would extend paid parental leave across the economy to all families and asking it to make a contribution if they have a business taxable income of over $5 million? We are not surprised at the way the business sector has responded—that is, the big business sector. Let me tell you how a microbusinesswoman has responded. Anita Tuttle is a fantastic small business woman with a great little hairdressing business called The Barber Shop in Corio Street, Shepparton.

Tanya Plibersek (Sydney, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Housing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Will she get it if she’s self-employed?

Sharman Stone (Murray, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Early Childhood Education and Childcare) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Of course she will. Listen up! Indeed, in your program she would not have had superannuation. Anita is in her early 20s and has one employee. Under our scheme she will be able to have her income replaced for six months, which means that she will be able to continue to employ her one employee and she will be able to keep her business open. When she looked at Labor’s policy she said, ‘I can’t have a second child.’ She had to work up to the day before she went into labour with her first child and she went back to work after five days. She could not afford to take more time under Labor’s policy, nor could she afford to keep her other worker in place on the minimum wage. Under our scheme, Aneeta will be able to continue her small business, she will be able to continue to pay her employee and she will, in fact, encourage her employee to start her family. That is the way it should be. That is the way it will be under the coalition. We commend Labor to rethink their policy. (Time expired)

Sharryn Jackson (Hasluck, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am pleased to have the opportunity to participate in this debate. This morning I was interested to note some of the comments of members of the opposition as they came in through the Parliament House doors. On Sky News a member of the Leader of the Opposition’s own team, the member for Fadden, when trying to explain the Leader of the Opposition’s backflip on paid parental leave and his broken promise on no new taxes, said:

Tony Abbott has been on a journey …

I guess my question is: to where and on what substance? It certainly is a substantial change—

Darren Cheeseman (Corangamite, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

More like a trip.

Sharryn Jackson (Hasluck, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Quite a trip! It is quite a change in policy from the Leader of the Opposition and almost as big a joke, frankly, as the shadow Treasurer trying to lecture us on economics. This is a party that had 12 long years in government to truly value women’s participation in the workforce. Whilst I know there are many women members of the Liberal Party who would like to see a substantial improvement in and a recognition of the value of women’s work, it is fair to say that, if we look at the evidence of the last decade or more, the position of women in fact went backwards. I know this from recently having chaired an inquiry into pay equity and matters associated with women’s participation in the workforce where we had 150 or more submissions over 29 public hearings and 17 months consideration of what actions we should take as a government to improve the position of women.

In terms of the previous government’s record, I know that they were criticised for abolishing the Affirmative Action Agency, one of the agencies that had been committed to advancing women’s employment status; that they were criticised for relegating the Women’s Interests portfolio from Prime Minister and Cabinet to the portfolio of family and children’s services; and that they oversaw the introduction of Work Choices and other employment policies that saw the rights and living conditions of many women workers go backwards. For me, of greatest concern was that the gender pay gap widened.

So much of our life is involved with work, whether working for someone or for ourselves. One constant—at least until the Howard government’s so-called Work Choices legislation—was the minimum award safety net. No matter what type of employment arrangement you were in, there were legal minimum payments below which it was unlawful to go. Of course, Work Choices changed that. We know from question time today and from the Howard government’s own review of AWAs in May 2006 that the AWAs of 64 per cent of people cut annual leave loading, 63 per cent cut penalty rates, 52 per cent cut shift work loadings, 51 per cent cut overtime loadings and 48 per cent cut monetary allowances.

I referred earlier to the inquiry that led to the Making it fair report of the Standing Committee on Employment and Workplace Relations. I am sad to say that, of the 63 recommendations in that report, only some, not all, were supported by members of the opposition. But I am pleased to see what appears to be a change of heart. I would say that, if people had listened to or read the submissions, they would know that there are many changes occurring in the workforce, particularly towards the participation of women. Many are being initiated, especially by large companies, and many people are trying to attack the barriers to women’s greater participation in the workforce. Frankly, it is a much broader issue than simply that of paid parental leave.

I am disappointed that today there was no reference made to changes in child care. There was no reference made to flexible working hours and the new right that women have under the Fair Work Act to request part-time work. There were no comments other than, I think, from the shadow minister for the status of women about pay equity, an issue I know she is passionate about. There was no discussion of the need for greater professional development and training, and there was nothing in any of the presentations today about the discrimination that we still need to address in the workforce.

The Rudd government is determined to make real progress in advancing the status of women in the workplace and we are leading by example, with women occupying and excelling in many of the most senior positions in the government. I know that there is further work to be done but I look forward to—hopefully with this new change of heart—some bipartisan support for the recommendations of the Making it fair report so that we can genuinely begin to tackle and properly value women’s participation in the workforce. (Time expired)

Danna Vale (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The discussion has now concluded.