Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Corporate Governance and Responsibility) Share this | Hansard source

For the benefit of the chamber, I will indicate the opposition’s position on this amendment. This matter has come up previously, Senator Siewert—through you, Mr Temporary Chair. I hope Senator Siewert is aware that we are also concerned about this issue. In the absence of being able to cost this particular amendment, we are not able at this time to support the specific amendment. However, I do place on record, as I have previously, Labor’s recognition of the anomaly which exists in the current legislation and our concern as to the effect on children of the government’s rather odd administrative arrangement, under which it appears to be that whoever gets there first gets the principal carer status.

I have previously raised our concerns with this in estimates, so our position is well known. But we are of the view that we do need to be very clear about what effect the detail of this amendment would have and, if elected, we would consider this issue. As my colleague in the House Ms Macklin has stated, we are closely monitoring the impact of the intersection of the Welfare to Work laws, the importance of principal carer status and the promotion of shared care under family law to make sure that parents with largely shared caring responsibility are not disadvantaged.