Paid Parental Leave

Paid parental leave is a proud Labor achievement. It speaks to our values and our determination to build a better future for Australians and Australian families. It speaks to our values of fairness and it speaks to our values of opportunity not just for those who work but also for new children, when they come into the world, to spend time with both their parents in those incredibly challenging but important first weeks and months of their lives.

It was 50 years ago this year that we saw the very first steps towards implementing into Australia's laws what was then called maternity leave. That was legislation from the Whitlam government in 1973 to enact 12 weeks of paid maternity leave for women who worked in the Australian Public Service. It was a welcome reform, but it was amazing that we didn't make much progress for many, many decades after that. I also note that that legislation, quite unheard of for the time, did also include one week of legislated leave for male employees.

The next big investment from the Commonwealth, when it came to ensuring support for parents in those early years, was the massive investment from Paul Keating and the Keating government in early childhood care centres across this country. It was the first time that the Commonwealth had really stepped into that space. It's a legacy which we continue today, with our other reforms ensuring we will have cheaper child care from 1 July this year. This is something that, again, is well overdue.

Then, on 10 May 2009, Mother's Day, we had the announcement from the Rudd government that the Commonwealth would support a massive economic reform of paid parental leave—a universal scheme. We had seen so many schemes that had existed for people who had bargained for them in their enterprise agreements or in particular sectors, such as the public sector, but what Australia lacked and what our economy needed was a universal scheme, and I note that the origins of that scheme came from a reference given by a Labor government to the Productivity Commission. The Productivity Commission said we needed a universal scheme because it was in our national economic interest. That is what this legislation is about, our national economic interest. It will deliver a seismic shift for families who want to spend time with their children and have the economic security that they deserve in the early months of a child's life.

I reflect on the purpose of the legislation we're amending in the comments made by then-minister Jenny Macklin in introducing that bill, which so succinctly speak to all of the benefits delivered when we invest in paid parental leave. Then-minister Macklin said:

Paid parental leave will give babies the best start in life. It means one parent has the financial security to take time off work to care for their baby at home during the vital early months of their baby's life. It will give mothers time to recover from birth and bond with their baby.

After that incredibly successful piece of legislation that has helped thousands of families in my electorate, and probably almost a million families across Australia, we're taking the next step, the step towards increasing that to 26 weeks, six whole months, and providing more opportunities for families to share the leave to make sure that both parents, or both carers, have the opportunity to manage both their work responsibilities and their return to work and their exciting new responsibilities as the parent of a new bub.

There were 2,102 zero- to one-year-olds in the Perth electorate on census night—that is, 2,102 families juggling with the challenge of how you bring in and give a child the best start in life while making sure that you are economically secure. I am so fortunate to have been one of those families, with my wife, Jess, who have benefited from the scheme that Minister Macklin, prime ministers Rudd and Gillard and this parliament brought into being.

Let's talk about what this bill does to give more families access to the sorts of support they need. Firstly, it combines the payments into a single 20-week scheme. That is the first step. That is what we're going to do from 1 July this year. We will reserve two weeks of that for each parent to make sure that each parent has time with their child. We're going to simplify claims and processing by removing the categories of primary and secondary carer so parents have more flexibility in accessing the payments. We will expand access to the scheme by introducing the $350,000 income test. It's important to note that single parents will be able to access the full $350,000 income test, rather than being restricted to a $156,647 limit, because we know the challenges for single parents when they have a new bub in their life. If we can do a bit more to help them, we should, and that is exactly what we're doing. It will also allow eligible fathers and partners to access the payment, irrespective of whether the mother or birth parent meets the income test or residency requirements, so supporting more families to spend time with their children. As is the case with the current scheme, this sits on top of the current employer schemes to ensure that the industrial entitlements people have bargained for over many years are preserved.

The first time I took paid parental leave was in 2017. I was not a member of this place at this time. I was the state secretary of the Western Australian branch of the Labor Party, a political party that might not be close to your heart, Deputy Speaker Goodenough, but is still a very important part of the democratic institutions of Western Australia. I give thanks for that experience. When we knew a bub was on the way, I had a chat with the then party president, Carolyn Smith, and the Premier at the time, Mark McGowan, who had recently been elected, to say, 'I'm going to take 2½ months off at the end of the year because we've got a little bub on the way.' It was an incredible time, being able to spend that time with Jess and our new baby boy, Leo, in the heart of the Perth electorate I probably saw more of what would then become my electorate in those three months than I have at any other time because I was able to just spend it enjoying the wonders of being out and about with a new baby. One of the first events that we took Leo to while I was on paid parental leave was the celebration of Australians voting for marriage equality. It was pretty special taking Leo to that. I also had the joy of taking him—standing right up the back with his little headphones on—to a Paul McCartney concert during that time.

When our second child was due to arrive, I was very fortunate to be a member of this place, and I think we've seen time and time again that we are very fortunate that members are afforded leave with their families when children come along, and I think it's a credit to leaders of all parties in this place that that is accommodated. I will talk about my experience. Firstly, the then Leader of the Opposition, Anthony Albanese, was very supportive. Our bub Ruby was born during COVID in 2020 and that came with some particular challenges around travel and other things, and I really do appreciate the support of the leader of my party in accommodating all of those needs. I remember, towards the end of my three months of leave that I had taken from being here in the parliament, speaking to the Leader of the Opposition and saying, 'Look, I feel like I could come back.' It was February and I had that big sense of FOMO. I'm so grateful for the leadership he provided in saying: 'No, no, no. You don't need to rush back here. Parliament will still be here in March. Stick to your schedule.' That's exactly what I did, and it was a wonderful piece of advice.

I think about the challenges that we all have in this place when our staff, very fortunately, add new children to their lives. Last year, the Perth electorate office welcomed baby Eloise and if I can say on the record in this place congratulations to Dylan and Amy on the birth of that wonderful child. Equally, we welcomed baby Jude, who recently had his first birthday, and congratulations to Marissa and Matt on one wonderful year of parenting. Then, foreshadowing things to come, we've also got two wonderful children, Cillian and Sean, children of Aoife and Aaron, who now have the school and childcare juggles that so many families have, which is why it's important that we don't support parents just in these first six months—as we're dealing with in this piece of legislation—but that we support parents and working families throughout those critical early years. We know it puts pressure on family budgets, and we know that there are families that are doing it tough right now, so this is one thing we can do to support families, but it comes in partnership with a whole range of other important policies to support working families to make sure they can give their kids the best start in life. It works in partnership with our plans for the middle of this year to deliver cheaper child care, so that, when you no longer are able to spend every waking moment with your beloved new child and you hand them over for the first time to a highly qualified early childhood educator, you are able to do that without it breaking the bank.

The supports we will put in place, which will come into effect in the middle of this year, will make child care more affordable for 1.2 million families. And, because of the National Quality Framework, which was introduced more than a decade ago, again, by this side of the House, we know that the quality of child care and the quality of early childhood education and care is so much more than it was just a few decades ago—again, giving children the best start in life. If you think about the other things that educate children and help them understand how the world works, I'm proud that we're part of a government that introduced ABC Kids—one of the great investments in our public broadcaster.

I'm pleased that this year, for families whose children might need medication either on an ongoing basis or on an ad hoc basis—again, because this government was elected—medicines are $12.50 cheaper. That does make a difference when you're pushing the pram, as I do, to the Beaufort Street chemist and you see that things are getting cheaper when it comes to those absolute essentials—and products on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme are essential. Doing what we can to make them cheaper is something that we should, and have, done. At the same time, when parents go back to work after having had that great six months of paid parental leave—coming into effect from 2026— we want to make sure that they are going back to secure, well-paid jobs. That's why you've seen us pass legislation to enhance job security. It's why you've seen us take action by writing to Fair Work to back a pay increase for those on the lowest of wages—the minimum wage. Again, that's something that we should all welcome.

If we think about the challenges we have when it comes to making sure that parents, when they are on the government paid parental leave scheme and are returning to work, have good, secure, well-paid jobs, we have to be honest that we still have some big challenges ahead of us when it comes to delivering on gender equality. We know from the Workplace Gender Equality Agency's 2020-21 employer census that women continue to dominate part-time and casual roles. They are more likely to be in insecure forms of casual work. We know that currently only two out of every five full-time employees are women. And the gender pay gap, while it continues to reduce, means that women, on average, earn $25,800 less per year than men. There is no cause for this other than that we haven't, to this point, got the policy design right to deliver true gender equality, and this legislation we are debating today is one step towards that.

We also know there's a severe underrepresentation of women when it comes to CEOs and roles of business leadership. Only two out of every five managers are women. And we know there is so much more to be done in terms of ensuring that we lift up our entire society by achieving gender equality. Gender equality is business for all of us. Gender equality is about making sure that those children who will be benefitting from spending more time with their families, more time with their parents, their carers or their mums and dads will, when they grow up and enter the workforce, be entering a workforce where we have ensured pay equity, proper equality of opportunity, and the equal, fair society that every Australian expects us in this place to be working towards.