Source document: https://docs-lawep.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/1697641694850.pdf (Australia)
COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA Official Committee Hansard SENATE COMMUNITY AFFAIRS LEGISLATION COMMITTEE Reference: Paid Parental Leave Bill 2010; Exposure draft of legislation implement- ing the government’s announced paid parental leave scheme FRIDAY, 14 MAY 2010 CANBERRA BY AUTHORITY OF THE SENATE THIS TRANSCRIPT HAS BEEN PREPARED BY AN EXTERNAL PROVIDER INTERNET Hansard transcripts of public hearings are made available on the inter- net when authorised by the committee.
The internet address is: http://www.aph.gov.au/hansard To search the parliamentary database, go to: http://parlinfo.aph.gov.au SENATE COMMUNITY AFFAIRS LEGISLATION COMMITTEE Friday, 14 May 2010 Members: Senator Moore (Chair), Senator Siewert (Deputy Chair), Senators Adams, Boyce, Carol Brown and Furner Substitute members: (As per most recent Senate Notice Paper) Participating members: Senators Abetz, Back, Barnett, Bernardi, Bilyk, Birmingham, Mark Bishop, Bos- well, Brandis, Bob Brown, Bushby, Cameron, Cash, Colbeck, Jacinta Collins, Coonan, Cormann, Crossin, Eggleston, Farrell, Feeney, Ferguson, Fielding, Fierravanti-Wells, Fifield, Fisher, Forshaw, Hanson-Young, Heffernan, Humphries, Hurley, Hutchins, Johnston, Joyce, Kroger, Ludlam, Ian Macdonald, McEwen, McGauran, McLucas, Marshall, Mason, Milne, Minchin, Nash, O’Brien, Parry, Payne, Polley, Pratt, Ronald- son, Ryan, Scullion, Sterle, Troeth, Trood, Williams, Wortley and Xenophon Senators in attendance: Senators Adams, Fisher, Furner, Hanson-Young, Marshall and Moore Terms of reference for the inquiry: To inquire into and report on: Paid Parental Leave Bill 2010; Exposure draft of legislation implementing the government’s announced paid parental leave scheme WITNESSES BIDDINGTON, Ms Jill, Acting Executive Officer, Unions New South Wales ............................................. 1 BRIDGE, Ms Gwynneth May, President, Australian Childcare Alliance .................................................. 53 BRODERICK, Ms Elizabeth, Sex Discrimination Commissioner and Commissioner responsible for Age Discrimination, Australian Human Rights Commission................................................................. 14 BRYANT, Ms Therese, National Women’s Officer, Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees Association ........................................................................................................................................................ 58 BUCHAN, Ms Jessie Bianca, Blake Dawson Women in Leadership Program, Australian Human Rights
 Commission........................................................................................................................................... 14 BURROW, Ms Sharan Leslie, President, Australian Council of Trade Unions........................................... 1 CANNON, Mr Tim, National Research Officer, Australian Family Association....................................... 45 DODS, Ms Virginia, Senior Project Officer, Promotion and Policy Unit, Office of the Child Safety Commissioner, Victoria........................................................................................................................ 12 FRANCIS, Mrs Babette Avita, National and Overseas Coordinator, Endeavour Forum Inc. ................. 37 GREGORY, Mr David, Director, Workplace Policy, Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry............................................................................................................................................................. 19 HARVEY, Mrs Tempe Margaret, President, Kids First Parent Association of Australia........................ 45 JORY, Dr Colin Holford, Nominated Representative for the Committee Hearing, FamilyVoice Australia............................................................................................................................................................ 37 MAMMONE, Mr Daniel, Manager, Workplace Relations and Legal Affairs, Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry ............................................................................................................ 19 McCORMACK, Mr Luke, Queensland Executive Committee Member, Australian Family Association ........................................................................................................................................................ 45 MONGAN, Mr Geoffrey Edward, Member, Endeavour Forum Inc. ......................................................... 37 MONGAN, Mrs Carolyn Mary, Member, Endeavour Forum Inc.
 ............................................................. 37 PURIRI-GIBLIN, Mrs Sariah, Private capacity............................................................................................. 1 SCANNELL, Ms Megan, Senior Project Manager, Promotion and Policy Unit, Office of the Child Safety Commissioner, Victoria............................................................................................................. 12 SMITH, Mr Stephen Thomas, Director, National Workplace Relations, Australian Industry Group ................................................................................................................................................................ 26 TKALCEVIC, Ms Belinda, Industrial Officer, Australian Council of Trade Unions ................................. 1 van BARNEVELD, Dr Kristin, Deputy Secretary, Community and Public Sector Union ....................... 58 WITHERS, Ms Christine, Manager, Promotion and Policy Unit, Office of the Child Safety Commissioner, Victoria ................................................................................................................................... 12 ZIMMERMAN, Mr Russell, Executive Director, Australian Retailers Association ................................. 32 Friday, 14 May 2010 Senate CA 1 Committee met at 9.03 am BIDDINGTON, Ms Jill, Acting Executive Officer, Unions New South Wales BURROW, Ms Sharan Leslie, President, Australian Council of Trade Unions PURIRI-GIBLIN, Mrs Sariah, Private capacity TKALCEVIC, Ms Belinda, Industrial Officer, Australian Council of Trade Unions CHAIR (Senator Moore)—I open this hearing on the Paid Parental Leave Bill 2010, and we have two things in front of us: the exposure draft of the Paid Parental Leave Bill 2010 and the Paid Parental Leave Bill 2010 as introduced into the parliament on Wednesday, 12 May.
We will be providing one report that will cover both the exposure draft and the bill.

What we are going to do, and it is a bit unusual, is that although we have some witnesses who are on their way we will start and see how we go.

This session is due to finish at 10 o’clock and we are really tight today, so I want to give everyone as much chance as possible to share their views.

We have representatives from the Australian Council of Trade Unions and Unions New South Wales.
You have information on parliamentary privilege and the protection of witnesses and evidence.

We have submissions both from the ACTU and from Unions New South Wales—thank you very much.

I will invite both organisations to make an opening statement and then we will go into questions.

Because of the delay with the other two witnesses, they may come in and join us.

Are you ready to start with a statement from the ACTU?

Ms Tkalcevic—The ACTU welcomes this bill.


We would like to take this opportunity to thank and congratulate all the parties who have been responsible for getting it this far.

This is a long-awaited bill.

Many women in the union movement older than I am have been campaigning for paid parental leave for a very long time.

We are very pleased to see that it is almost a reality.
The ACTU first achieved unpaid parental leave in the late seventies, so for a very long time we have been chipping away at improvements—for example, rights for adoptive mothers, rights for fathers in terms of parental leave, the right to request an extension of the length of parental leave and so forth.

We very much look forward to seeing the Paid Parental Leave scheme up and running in 2011.

This bill will significantly improve the workforce participation of working women.
We see that as one of the key tenets of the Paid Parental Leave scheme.

Currently, two-thirds of women—mostly low-paid women— have no paid leave at all to give birth and look after a newborn baby.

Fewer than half of Australian babies are breastfed in the first six months of their life, mostly because of the early return of their mothers to work.

A significant number of mothers must return to work early because they cannot afford not to do so.
The SDA in their submission provided some statistics based on research that they have conducted within their union membership, and 10 per cent of their union members are forced to return to work within six weeks of the birth of their baby because they cannot afford not to.

Most women in the retail sector do not receive any paid parental leave.

Australia is in the bottom third of OECD countries with respect to the capacity of working mothers to participate in the workforce.
Women still earn 17.4 per cent less than men and have almost half the retirement savings of men.

In the view of the ACTU, this state of affairs cannot continue.

We welcome the bill as a very positive first start to addressing the reality of the situation for many women.

We have got a witness here, Sariah, who will tell you her story to support what we are saying.

The reality for women at the moment is that it is incredibly hard and stressful.
If you work in a sector where there is no paid parental leave, the experience of being a working mother can be stressful and unhappy, which is not the way we want that experience to be.

Sariah will hopefully be reinforcing the message of what we need to do now to stop these sorts of things from happening.

Ilana Crawford has a very similar story.

She had to return to work when her baby was only three months old.
Her husband was retrenched last year during the global financial crisis, so she had to then work full time.

She ended up going off on stress leave 12 months later.

She just could not handle it.

Her baby was unwell.

Her testimony is that, had she been entitled to paid parental leave, it would have made the situation so much more bearable.

The ACTU acknowledges that there are concerns about whether the bill represents a good enough model.

We have never said that it is perfect.
There are aspects of the Paid Parental Leave scheme that we have been very clearly on the record as saying that we think require improvements—for example, there should be paid paternity leave so that fathers can support the family and we can make a cultural shift towards equitable COMMUNITY AFFAIRS CA 2 Senate Friday, 14 May 2010 sharing of the caring role; there should be the provision of superannuation on paid parental leave payments; and we should be edging towards a longer quantum, 26 weeks, at full income replacement.
They are our goals.

We do believe that the process that has been undertaken to get to where we are has been robust and disciplined and that we are in a situation where we have a bill in front of us that represents a very good step towards where we want to be.

It will make a real difference to the lives of many families and, in particular, working mothers.

We believe it is a bill we can build on over time to get where we need to go.
We do not wish to retravel the aspects of the model or the scheme; we have done that through the Productivity Commission process; we have done that through the consultation process with the government.

What we would like to do is to focus on making this bill stronger and better.

In our submission we have picked a number of technical areas that we think need to be dealt with.

I could perhaps give a very brief overview of those issues that we have picked up.
We note that the stand- alone legislation means that there will be a number of areas people need to go to in order to find out about their rights and obligations for paid parental leave.

So we would like to see a better linking in the Paid Parental Leave Bill to those other areas—for example, the Fair Work Act, which has all the unpaid parental leave entitlements and related entitlements—so that someone can at least know that there is something else somewhere else that they need to be aware of.
We note that there are no objects of the act and we think that this would be something that the bill would benefit from—something that sets out the principles of the scheme.

In particular, we would like to see an object that makes it very clear that the provisions by the government, and the provisions of this bill, are not intended to replace those that are currently provided by employers.
We would like to see it made very clear that this is intended to supplement existing employer entitlements rather than replace them in the same way that the baby bonus supplements existing employer entitlements currently.

We seek a number of improvements to the eligibility criteria—in particular, the permissible break of service, which is currently at eight weeks.

We think that is a very good initiative.


However, we have some evidence from some unions in particular sectors where significant numbers of women are casual or contract workers—for example, the tertiary sector, the education sector and some of the seasonal workforces like fruit picking and shearing and so on, where they are not engaged for periods of 12 to 16 weeks.
We would like the committee to consider some sort of provision for those women who work in those industries to have an extension to cover those periods.

For example, the tertiary sector has many people who have worked for 20 years or so under those circumstances who would nevertheless not meet the work test.

We note that the National Employment Standards have very different criteria for eligibility that are much more restricted.
We would like to see the National Employment Standards eligibility criteria match those of this bill.

As an alternative, at the very least, we would like to see those women who are entitled to paid leave because of the more generous eligibility criteria—but not entitled to unpaid leave because they have not been with the same employer for 12 months, which is what is in the National Employment Standards—have a right to return to a job at the end of their paid leave.
There will be a portion of women who will be entitled to 18 weeks paid leave but will not be entitled to the corresponding unpaid leave from their employer.

They will have no job to go back to, which is contrary to the objectives of the scheme.

In the event that the committee decides that the NES should not be amended, we would at least then say make some provision to ensure that those women who are entitled to paid leave are entitled to a job when they come back from unpaid leave.
We have made our position clear in relation to the accrual of rights and entitlements for those women on paid leave.

The bill makes no such provision.

We stress how important it is for women, who are already taking a considerable amount of unpaid leave to complement the 18 weeks paid parental leave, when they return to work to get 10 days personal/carers leave.
As a mother of twins, I can tell you that does not stretch very far when you are back at work and your children are in child care and they are sick every week or so because that is where they pick up all of their immunity.

The 10 days goes completely to somehow try to juggle their illnesses and look after them.

There is no room for you to be sick.

Then you are suddenly hit with 12 weeks of school holidays and you only get four weeks of annual leave.
To not be able to accrue a little bit of extra leave when you are, in fact, on paid parental leave makes it more difficult and we would like to see that there is some consideration for that accrual of entitlements during that period.

We note that there is no provision for transmission of paid parental leave from one employer to another where there is a new employer and we have some concerns about that and it does come across in some other areas within the bill as well.
The ACTU is involved with a number of unions in the bargaining around paid COMMUNITY AFFAIRS Friday, 14 May 2010 Senate CA 3 parental leave at the moment.

There are a considerable number of unions that are sitting down and working out with their employers the best way to model the employer paid parental scheme around this new scheme that is going to be coming in.

Our bargaining claim is for 26 weeks full income replacement including super and two weeks paid paternity leave.
We are achieving that in a significant number of workplaces on the basis that the amount provided to the employer from the government is absorbed in that.

The melding of the government instalments with the industrial obligations of the employer is where this is heading.

It is better for the employers.

It is easier.

The employees like it because they get 26 weeks on normal wages plus super.
There are no two accounts, there are no different payments—it is very clear and simple—but when there is a transmission of business situation the employer is not necessarily distinguishing between where that money is coming from.

That is something that will need to be considered in this bill.
I think it needs to be considered in a range of other areas as well where it is not necessarily in reality the situation that the employer and the government amounts of money towards a paid parental leave entitlement that the employee ultimately receives are so easily distinguished.

We praise the bill on the compliance mechanisms.

We are pleased to see that they are strong and robust.

We are conscious that there are a lot of obligations on employees in terms of making the application.
It is pretty much up to the employee to make the application and to be aware of their rights and entitlements and we are conscious of the fact that this will be up and running, people will be able to make a claim, within a matter of months now.

We would like to stress the importance of getting the information out to employees so that they know what to do and how to go about it.
We have looked at the Fair Work Act and the obligation on employers to distribute the fair work information statement and we consider that that would be an appropriate model to disseminate information about the Paid Parental Leave scheme too.
In summary we would also comment, because it is not necessarily to do with the bill, on the importance of the implementation of the scheme and the requirement for adequate resourcing and establishing of support systems to make sure that it goes through smoothly and that employees and parents have an entitlement to get any issues resolved or have access to easily disseminated information such as websites or phone lines and that sort of thing.
That would need to happen fairly quickly and fairly efficiently, within the next few months really, for employees to know where to go.

In addition, we seek that the terms of the review of the Paid Parental Leave Bill, which I think have been set for 2013 or 2014, depending on which review it is, have their objectives broadened to consider the overall effectiveness of the scheme, not just the particular aspects that have been mooted by the policy to date.
There are just a couple of points that we wanted to make in relation to some of the submissions that we have seen put up on the committee’s website.

We note that there are some concerns from small businesses regarding the administration of the scheme and the potential costs.
We have some evidence that suggests that the issues about payroll updates and so forth are perhaps not as substantial as we might be led to believe by some organisations, however the ACTU’s view is that if there is a genuine need for some support or assistance from the government to small business we would support that.
We also note that there are some organisations who are anxious to ensure equity between mothers in paid and unpaid work to ensure that there is genuine choice for mothers in terms of how they wish to go about managing their work and family.
Our calculations show that the financial value of the baby bonus, in terms of the tax offsets, in terms of the welfare entitlements and so forth, is pretty much equivalent to that of the paid parental leave scheme, depending on when your baby is born and what your particular financial structure is.

In principle we would support the notion that they remain equitable and that women have genuine choice, and we would support an indexation formula that ensured that that would continue into time.
The ACTU is fully committed to supporting this bill, and we ask all politicians to support the bill.

We think that, while it is not perfect, it is a very good model with very good foundations for us to build on, and we would like to see it introduced so that women like Sariah do not have to have the experience that she had with her first born.
Hopefully when it comes to her second child she will have a much different experience thanks to the work of this committee and all the politicians who have assisted to get the bill this far.

CHAIR—Unions NSW, how are you going to handle this?

Ms Biddington—We would prefer to begin with Sariah’s statement, if we could.

Mrs Puriri-Giblin—Two and a half years ago my husband and I planned to have a baby.
We planned that I would work up until I was at least eight months pregnant, and we would use my annual leave to have time off when my baby came.

My husband also planned to take off at least three weeks as well, but unexpectedly on 21 February 2008 all our plans were pretty much thrown out the window.

My pregnancy was not going too well, COMMUNITY AFFAIRS CA 4 Senate Friday, 14 May 2010 and I was admitted to hospital.
I was told by the doctor that my baby was missing heartbeats and that they needed to do an emergency c-section straight away.

I had no idea what was going on, and my husband was in tears because the doctor had said to him that my son and I had a 50 per cent chance of living.

My husband was not allowed to come in with me, so he had to wait outside for the outcome.

At 3.45 I had my son; they took him straight to the neonatal intensive care unit at Nepean Hospital.
He was attached to cords, he was in an incubator and he only weighed 650 grams.

We were grateful for the hospital helping us at the time, looking after our baby.

Seven weeks after that I returned to work, because we were having financial difficulties and we were worried about losing our house.

Going back to work was very stressful for me.

I was not in the right frame of mind.

I am a manager there and I was not really doing what a manager should be doing.
I was really stressed out; I was probably messing up a lot.

I was always the thinking about my child.

When I went back to work my day pretty much started at six in the morning.

I would drop off my husband at work, I would go to work myself and then I would go and pick up my husband and we would go to the hospital.

I had to breastfeed my son and then express milk before I left.

When we went home I had to prepare dinner.


Then I would return to the hospital again to feed my son, and then return home again to express more milk.

I had to keep expressing milk because the doctors said breastmilk would help my son grow.

My husband went back to work the day after I had my son and he has not had a day off since then.
Having a premature baby means that the child normally stays in the hospital up to full term, depending on the situation, and because my son has chronic lung disease, at 25 weeks this means that he would have to stay in hospital for at least 15 weeks.

Going back to work was tough.

I never stopped thinking about him.

I would have to express milk every three hours so that I did not lose my milk when my baby came home.

My work does not have the facilities for me to breastfeed.
I was expressing milk in a crew room.

I felt really uncomfortable because the lock was not working on it and there was a big gaping hole down the bottom.

I pretty much had to express milk with my foot holding the door.

The majority of our staff are under 18, so I guess they do not see the need for supplying a more comfortable room.

The added stress of returning to work caused difficulties with my breastmilk and my milk started to dry up.
My doctor had to prescribe me with medication so that my milk would come back.

That happened for only a little while and then it pretty much died off.

The World Health Organisation recommends that all babies should be breastfed for at least six months because breastmilk has the nutrients and antibodies that a baby needs in order to grow and fight infections.

For my son this is more important because of his undeveloped organs and he is more prone to infections.
His arrival, along with increasing living costs, has meant that it was impossible for me to take six month’s unpaid leave.

Every mother wants the best for her child.

The first six months of a child’s life is crucial for a mother to be able to bond with her child.

Other than worrying about the ongoing health of my son, I worry about how we will be able to cope financially.

My son’s eyes at the time had not developed, so they said that he might have to come home on oxygen.
Thankfully, that did not happen.

We brought him home without oxygen.

If I had had paid maternity leave it would have taken a lot of stress off my husband and me, and it would have helped us out a lot.

While this is just one story, I know that there are other mums whose babies were also at the hospital at the time and they were also in the same condition as me.

Some of them had to come from Bathurst, Orange and all over the place because they did not have acute units where they were from.
I think it is critical that Australia introduces paid maternity leave so that families are not overburdened financially and so that babies get the best out of life by being able to be breastfed for the first six months.

CHAIR—Ms Biddington, do you want to add anything?

Ms Biddington—Yes, and thank you for the opportunity to speak to you about the submission from Unions New South Wales.
As a union official the whole issue of equity for women and addressing those concerns that come out of what has been the traditional role for women as being the carers and nurturers of babies has been a constant in my working life, and I know that there are others who have worked far longer than I have.

Sadly, at this stage, I am thinking about those good people who have worked for the achievement of paid parental leave and who are no longer with us to celebrate this significant step.
At the outset, Unions New South Wales believe that the significance of this bill—the proposition that it be a universal scheme for all—has got widespread benefits for a range of people.
Clearly, the way we processed our claim in relation to the paid parental leave claim was based on a child centred model, not on workers, so the universal scheme was therefore what we were looking for, because it COMMUNITY AFFAIRS Friday, 14 May 2010 Senate CA 5 would have particular benefits for a whole range of women who are not necessarily covered by industrial legislation.

Key to that is the opportunity for parents, particularly the mother, to have time to bond with an infant.
We are very concerned by the number of women who find themselves in situations of having to return to work up to one week after confinement.

Not only is there then concern about the health of the mum but also about the ongoing relationship between the infant and the mother.

We see this bill as having particular benefits, wider than just the relieving the financial stress in society.
Clearly that is something which should be considered in terms of the primary and coparents, but there are also benefits in terms of broader community health.

There is evidence that mental health incidents in postconfinement or in situations of misadventure in birthing is really quite common.

Beyondblue is an organisation that has recently released guidelines about that.

So we are conscious that this goes beyond the individual.
They say that a child needs a community to be raised, and that is the centre of our consideration in this.

That does not mean that we are not very conscious of the significance of relieving the financial pressures on families, particularly on women who find themselves without a work identity and no income.

We believe that this scheme being universal and available is critical to that.
We acknowledge also what the World Health Organisation says about the value of breastfeeding for babies where that is possible.

Unions NSW takes absolutely no joy in seeing our country’s name on the list of two remaining OECD countries in the world without any universal scheme for parents to have access to leave for child-bearing.

And that cuts deep.
And that cuts deep.

For a country that is remarkably acknowledged for being civilised and having a range of wins on the board in terms of early voting rights for women, we are very much at the last of the run on this one.

But there is more significance in not coming last, I believe.

In considering what could be done about this problem—which it feels like has existed since we started walking—we come to 2010 realising there is an opportunity for this bill to become effective in January next year.
So our primary message today is that Unions NSW strongly urges all politicians to pass this bill.

We would prefer a situation of neutrality amongst all political parties and political leaders.

We believe that this is fundamentally about community and that is good for the whole nation.

It is not an issue where having a child is the problem of people who work.

If we are going to have a nation of well-adjusted healthy individuals in the future, then that becomes a community consideration.
It is not an issue of—as I have been told so many times by people—’We never had it, so why do they need support to have babies?’ On the weekend, as part of my role, I had approximately 150 conversations with people at the Sydney Mother’s Day Classic and I have decided that grandfathers are perhaps the easiest group of people to get support from for this bill.

They relate very clearly to the financial stress that they felt as dads and that they see their children’s families dealing with.
There is most certainly a very hardcore group of women who do believe that, if you want to have babies, you pay for it yourself.
But there are also very widespread and very brave young women who said to their dads and mums on that day, ‘If this is something I am going to get, I want you to sign that petition, now.’ So I do believe that this is a generational problem, where the way women have been regarded for years has been in that construct of being the gender that bears the children and provides the nurturing.

That is how it has been but that does not mean that that is how it has to be any further.
For Unions New South Wales this is a no-brainer.

We do not want workers to have experiences like Suria.

It is not a perfect model, we acknowledge that, but we also acknowledge that there is a low-paid third of women who, from 1 January, would be relieved to the extent of their full pay.
We acknowledge that the others who will not be compensated to the extent of their full wage rate and their superannuation will not receive the same the advantage as that lower third but when a community looks after those who are at the bottom then that can surely only mean that those who are at the top are advantaged also.

I know it is tough.

Charles Dickens wrote in the novel Oliver Twist about asking for more, because we always want more.
It would not have been an interesting story if Oliver Twist had been given the porridge at the beginning of the book.

The story was about the struggle—how we operate to struggle for more.

At this stage I want people like Sariah, Ilana and others to have far better opportunities.
It is bad enough to deal with a premature baby—a baby with special needs—and to suffer post-natal depression or to go through any of the experiences which are unfortunately common in childbirth without having to deal with the financial concerns.

So that is where we find ourselves.

Are we like Oliver Twist?

I think we are; of course we want some more.


I turn to fundamental concerns are about the questions that face the political leaders of this nation in terms of continuing inequity between men and women in how they are regarded for their social inputs.

We acknowledge that there is no superannuation in this.

This continues the system where women will retire with COMMUNITY AFFAIRS CA 6 Senate Friday, 14 May 2010 less money.

We acknowledge that the payment is made at the level of the federal minimum wage.
We are looking forward to political leadership, at one stage, which can overcome those traditional barriers and mindsets.

We want a systemic culture where children are valued, not as being a problem of the nuclear family but as community people we care for and value.
Even though I think they are brave step and I admire the co-parents and primary carers who are other than mum—it could be somebody else—the reality is that it feels as if it is giving permission to treat men as badly as women have been treated for raising children.

When a man takes leave under this system it feels very much like the discounting that applies to women when they take the primary carer role.
It is bad enough that women are treated that way for being primary carers, but this is now treating men as badly as women have been treated.

Unions New South Wales thinks that has to change.

Unions New South Wales unequivocally supports the statements that the ACTU has made in relation to the matters that Belinda has spoken about in terms of eligibility for seasonal and non-permanent workers.
Primary concern goes to those communities where work is dominated by agriculture workers, hospitality and tourism.

There is not a lot of work for those people in the off-season.

When you have a look at what happens in the northern part of Queensland, in the Whitsundays, you find rural communities where, when there is no seasonal work, it is very difficult for people to find other opportunities to work.
So for those reasons we support what the ACTU says, and strongly encourage consideration of those issues—not only with regard to the eligibility of the individuals but, more critically, for the health of those communities where people work.

So, in not wanting to repeat what has already been well stated by Ms Tkalcevic this morning, can I say that, whatever happens, we acknowledge that this is the starting point for this legislation.

It does not change our job in New South Wales: our role remains the same.
The ACTU’s role remains the same—and that is to do the best to create an equitable and fair society that we work in.

To close the gaps in fairness and justice is where our vision lies for the future.

This scheme places us in a stronger place to go forward, to do those things in bargaining, where we can, and to improve the scheme in the future, where we can, and not to leave it for so long that we are waiting for another 26 years for further improvements.
Senator ADAMS—My first question is to Ms Tkalcevic.

I have just been looking at your website, and I would like to ask you about a comment in the ‘frequently asked questions’ that you have posted on the website.

You say here: Is the government’s PPL scheme a certainty?

You comment that it should start on 1 January 2011, and the comment you have here is: The Federal Opposition has stated that they will not block the legislation in the Senate, however the legislation could be delayed past 24 June 2010.
Could you explain that statement, please.

Ms Tkalcevic—I have not made that statement, and I was not aware that that was on the FAQ, but I guess where that is going is that there is a lot of uncertainty at the moment amongst union members and employees generally about what they will be entitled to, what it will look like and how it will work.
Those of them who are expecting to have a baby in 2011, of course, want a lot of detail about how to make a claim and how much they will get, and the ACTU is trying to give them as much information and certainty as it can, but in the context that the legislation is obviously not finalised.
So my view would be that what that is trying to say is that the policy statements that are currently up on the Family Assistance Office and FaHCSIA websites will give you guidance but that, until the legislation is through and final, we will just have to make do with that information.

Senator ADAMS—All right.

Then I come to your petition, which is also on the website and obviously has been circulated on notice.
It is on the police union’s website as well, and it may be on others; that is as far as I have got so far in looking at it.

The statement there is: After many decades of campaigning, Paid Parental Leave is finally within reach, but we need your help to make sure it happens.

As we are all aware, the federal government will shortly be introducing the PPL bill into the parliament.
However, there has been some recent uncertainty regarding the opposition parties’ response to the bill and there remains concern as to whether the passage of the bill will be supported.

Could you just enlighten me as to why that comment has been made.

I gather that particular statement has been circulated with the petition.
COMMUNITY AFFAIRS Friday, 14 May 2010 Senate CA 7 Ms Tkalcevic—Again, the petition was designed to encourage people who have been very supportive of paid parental leave in our community—people who are our union members and people working in workplaces—and who desperately want to see this legislation passed in time for its operation on 1 January 2011.

It is to make sure that all political parties know that it is so important for them that it is passed.
Really the primary purpose of the petition is to make it very clear to the opposition and to all the parties that this is something that is of fundamental importance to women like Sariah, who really want to see the scheme up and running in time for them to have a pleasant experience in having a newborn baby.
Senator ADAMS—As the only coalition senator here today, I feel that it is misinformation to be putting something like that out there, because the coalition parties have clearly stated that we are going to support the bill with amendments.

Therefore, really, I think saying that is giving the public the wrong impression.

Ms Burrow—I apologise for being late—fog and airlines, not my fault.

Frankly, we have little trust, I will be really honest.
The petition is designed to shore up what is welcome support, if what you are saying is that the bill will be passed irrespective of whether amendments are accepted not—and I make no comment on amendments I have not seen to be supportive or otherwise.
Frankly, it is absolutely critical that a party like yours, with a history where not too long ago your senators were in fact in total opposition to paid maternity or parental leave and are on the record as such—not you personally, Senator, but certainly some of your leaders.

We have little trust, and you can understand that.

I have a 32-year-old son and there are women older than me who have been campaigning for paid maternity leave for longer than that.
So to go from zero dollars to 4½ months as a guarantee for those in the non-organised or non-bargaining sector is just like a dream and people are planning their lives around it.

So we are leaving no stone unturned and we would urge the Greens as well to support the bill.

This has to be a unity ticket, irrespective of whether people will seek to make changes over time.
Senator ADAMS—Ms Burrows, what I am saying is that the coalition has made the statement that they will support the bill and that they are hoping to improve it.

I think that you are using that as a media stunt, the way that you are sending out the petition.

I guess all is fair in love and war, it is politics— Ms Burrow—But it is not about politics, Senator.

Senator ADAMS—but with something like this, with paid parental leave, the fact is that the coalition are prepared to support it.
They have put out their own policy, it is different, but they are still supporting paid parental leave.

Ms Burrow—And I absolutely welcome that statement if you are going to support the bill, irrespective of whether amendments get up—and I am not quite hearing you say that.

I know you have a policy.

We never thought it would fly.

I think, frankly, your leaders never thought it would fly.
The business community has my respect on this one because the people who are going to pay already have paid maternity leave schemes, bargained with their workers through their unions.

They will be added to this scheme so that those women will have 26 weeks or more, in most cases, and certainly when our next agreements come around it will be with superannuation.

So if you are saying you will pass the bill irrespective of amendments lost or won, then we will welcome that, but I have not quite heard that.
Secondly, to be honest we had that commitment around the CPRS, and we know what happened.

So if there is little trust on our side, and this one is a burning passion, please forgive us.

Senator ADAMS—Ms Puriri, thank you very much for your evidence.

As a mother, I had the same problems.

My son is a 35-year-old now, but when he was born he was nine weeks in a special nursery and I had to travel 3½ hours every week with breast milk.

I was working on the farm, a little bit different to you.
This legislation is stating 18 weeks paid leave, and you were quoting that six months for someone breastfeeding was the best possible time for you to bond with the child and everything else, and that perhaps, if you had had that time, you would not have had the problems that you had.

Would you like to comment on that please?


Mrs Puriri-Giblin—My son was in the hospital for three months—12 weeks—so when he came out after three months—to have 18 weeks, that would only leave me with another six weeks or so to spend with my son while he was out of hospital.

That is why I am saying six months paid maternity leave would have helped us out a lot.
I used up all of my annual leave, I used up all of my sick leave, my husband used up all of his annual leave, so to have that extra time with my son would have helped us out.

I would have loved to have spent that time with my son while he was out of hospital, and I did not get to do that.
COMMUNITY AFFAIRS CA 8 Senate Friday, 14 May 2010 Senator HANSON-YOUNG—In the submissions given by the ACTU and Unions South Wales, and in your verbal submissions as well, both of you indicated that there were significant improvements that you would be looking for in the future.

I do pick up on the points you have made about wanting to strengthen the current legislation now in connection to the workplace, and that is something that we need to tease out a bit further.
I guess that is why it is a good process for this Senate inquiry to be happening, to be honest.

So I would like you to expand on that issue, but my first question is in relation to the fact that everybody at the table, including Ms Burrow, has said that this legislation is not perfect, that it needs to go further.

We have heard we do not want to wait another 26 years, another 30 years to take it to the next level, so what is the time frame by which you think that it needs to be improved by?
Ms Burrow—We will look to do several things.

One is that we will first of all consolidate and make sure that employers merge their schemes so that those with collective agreements will absolutely have at least 26 weeks.

Most of the sector will actually end up having more, which is just a tremendous advantage.

The issue of superannuation will be on our radar and we will certainly bargain for any deficit in regard to that security of retirement income.
And we will do what we always do, we will then look to whether we can in fact talk to the government or use the award review process to see whether we cannot lock in some of those issues through fundamental awards, and where we can extend bargaining now with the low-paid bargaining provisions—they are yet to be tested, but we are very excited about them—in the Fair Work Act then we will again look to put it on the bargaining agenda.
So there are a number of mechanisms industrially, which is where we usually set the benchmarks for achieving additional entitlements.

We are realists about public policy.

If you take superannuation as an example, we started with three per cent.

We always wanted to get 15.

We now have a commitment in legislation—it will be in legislation, I hope, senators—that it will go to 12 per cent, and we will continue to argue.
The way the industrial world works: if we did not stick at it, if we were not tenacious, if we expected Rome to be built in a day, then the working lives of Australians would be much poorer.

So we will look at all mechanisms, including coming back to a government at some point in the future when we can demonstrate market inequity and arguing the case again.
But I have to stress again: to go from zero dollars to 4½ months, I am just asking you not to deny working women the security of that income, and, of course, their partners.

We know that the Productivity Commission scoured the land for consultation.

We respect their judgement.


Of course we will always argue for improvement, that is actually our job, but at the same time when the women’s organisations around the country and the union movement have said, ‘This is a fair dinkum first step,’ then we are asking you to support it.

Senator HANSON-YOUNG—What is the commitment that you are looking for from government to making sure that this is not just a holding pattern?

Ms Burrow—We would say three things really.


One is that we would like to see the review expanded, and we would urge you to support that.

I know, Senator Hanson-Young, that you are interested in that.

It would be a very good thing to be comprehensive because it is important that we monitor market failure, so that is the second thing, that between now and the review we would like to see it monitored.
And, in the first instance, if we can get the review expanded and a couple of technical glitches—and given the scheme, we think the bill is very well drafted in the time that it has been constructed, and of course it has had the advantage of a consultative committee of women with expertise from a range of areas.

That has been a good process, but there are still a couple of technical glitches.
I am sure that Belinda and Jill have taken you through them, but we are particularly worried about seasonal work or those people who are stood down, say from school support staff or other professions, for perhaps a longer period of time but they have had a long-term cumulative attachment—usually to the same employer, but certainly the same occupation.

So we would certainly ask you to fix those and maybe the others that my colleagues have put on the table.
If those three things are done, fixing a couple of those technical glitches now to make sure it is not excluding people that I do not think anyone would want to see excluded, we would want to see the review not just of the superannuation but also of the administrative arrangements of the scheme and what it is adding to by way of participation.
We should be monitoring labour force participation because one of the economic advantages of this scheme—other than the social justice issue, as you would know—is if we are going to get participation rates to 70 per cent—and that is the target of COAG and Skills Australia—then one of the most underrepresented groups is women of childbearing age, in fact, amongst the lowest in the world.
I can assure you that we will continue to press, but if the senators could look towards expanding the review, keeping the COMMUNITY AFFAIRS Friday, 14 May 2010 Senate CA 9 monitoring on track—both in terms of market equity and also participation—leading up to that review, I think that would be very helpful.

Ms Biddington—We could envision a wonderful world if we had the opportunity.

You are right, we do not believe that it is perfect.

I think that Ms Burrow has outlined the major issues.
I would like to add the current provisions under the Fair Work Act which provide women returning from maternity leave the right to request part-time work.

This is a lovely way to frame something and say that someone has the right to request it, but there is actually no entitlement to it.

I will relay a story which comes from a regional area around Byron Bay.

It relates to a police officer, a single mum who had a child, her third child.
In requesting the right to return to work she was told by area command that she could do that, she could return for 24 hours a week, which was two shifts.

She is a single mum and childcare centres do not run for 12 hours a day.

Her capacity to return to work was absolutely zero.
She counter-offered and said: ‘Could I return to work for three days of eight hours?’ ‘No, because we have 12- hour shifts.’ She is a woman without any family in the area and the current childcare system does not operate on the basis of 12-hours care.

Her employer could not understand why she could not afford to pay a nanny.

These things are the real-life experiences of women who are highly valued and want to go back to work, but the world is not flexible for them.
It operates around what employers are stuck in, their own mindset of what is best.

If it is not a police officer and it is someone like Sariah—and perhaps Sariah can tell the story about when she returned to work and asked for breastfeeding leave—there is a difficulty there too.

I think you were told, Sariah, that maybe you had better come back in 12 months time when you had it sorted out.

Mrs Puriri-Giblin—Yes.


Because I am a manager they did not see how I was going to work as a manager, running shifts, running my crew and dealing with customers.

I needed three hours to express milk, but she could not find a way for me to do that while I was trying to run my shift because I would be the only manager on duty.

She could not find 20 minutes out of the day for me to sit down and express milk.

She asked me to come back after 12 months.


I did not have paid maternity leave where I worked and I did not know how or where I was going to get that extra money to stay at home and do that, so I said: ‘No, I have to come back to work.’ Ms Biddington—That would be one thing Unions New South Wales would want attention on.

It is really critical for someone to be to take their leave and return to work—that is what we are basing it on.

It is about the dignity of people being able to return to work.
That is one issue that we which like recognition of.

Apart from that, I think Ms Burrow has said it.

Senator HANSON-YOUNG—In saying that, I guess there are amendments that you are both looking for.

Our challenge here is that we want to get a scheme up and running but we want to make sure it is the best possible scheme we can deliver.

Of course there needs to be some tightening up of the legislation.

We have pointed out the issue of seasonal workers, for example.
I am picking up on Senator Adams’s point that there are going to have to be amendments that are made to this legislation, even just to satisfy you guys.

In order to do that, we will have to take evidence from the committee, draft the report, put the amendments to the Senate and work our way through it.

What is going to be most helpful from my perspective is to have you guys supporting that process and not suggesting that anyone at this table does not want to get a scheme up and running.
I totally understand Mrs Puriri-Giblin’s predicament.

This is an issue that affects women across all sectors, particularly those in the lower income brackets, particularly those in the casualised workforce, particularly those in seasonal work.

We need to make sure we actually get it right so that they do not just happen to miss out because we cannot get those amendments up.
Ms Burrow—And let me be clear, Senator: we appreciate that and we are well aware of the good work that Senate committees do and that people find consensus around issues to either fix glitches or strengthen the bill.

All we are looking for is that the three sets of folk—the opposition coalition, the Greens and the independent senators—say that they will have the debate, strong and hard, on any amendments they want to put up but, at the end of the day, they will not oppose this scheme.
That would leave working women devastated—those women who now know they can plan finally around having children with income security next year.

If they lose this, if we go into an election period and have another round of debate about a scheme, we could see two years elapse before women would again have any optimism, and there would be a lot of trauma and tragedy in the meantime.
So we are certainly not discouraging you from the amendment process or robust debate—that is in fact your job—but we are asking on this bill that there is a fundamental commitment to see the bill through.

COMMUNITY AFFAIRS CA 10 Senate Friday, 14 May 2010 CHAIR—Senator Hanson-Young, you have run out of time already, but if you have one more question you can ask it and we will see how we go.

Senator HANSON-YOUNG—My question is on superannuation.
I understand that the ACTU—and perhaps the other unions—were involved in the consultation process for drafting the legislation to some extent.

What is your understanding of the reasoning as to why superannuation is not included?

Ms Burrow—It is a cost issue for the government.

You would have to ask the government that, but it is a cost issue for them.

That is my understanding of the rationale.

It is not an oppositional piece.


As we said in the submissions, it is such a little cost to the employer for the rate of return they get in terms of participation and reduction in costs of turnover.

Talk to any major company.

I think we have got a big education process with small to medium business.
I might take this opportunity to say, if my colleagues did not, that if there are recommendations that would assist in the education process for small business then we would very much welcome and support those.

But look at big business and ask any of them.

We were in Woolworths a couple of weeks ago when Jenny Macklin released this, and the Woolworths manager said it is a saving on their bottom line.

Frankly, we have got two ways to go on superannuation.
We will certainly bargain for it where we can and where there is a market inequity.

We will come back to that review.

If you work miracles and change the government’s mind, that will be a good thing, but I do not suspect, given the debate that has gone on on this, that we will win this this time.

But certainly the review piece there, to look at it next time and look at where there is market inequity, is absolutely fundamental for us.
Senator ADAMS—I can guarantee that the coalition will not block this legislation, and if we are elected we will improve it.

Ms Burrow—I appreciate that.

Senator FURNER—Thank you both for your submissions.

As always, they are concise and right to the points.

I have a couple of questions with regard to some of the employer groups’ submissions.

Firstly, what is the position from the ACTU in respect of employer groups arguing that they do not wish to be paymasters?
Ms Burrow—I have urged ACCI to talk to their small business constituency.

I do not believe it is a universal view.

We talk to small business, as much as they are represented by ACCI, and we respect that.

We also of course speak to them not only as representatives of working people but also in general conversation.

I think there are many small businesses which well understand this is a gift for them.

It is about retaining skilled workers in an otherwise increasingly difficult labour market in sections.
They know that it generates the kind of loyalty and appreciation that you get when somebody feels that they have the backing and the trust that comes with the income security and the job security of paid and unpaid parental leave.

So we would urge small business to actually think about the fact that it is no different to them paying a wage.
I do understand, because I have spoken to a lot of them and indeed to ACCI, that there may need to be an additional line on the computer program or a slight update and that maybe for some small business, while it is not a lot of money, they could perhaps be assisted.

We will leave ACCI to tell you what would work, but we have urged them and I would ask you to simply encourage them to figure out how to do it.
I think to not see small business do this, given the capacity to actually be the paymaster, detaches people from the labour market.

It makes the women and their partners simply feel as though they are not valued in the same way as in other businesses and I cannot believe that, once the system is up and running and the computerisation is possible, it will be very difficult.

Senator FURNER—I listened intently to your concerns expressed earlier about the opposition.
There is morning I downloaded the opposition’s budget in response speech.

I note that the opposition leader referred to a modest levy on companies with a taxable income over $5 million a year—I think it is a $2.7 billion tax on those businesses.

In your experience, what will that do to those businesses and, in particular, what will it do to women employees, and also prospective women employees, in those businesses should that opposition policy or proposal be accepted?
Ms Burrow—There are two points of principle here.

One is a practical point and one is a point of principle.

The practical point is that we already have paid maternity leave schemes right throughout most businesses that would be deemed to be on the larger side of the ledger.

Some of them are terrific schemes; some of them are not yet perfect but they are in the bargaining process.

For example, there are schemes where you already have 26 weeks paid maternity leave.
It may not yet have cut in but it is in the bargaining arrangement and the government’s contribution will effectively go to the employer.

We think that is fair enough.


There are others who we will be encouraging to get there by one way or another, whether they simply use the government COMMUNITY AFFAIRS Friday, 14 May 2010 Senate CA 11 scheme first and then they top up to 26 weeks, plus superannuation, and there will be others who we will have to encourage along the way either to start new schemes or to build on the government scheme or otherwise.
So this scheme has been very well crafted to merge with existing operations already in the marketplace and we respect that.

If we were to look towards a levy in that context it is (a) impractical but (b) it is actually unfair.

Why would you double-tax employers—it is strange for me to be concerned about big business costs—who are actually doing the right thing?
We have long settled on the orthodoxy—I always want to remind people that not all small businesses are actually marginal; there are actually many wealthy small businesses—with that qualification, that small business will only support a government scheme.

That is pretty much the case around the world and so this is a settlement.

When you come to a government scheme, I think there is a point of principle.

Do we ultimately want to see full income replacement?

Yes we do.
Yes we do.

But do we think that, if a government has a universal scheme, it should actually pay differential entitlements to different women because of their wages?

I am not sure; we need to debate that.

On that point of principle, we have never had that conversation, as a nation.
And what the opposition’s levy would do is to say, ‘We are going to put a levy on business’—those that will pay, if they will pay, and I do not believe they will but if they will pay—’and then we are going to dole it out in a discriminatory way.’ I would just remind people that we have bargained, and we will always be able to bargain, for those with economic and industrial power or influence.
The women we are looking after, as well as providing a base for all women, are those who have no dollars in their account, no dollars to take to prop up their family—like Sariah.

And we are sad that Ilana is stuck in the fog.

But these women represent thousands of women.

So I think there is a point of principle: we should have that debate about whether money coming in to government is differentially distributed, and we have not.
Secondly, we should recognise that if government is going to put up a base scheme—and we congratulate them for it—then, administratively, we want it to not undermine what the employers contribute already.

And I respect the employers that have taken that stand.

CHAIR—Senator Marshall, do you have a question?

Senator MARSHALL—I just want to seek your indulgence a little.

I understand this may well be Ms Burrow’s last appearance before a Senate committee.

Ms Burrow—It could well be!


I doubt there is going to be much legislation before the end of June, other than this piece.

Senator MARSHALL—So I guess, with your indulgence, Chair, and speaking as the chair of the education, employment and workplace relations committee, I just wanted to thank you, Ms Burrow, for your many years of coming to Senate committees.

As Senator Furner mentioned earlier, the submissions from the ACTU are always excellent in their detail.
They are informative for the committees, and I know members— even of the current opposition—have actually used the information provided by your organisation to good advantage.

In respect to you, you have brought a professionalism and an intellectual capacity to your role as president which is admired, certainly by me and I think most of the Senate.

So I wanted to thank you for making the trade union movement proud—and they have got a lot to be proud of with the contribution you have made.
Ms Burrow—Thank you, Senator Marshall.

I am humbled.

CHAIR—That is the end of this session.

Ms Burrow, we want to add our community affairs committee thanks to you, and also to note the long-term effort you have made, around this issue amongst many other issues.

And we are sorry you missed the opening because we would have done it then.

Ms Burrow—Thank you, Senators.

CHAIR—Mrs Puriri-Giblin, thank you so much.


I know that coming and talking about what you are going through, about your own experiences, is not always easy.

But in this kind of inquiry, most of the submissions and a lot of the evidence will be from organisations that represent people.

It is very rewarding for us to have the evidence of someone who actually has their own issues that they want to talk about themselves.

So thank you very much.

Mrs Puriri-Giblin—Thanks.
COMMUNITY AFFAIRS CA 12 Senate Friday, 14 May 2010 [10.14 am] DODS, Ms Virginia, Senior Project Officer, Promotion and Policy Unit, Office of the Child Safety Commissioner, Victoria SCANNELL, Ms Megan, Senior Project Manager, Promotion and Policy Unit, Office of the Child Safety Commissioner, Victoria WITHERS, Ms Christine, Manager, Promotion and Policy Unit, Office of the Child Safety Commissioner, Victoria Evidence was taken via teleconference— CHAIR—Our next witnesses are via teleconference, which makes it a little more difficult but we will see how we go.
You have information on parliamentary privilege and the protection of witnesses and evidence.

We have your submission—thank you very much.

Any or all of you may like to make some opening comments and then we will go to questions.

This will go through to about 10.40 am, so it is a pretty tight time frame, but I know you have things that you want to share with us.

Ms Withers—Thank you for the opportunity to engage in a little dialogue on this issue.

We appreciate the opportunity.


We have already made a submission and the commissioner has actually done a presentation previously.

We are just following up on one particular issue of grave interest.

We have been established and in operation now for five years.

Our role is basically to promote the safety and wellbeing of all Victorian children.

We are always interested in any issue that we think impacts on the safety and wellbeing of children, and we think this particular issue does.
One of the roles of the commission here is to monitor the out-of-home care system.

The commissioner spends quite a lot of time meeting with people who are responsible for the care of young children who are in the care of the state.
He has spent quite a lot of time talking to kinship carers, and they include a whole range of extended family members who often find themselves with the responsibility of taking care of a child within their extended family network as the result of a parent being unable to provide for their care.

The commissioner is quite an advocate for kinship carers.

He thinks that they are a growing group and that they are the heroes of society at the moment.
He has been very keen to represent their interests, which in turn protect the interests of children.

I would like to pass you over now to Virginia Dods, who has been involved in the preparation of previous material.

CHAIR—Thank you.

Ms Dods?

Ms Dods—We were particularly focused on kinship relative carers because we were concerned that perhaps they had not been considered in the preparation of the draft legislation.
I refer the committee to the evidence given by our commissioner on 21 November 2008 and the carers who accompanied him and gave evidence about their own experiences.

Those carers were Beth Parker and Matilda Ng.

The personal accounts that these two women gave demonstrated how the best interests of a most vulnerable group of children were supported by their new primary carers changing their lives overnight.
These carers had to leave the workforce suddenly when they gained care of children due to mishaps occurring to their parents— as a result of abuse or accidents or anything else.

I will now hand over to Ms Scannell to talk about the bill.

CHAIR—Thank you.

Ms Scannell?

Ms Scannell—As noted in our written submission, we are pleased that the bill does appear to recognise families who find themselves in these exceptional circumstances.
It creates an opportunity for them to be included within the parental leave scheme—in particular, section 276, which deals with how the act will apply to claims made in exceptional circumstances.

Our understanding is that provided somebody, in a sense, meets the requirements for exceptional circumstances, this carer would be treated similarly to adoptive parents for parental leave.

We do, however, retain an interest in how the rules will actually define exceptional circumstances.
Our understanding from having looked at the bill is that the criteria for who might be allowed to claim under exceptional circumstances will be defined in the rules to be made at a later point in time.
So we would like to COMMUNITY AFFAIRS Friday, 14 May 2010 Senate CA 13 be assured that in the drafting of the rules relevant stakeholders would be consulted and that the interests of these families, and particularly the best interests of the children in them, will be a guiding principle in developing those rules.

CHAIR—Thank you.

We will now move to questions.

Senator ADAMS—Could you help me with the definition of a ‘primary carer’?
Ms Scannell—I have not had time to review the bill in detail but my understanding is that the bill talks about a primary carer as someone who has more care of the child than anyone else—so, in a sense, takes over the parenting role of the child.

In the examples that the Commissioner gave in his hearing to the Productivity Commissioner, those people took over the physical daily care of the children.
In one case, the mother had passed away and the father was unable to care for the child, and the grandparents became the primary carer of the child.

Senator ADAMS—As far as your group is concerned, what would be the optimum leave time for a primary carer?

Ms Dods—We would see their needs as being very similar to someone who has had a child and leaves work in order to have a baby and care for that baby.

It is about being able to settle that child into a new family situation, and it happens suddenly.
Senator ADAMS—So would you prefer the 18 weeks, or the 26 weeks that the coalition government has put forward?

Ms Scannell—I do not think we are in a position to comment on that at this point in time.

Senator HANSON-YOUNG—I understand your concerns about the need to be clear about the eligibility rules.
Do you have any concerns about whether there need to be stronger links between the legislation as it is in a stand-alone act with the Fair Work Act if we are to ensure that somebody else is able to assume that primary carer role?

If that person needs to take leave from work, are there other things that we need to link industrially to ensure that they are not disadvantaged?
I guess it is a more difficult concept for employers to get their head around when it is not perhaps the natural mother who is taking the leave.

Ms Scannell—We have not had time to review the provisions of the Fair Work Act and figure out how they would tie in.

I guess in a general sense it would be good if, in a similar way, people were not disadvantaged from their employment because they find themselves in these exceptional circumstances.

CHAIR—Thank you very much.


Is there anything that we have not asked you?

I know that in your submission and the things you have put forward your major focus was the exceptional circumstances, which means that is where our questions have gone.

I hope you do not think we have not spent enough time with you.

I am just wondering whether there is something you think we have not followed up that you would like to put on record.

Ms Scannell—No.
Ms Scannell—No.

Our focus has been on this particular issue—exceptional circumstances and families who find themselves in them.

CHAIR—Ms Withers, I am interested as to whether any of the people with whom you have spoken— because I know the officers had a great deal to do with varying family circumstances; that is why they are working with you—have raised the issue of the need for a kind of paid parental scheme in the system.

Is that something that your clients have actually thought about?
Ms Withers—Certainly Beth Parker in her submission to the commission was very clear that she had been in quite a high-paying job prior to taking over the care of her two stepgrandchildren.

It meant that her career ended effectively overnight.

CHAIR—On the basis of the general caring aspects?

Ms Withers—Yes.

CHAIR—One thing that we all have to consider is that this is only one aspect of the process.
We have already heard from a number of people that the engagement of the workplace in different things needs to be looked at as well.

It is not just the paid parental leave; it is the support mechanisms in the general workplace that are something we have to consider.

Thank you very much for your time and your commitment.

If there is anything that you do want the committee to know and that we have not been able to address, please be in contact with us.
Proceedings suspended from 10.26 am to 10.44 am COMMUNITY AFFAIRS CA 14 Senate Friday, 14 May 2010 BRODERICK, Ms Elizabeth, Sex Discrimination Commissioner and Commissioner responsible for Age Discrimination, Australian Human Rights Commission BUCHAN, Ms Jessie Bianca, Blake Dawson Women in Leadership Program, Australian Human Rights Commission CHAIR—Welcome.

Thank you for your submission and also for your engagement.
We know that your officers have been engaged in this process for the whole period, and we know that you bring a lot of expertise to us.

I know you have received information about the protection of witnesses and evidence.

If you would like to, please make an opening statement, then we will go to questions.

Ms Broderick—Thank you.

I will make a short introductory statement.


Members of the Community Affairs Legislation Committee, thank you very much for the opportunity to appear before you today as we gather to discuss the exciting, thrilling and long-awaited introduction of a national paid parental leave scheme in Australia.

As you know, the Australian Human Rights Commission has had a longstanding record of promoting the introduction of paid leave for working parents in Australia.
We have undertaken substantial public consultation, research and modelling of possible schemes, as is evident in our two previous submissions to the Productivity Commission.

I have also had the benefit of building on the work of my predecessor, the former Sex Discrimination Commissioner, Pru Goward, who presented options for paid maternity leave in two reports that she did.

The first was called Valuing parenthood and the second was called A time to value.
The commission’s work over the last 10 years has made a compelling case for urgent action.

In fact, I am the fourth Sex Discrimination Commissioner to advocate for paid parental leave in Australia, so I am extremely pleased to be here.

Hopefully, I will be the last Sex Discrimination Commissioner to do so.
The commission endorses the paid parental leave scheme which the bill seeks to implement as a sound first stage for achieving a beneficial and equitable scheme of paid leave entitlements for parents in Australia.

The scheme is a product of significant consultation, research and analysis.

Although not all our proposals were adopted by the Productivity Commission or the government, we endorsed and supported the Productivity Commission’s model, as a balanced and equitable scheme, as a good starting point.
Given the short time frame for submissions and some of our resourcing constraints, we have confined our submission to this committee to addressing two areas which we consider to be key.

The first is the inclusion of a superannuation component in the scheme.

The second is the need for a legislated, independent review to be conducted two years after implementation of the scheme.
The significant disparity between women’s and men’s retirement savings and the high proportion of women with alarmingly low superannuation balances I think is one of the gravest aspects of gender inequality in Australia.
So, whilst the commission does not have a firm view on the appropriate funding model for the inclusion of superannuation, we firmly believe that superannuation entitlements are an essential and fundamental component of addressing gender inequality and therefore should be included in the first stage of any new paid parental leave scheme.
As we have stated in our previous submission to the Productivity Commission, whilst the proposed scheme represents a sound first step, we believe that the initial scheme should be independently reviewed in two years time so that a more comprehensive package of paid leave for parents can be considered.
There appears to be some confusion, when we look at the explanatory memorandum and some of the other collateral material, as to whether the review that is proposed by the government would be in two or three years.

Our view is that any review should be conducted as soon as is practicable after the second anniversary of the commencement of the legislation.
Such an independent review would provide scope for progressively realising a world-class s scheme of leave that would eventually provide for up to one year of parental leave, which is what we included in our initial submissions.

The commission therefore recommends that a provision be inserted into the legislation which provides for this two-year review.
We look forward to the committee’s response to the public consultations that take place today and next week and to working with others to ensure that the scheme is implemented and improved over time.

Thank you very much.

CHAIR—Thank you very much.

Do you wish to add anything, Ms Buchan?

Ms Buchan—No, thank you.

Senator ADAMS—Thank you for your presentation.

Firstly, there seems to be confusion with some of the witnesses as to the definition of ‘primary carer’.
In your view, what would you consider a primary carer to be?

COMMUNITY AFFAIRS Friday, 14 May 2010 Senate CA 15 Ms Broderick—A primary carer is someone who is responsible for the care right from the beginning, as defined in the legislation.

But it may not necessarily be the mother, if that is the question.

I have it here.

It is section 47.

If the child is in a person’s care in that period and the person meets the child’s physical needs more than anyone else in that period.
We do not have any particular issues with section 47 as it was defined in the exposure draft.

Senator ADAMS—We have heard other evidence that six months is generally regarded as the optimal time for a mother to stay at home with her baby, especially if she wants to breastfeed.

But under this scheme it means that women would have to cobble together their entitlements to achieve that length of leave.

Do you consider that the 18 weeks is the best time or would you consider a longer time?
Ms Broderick—The World Health Organisation does say that six months is optimal for breastfeeding.

That is their guidance.

In the proposal that we put to the Productivity Commission we had a short first phase at 14 weeks for women and two weeks for men—the paternity part.

Then we moved to a second phase, which was to have the review and then to extend the scheme out over time.
That is our position today: we start with a scheme and the scheme that is here is 18 weeks but over time move that out to a scheme that would be six months.

That is why we are keen that the review would happen within two years of the implementation of the scheme.

Senator ADAMS—Thank you.

If women wanted to go longer, do you know what percentage of working women would be eligible for extra leave?

Casual people and the self-employed, of course, would not.
If it came in at 18 weeks, as per the legislation, would that affect a lot of women?

Ms Broderick—Are you talking about the additionality?

Senator ADAMS—Yes.

Ms Broderick—I know the Productivity Commission said that the majority of women will be able to, as you say, put together six months through what they are calling ‘additionality’—that is, where they have got long service leave, paid leave, whatever.

I cannot give you a figure around that.


What I can say is that on average women spend 10 months on maternity leave.

I will just dig that up for you, if I can.

I have a statistic here.

It matches up with the parental preferences for care.

We know from the Parental Leave in Australia Survey—and we can get you a reference for that—that on average Australian mothers go back to work around 10 months after taking leave.

They do this through a combination of different types of paid and unpaid leave.
But I cannot give you a figure as to what percentage of women would be able to take the 18 weeks and then move it out to six months because of the other periods of leave.

Senator ADAMS—There has been quite a lot of criticism in the submissions about the discrimination against those women that stay at home.

Could you comment on that for me, please?

Ms Broderick—Yes, I do want to comment on that.

We have never said that the baby bonus should be removed.

We think it should stay, because all women work.


The question is whether they are in paid work or unpaid work—we all know that.

But one of the key objectives of the scheme is to keep women attached to the labour market.

I consider that to be a really important objective, because I meet so many women at the minute entering into retirement who actually have very little retirement savings.
In fact, we know women have half the retirement savings of men, and the main reason behind that is they have chosen to care.

So, until we start to value unpaid caring work in some more financial manner, I think to have a scheme which will keep women attached to the labour market is a really important objective.
When you look at the three objectives, one is about maternal health and child wellbeing and development; another is workforce participation—what I see as keeping women attached to the labour market; and the third one is around gender equality.

They are all important objectives.

Senator HANSON-YOUNG—Thanks, Ms Broderick, for your evidence and the submission.
Firstly, if we follow on from the issue of workplace attachment and the issue of workforce participation, a number of the submissions that we have received, including the submission from the ACTU, criticised the legislation for not having a strong enough link with the Fair Work Act, as that is of course where the unpaid maternity leave provisions sit.

Do you have similar concerns about the lack of link with that act?
If this is meant to be an industrial issue about workplace entitlement issue—and even if we are to build and strengthen—how do we do that if it remains able to be dressed down as a social welfare payment as opposed to a workplace entitlement?

Ms Broderick—I think you are right.


It is interesting, because there is potentially a group of women who will have access to paid leave but not unpaid leave because that is a different work test—it is 12 months continuous service under the National Employment Standards.

So I do think there should be a link between COMMUNITY AFFAIRS CA 16 Senate Friday, 14 May 2010 this and the Fair Work Act.
I have briefly read the ACTU’s analysis of that and I broadly agree with what they are saying—that the periods should align, because really paid leave should sit within the broader context of unpaid leave.

I think there does need to be some alignment there—although, we have not specifically made a submission on it.

Senator HANSON-YOUNG—On the issue of superannuation, I must admit I am staggered that superannuation is not included.
Except for the argument of cost, there seems to be no real understanding or explanation as to why superannuation is not included.

At a time when we know that the retirement income for women is significantly less than that of men—and based on that period of child-bearing and being out of the workforce—you would think that we would take this opportunity to try to bridge that a little bit.

Do you think that superannuation has to be included in the first stage?
And do you have any other explanation as to why you think that it may not be included currently?

Ms Broderick—The modelling shows that it would be a maximum of $881 per woman which would be tax deductible which would bring it down to about $440.

In fact, if women earn less than the federal minimum wage—and quite a number of them will—then it would be even less than that.
I think the Productivity Commission recommended that, if they are earning less than the federal minimum wage, then it should just be nine per cent of whatever that lesser amount is.

It is not a huge amount.

I suppose you have a different perspective if you are coming from small business—I agree with that.
From where I sit, as the Sex Discrimination Commissioner, when you look at the human face of this gender gap in retirement savings, there are a lot of older women who are living in poverty, and part of the reason for that is that they have chosen to care.

The Paid Parental Leave scheme is about caring.

I have not done the modelling, but I think we know that superannuation becomes valuable because of maturation, so the earlier you put your contributions in, the better off you are later on.
The other thing I would say is that it is quite symbolic.

It is saying: ‘Women are disadvantaged in retirement.

In introducing this scheme, we acknowledge that and we make a statement around superannuation—that it should include a superannuation layer.’ After thinking about it quite a bit, that is where I have come out.
Yes, I see the Productivity Commission have said, ‘Let’s defer it until the scheme’s bedded down,’ and I understand that, but my clear preference would be to have it in the first iteration of the scheme.

Senator HANSON-YOUNG—In relation to the length of time, some people are very strong in saying that it needs to be a minimum six months, based on various world standards and the World Health Organisation being a key organisation.

You have said that preferably it should be up to a year.
In the absence of any commitment from the current government to deliver that, what type of time frame do you think would be acceptable to build on the draft?

Ms Broderick—If you started with 18 weeks—and there is broad consensus and it comes off the back of the Productivity Commission report; I acknowledge that.

That is why I am so keen on having the two-year review legislated in, because I think at two years there would be the potential to say: ‘How is it working?
Is it achieving the three objectives that have been outlined for the scheme?

What would be the impact of extending it to, say, six months as the next stage?’ That would follow a lot of international experience.

The UK and any number of countries have developed their schemes that way.

At least you would have the evidence there to allow you to make a good assessment about that.
We have said in our submission that at that time you may need to look at potentially a different funding model, if you are talking about taking the scheme out.

That could be pooled funding.

There are different funding models that the Productivity Commission looked at.

We would not necessarily say that that had to be a taxpayer funded scheme out at six months.

But I think the two- year review is important, to look at that.
Senator HANSON-YOUNG—That would then need to be amended, because the current review does not talk about the length of time.

It is much more specific about the superannuation entitlements.

Ms Broderick—And about the pay for dads.

We are very much in favour of the pay for dads.

We had that in our original submission.


Once again the international experience showed us that, if there was a period allocated for dads on a ‘use it or lose it’ basis and that period did not revert back to mum if dad did not take it—or the supporting partner in same-sex couples—then dads and supporting parents did start to take that up.
There is a lot of research which shows that close bonding with your newborn baby from very early on allows you to continue to develop that close relationship over the child’s lifetime.

So we are in favour of a period for dads and supporting partners.

Senator FURNER—I want to ask about enforcement or compliance.
In a previous life I represented many female workers in times of attempts at discrimination over parental leave in relation to the unpaid leave COMMUNITY AFFAIRS Friday, 14 May 2010 Senate CA 17 provisions of awards and agreements.

The proposed bill has compliance enforcement provisions.

Do you think they adequately cover areas where workers may be discriminated against as a result of these provisions in the workplace?
Ms Broderick—We have not looked in detail at that aspect of it and we have not included that in our submission.

I absolutely agree there need to be enforcement and compliance provisions, as you say.

We have not had the opportunity to have a really detailed look at that, so I really cannot make specific comment in relation to that.
Senator FURNER—Because both the state and federal discrimination acts provide for attributes of discrimination on the basis of sex, race and parental needs, that requires a link to this act in endeavours of discrimination.

Do you think that is an appropriate link between the two acts to ensure that people understand there are not grounds for discrimination in this particular area?
Ms Broderick—It is interesting; there are the adverse action provisions of the Fair Work Act, of course, and then there are the antidiscrimination acts, particularly our act, which is the Sex Discrimination Act.

We actually see quite a number of complaints which, of course, are not attached to whether or not you have a paid parental leave scheme but are more around the return to work issues.
This has the links back to the Fair Work Act and the Fair Work Ombudsman, particularly, and the role of the Fair Work Ombudsman.

As I said, we have not looked at the enforcement and compliance provisions in a whole lot of detail but the Sex Discrimination Act would still allow individuals who feel they have been discriminated against on the basis of their sex to once again come to the Australian Human Rights Commission or to a state based commission, as you say.
Senator FURNER—I want to get some clarity around the review and what you are seeking.

The second reading speech by the minister indicated that the government is committed to a review commencing two years after the commencement of the act.

Ms Broderick—It is interesting: that is in the second reading speech, but some of the explanatory notes say three years.

I think it is confusing and that is why it needs to be quite clear.

I would actually like to see something in the act which talks about the review.
There are some other acts which do that—they have provisions for a review after a period of time.

Our legal department have been able to retrieve this one for me—a review by a parliamentary joint committee looking at ASIO, ASIS and DSD.
It concerns the listing of terrorist organisations—absolutely nothing to do with the Paid Parental Leave scheme!—but it has a provision which allows a parliamentary joint committee: … to review, as soon as possible after the third anniversary of the commencement of this section, the operation, effectiveness and implications of subsections … In this part it is subsections or whatever, but that could be the effectiveness of the Paid Parental Leave scheme and whether it should be extended or enhanced and to report the results of a review to each house of parliament.
We said in our early proposals to the Productivity Commission that we think it is important that we put in place a good evaluation framework because the government has been quite clear about the objectives that they want.

They have actually set aside money to do some evaluation.

We need to be clear about the time frame in which that evaluation and review is done.

Senator HANSON-YOUNG—It is more of a specific sunset clause?

Ms Broderick—Yes, something like that.

Senator FURNER—Thank you.


Senator HANSON-YOUNG—I just have one final area that I want to ask your opinion on.

This morning we have already heard from the ACTU and Unions NSW, and through their submissions and evidence today both organisations have clearly put on the table that they do not believe the legislation is perfect.

They do not believe it goes far enough and they want superannuation.

In relation to all of those issues, the argument put forward by the ACTU was, ‘But it’s all right.
We’ll negotiate that through our industrial bargaining process.’ What is the position of the commission on how much government should really play that role in extending, strengthening and improving?

Should we simply leave it to the marketplace and to the industrial relations bargaining process without government drive, coordination or commitment?

Ms Broderick—I think it is important to have the two-year review in place to see whether the scheme should be extended.
The good thing about that review is that we will then know what private enterprises are COMMUNITY AFFAIRS CA 18 Senate Friday, 14 May 2010 doing with their paid parental leave schemes.

At the minute we just do not know what will happen.

We will know how the enterprise bargaining that has happened subsequent to the introductions of the scheme has progressed.

So I think the review is important for us to understand how this scheme is operating.
Many schemes have unintended consequences, and I would imagine that this scheme would be no different.

We can look at refining the scheme over time.

I think that if we take it out there is an argument that the current funding model, which is around a taxpayer funded scheme, needs to be reviewed.

I know the Productivity Commission looked in some detail at that.

There were a lot of quite different models happening there, some of them quite innovative.
We will also be two years further on in terms of the international experience.

Most countries are putting their schemes out but on different bases.

I think the review is really important and we cannot just rely on the market.

CHAIR—Does your office have any comment on the issue of the use of the employer as the process for making the payments?

Ms Broderick—We do.

We feel strongly that it should be the employer.

CHAIR—And why is that?

Ms Broderick—Because this is about a workplace entitlement.
I think that if it is all through the Family Assistance Office it will be seen as a welfare payment, so we very strongly put the proposition that it should be paid by the employer.

I understand why there is a six-month period while the scheme is bedded in and I think that is fine, but come 1 July the payments need to be made by employers.

In fact, there is a significant benefit for the employer doing that.

It allows them to keep in contact with their employees.

I feel quite strongly about that.


CHAIR—It is just that, as you would know from looking at the submissions, it is one of the clear points of difference.

In most cases there seems to be general approval of having some sort of scheme, but it is the most stated opposition issue coming up from employer groups.

I wanted to know what your view was.

Ms Broderick—Yes.

It is interesting.


If one of the key objectives of the scheme is to keep women attached to the labour market generally and to workplaces in particular—particularly where there has been 12 months of continuous service, as I think that is the qualifying thing—then if we are serious about that objective, yes, it does need to be employers who pay.
I think the financial modelling in one of the Productivity Commission reports talked about it being a cost of around $5 per person per week, so it is not a significant cost.

I think absolutely it should be done that way.

CHAIR—Thank you both.

I appreciate the fact that you have travelled—with difficulty due to the fog—to be with us today.

Nonetheless, I think it is important to have your evidence in the process.

Thank you.
Thank you.

COMMUNITY AFFAIRS Friday, 14 May 2010 Senate CA 19 [11.16 am] GREGORY, Mr David, Director, Workplace Policy, Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry MAMMONE, Mr Daniel, Manager, Workplace Relations and Legal Affairs, Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry Evidence was taken via teleconference— CHAIR—Welcome and thank you for your engagement in the committee process.

You are experienced at this and have the information on parliamentary privilege and the protection of witnesses.
We have your submission—thank you very much.

We invite either or both of you to make some opening comments.

We will then go into questions.

Mr Mammone—The Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry welcomes the opportunity to make submissions on an issue of significance to the Australian community.

We thank the committee for accommodating our request to provide evidence by way of telephone this morning.
ACCI welcomes the introduction of the government’s Paid Parental Leave scheme, which will provide up to 18 weeks of payments to eligible employees and other workers and which is wholly funded by the community through consolidated revenue.

ACCI supports other policy measures and programs that provide assistance in the areas of maternal health, welfare and childhood care.

ACCI believes that a statutory paid parental leave scheme is but one part of the overall policy equation.
The government should consider equally important measures such as the provision of adequate childcare facilities that are affordable and accessible to all working families.

In our view this will be the most significant driver of workforce participation from mothers with younger families.

The government’s scheme appears measured and consistent with what is affordable and necessary for an economy-wide scheme of this nature.
Coupled with the significant levels of maternity and paternity leave provided by Australian employers and the additional social support of the family tax system and baby bonus, it compares more than well with international standards.

We also recognise that many elements of the Productivity Commission’s Paid Parental Leave scheme, which would have imposed additional costs on business, have been addressed.
The overall design of the scheme appears to be one that was recommended by ACCI during the Productivity Commission inquiry.

However, some concerns do remain—namely, the delivery of public funds by employers through their payrolls.
ACCI has constructively engaged in this inquiry by recommending some minor changes to the scheme which would, firstly, not delay the commencement of the scheme, secondly, not change the benefits or major objectives of the scheme as identified by the Productivity Commission and the government and, thirdly, not deny one eligible employee their entitlements to government payments.
The ACCI member network represents those businesses, from small to larger firms, that must administer the Paid Parental Leave scheme on behalf of the government.

Business is concerned that the requirement for employers to be the agent of the government by acting as the paymaster is an unnecessary and burdensome requirement for employers, particularly small to medium sized firms.

The paymaster function will add to the red-tape burden on SMEs which do not have sophisticated HR or payroll capacities.
Whilst we believe that the regulatory impact statement underestimates the overall cost to employers, it does recognise some of the additional costs and time associated with the paymaster role.

To reiterate, ACCI does not oppose the Paid Parental Leave scheme in toto, only the method of delivery.

ACCI has consistently recommended that the government consider a far simpler and efficient scheme which has operated since 2002 across the Tasman in New Zealand.
The New Zealand model, which is outlined at page 12 of the ACCI submission, is a fully funded and administered government scheme.

The only requirement for a business is to verify employee details and co-sign one single form.

ACCI has reproduced this at attachments ACCI 2.

As illustrated by attachment ACCI 1, the possible 27 steps under the government scheme can be reduced to a simple four-step process as occurs in New Zealand.
The New Zealand government recently reviewed its system in 2005-06 and found wide support from employers, employees and the community.

The committee should also appreciate that the scheme was recommended by the then Human Rights and Equal Opportunities Commission in 2002, which explicitly rejected the paymaster function because of the cost and additional administrative burden.
At page 22 of ACCI’s submission, ACCI’s primary position is that the paymaster function be removed from the scheme and that the Family Assistance Office pay employees COMMUNITY AFFAIRS CA 20 Senate Friday, 14 May 2010 directly.

This would reduce the complexity and detail of the scheme and would ensure that all employees are paid on time and with minimal delay.
At paragraph 36 of the ACCI submission, we make the point that the New Zealand scheme spans approximately 26 pages of regulation as compared to the 237 pages of the government’s bill, not to mention the additional consequential legislation, rules and regulations yet to be seen by the committee or employers.
Alternatively, given that the government will administer the scheme for all employers for six months, from 1 January 2011, our secondary position is that employers should continue to be able to opt into the system.

This may appeal to some larger employers that already provide parental leave and wish to synergistically deal with the Family Assistance Office and could also occur when an employer and employee voluntarily agree.
If these recommendations are not accepted, a less-than-ideal compromise would be to exempt small and medium sized businesses from administering the scheme.

With this option, our preference would be by way of annual turnover, consistent with other legislation such as the Privacy Act.
Whilst the paymaster function remains, the most important issue, identified at page 25 of ACCI’s submission, raises additional matters such as ensuring that this remains a fully funded government scheme for the benefit of the entire community, by ensuring that this is clearly articulated in the legislation.

Should business remain the paymaster, there must be adequate compensation to cover these costs in a similar way to that provided under the United Kingdom scheme.
Given the breadth of businesses affected and the three-way interaction between the employer, the Family Assistance Office and the employee post birth, there should also be funding provided for an information campaign conducted by employer organisations.

Finally, employers remain committed to continuing to encourage work and family initiatives that suit the specific needs of the business and employees—including voluntary paid parental leave benefits which will build upon the government scheme.
That is our opening statement and we welcome questions from the committee.

CHAIR—Thank you very much, Mr Mammone.

Mr Gregory, do you have anything to add?

Mr Gregory—Nothing further at this stage, thank you.

Senator ADAMS—Thank you very much for your submission.
I am looking at page 12 of your submission, where it says that the New Zealand scheme is: Eligible for birth mother or adoptive parent after working for same employer for a qualifying period; … Could you comment on those guidelines compared to the government’s policy?

Mr Mammone—I do not have the New Zealand scheme in front of me but I recall that in terms of the eligibility work test it is fairly consistent.
I believe the government scheme may be a little bit more generous in terms of who may be entitled to it; therefore, it may cover more employees than the New Zealand scheme does.

Senator ADAMS—The New Zealand one is currently paid up to 14 weeks, and that has just been increased from 12 weeks in 2004.
It also says, on page 13, that the New Zealand scheme: Paid up to 14 weeks (this was increased from 12 weeks in 2004) from the start of the employee’s leave and ends upon the employee returning to work, resigns or comes to the end of their fixed term contract.
The payments also end if the employee is dismissed, made redundant, the pregnancy ends other than by the delivery of a child, the employee no longer cares for the child, or upon the death of the employee or child; … I am thinking about someone who perhaps had a stillbirth—at, say, 36 weeks gestation—the child is not living when it is born.

How do you feel about that?

Do you believe that that woman is entitled to leave, despite the fact that the baby is deceased?
I am looking at the mental health aspect of this.

Mr Gregory—Our position in terms of the detail.

When we make reference to the New Zealand scheme it is only in terms of the administration of that scheme that we are making that comparison.

As Mr Mammone indicated in our opening comments and as our submissions have indicated, we are supportive of the government’s proposals in regard to what they are intending by way of a paid parental leave scheme.

We are supportive of the detail of that scheme.


It is simply that we make reference to the scheme that exists in New Zealand by way of the means by which that scheme is administered.

We are not making comparisons about the level of benefits provided in either case, the Australian government’s current scheme as we understand it is more generous in terms of the benefits delivered and the eligibility than the scheme that currently exists in New Zealand.
COMMUNITY AFFAIRS Friday, 14 May 2010 Senate CA 21 Senator ADAMS—Thank you.

As far as the government scheme of 18 weeks, do you consider the 26 weeks as proposed by the coalition would be more adequate for the paid parental leave scheme?

Mr Mammone—Our position is that any proposal has to be fully costed and funded.
As we understand it, the opposition’s proposed parental leave scheme would be an unfair impost, in our view, on larger firms, which would be double taxed, as businesses already contribute substantially to Commonwealth revenue through ordinary taxation.

We have looked at the funding of the government’s paid parental leave scheme and it appears to be affordable.

It is on that basis that we do not oppose the design of the scheme.
But we do not support the impost that would be imposed on larger firms of providing the 26 weeks, as the opposition proposes.

Senator HANSON-YOUNG—One of the things I picked up on in your submission is your reference to information from the ACTU—I guess it is from the ACTU website—that goes to this issue of expanding the scheme.
Who do you believe is responsible for ensuring that, if the scheme is implemented as it is—and many people have argued to this committee that it is not good enough and does not provide the length of time a mother, in particular, needs, even in order to just breastfeed her baby to the World Health Organisation standard, or whether it is to include superannuation—how improvements that people are saying are needed will be implemented?
Is it the role of government to go through that process and commit to that or would you prefer to see, as the ACTU have suggested this morning, that we just leave it to the industrial relations bargaining process and it becomes part of market forces?

Mr Gregory—Our position on this is in regard to the scheme that we are talking about at the moment—and that is that this is a responsibility for government.
As we have already pointed out, we believe that this is an entirely legitimate area for government to be getting involved in—making policy decisions about the nature of the scheme that should exist and indeed in terms of how that scheme should be amended in the future.

There is a review process built into the current proposal.
It seems to us to be entirely appropriate as well to consider the operation of the scheme in its initial two-year phase and then to be making further decisions and giving further consideration to the nature of the scheme based upon that particular experience.

In that context we would say that all of the issues that you are referring to are entirely appropriate for further consideration and for further decision making by government.
We would naturally look forward to the opportunity of feeding into those deliberations to those considerations at an appropriate time.

Senator HANSON-YOUNG—How do you see the relationship between those businesses that already have their own schemes in place—many of them, in fact, are far more generous than what the government is putting forward—and this scheme?

How do you see them linking together?


How would you like to see that streamlined for businesses if they wish to continue to offer their employees above and beyond what the government scheme is offering?

How do you see that working and becoming a smooth process?

Mr Gregory—The first thing to say is that there are obviously a significant number of organisations that already provide some form or other of paid parental leave entitlements.
We say, ‘Good on them for doing so.’ It is entirely appropriate for them to be making decisions about the type of working arrangements that are best suited to the needs of their particular business and their employees.

The considerations that we are talking about at the moment in terms of a national paid parental leave scheme are an entirely different set of considerations.

As I have said, it is something that should be left appropriately to consideration and decision making by government.
In terms of the interaction, it will simply be a case that those businesses that already provide some form of paid parental leave entitlement will now be considering the nature of those benefits in the context of the scheme that is being introduced by the government.

Whether that warrants any change to those individual business schemes, as I say, will be a matter for considerations that will take place often between both the business and its employees.
Many of those businesses will obviously continue to offer their existing level of benefit and will provide the additional government entitlements over and above that.

In some other cases, it may well be that the existing benefits now provided by businesses will be reviewed and might be amended in some way to better fit in with the national scheme that is now being implemented.
Senator HANSON-YOUNG—One of included the key reasons superannuation in their current proposal is because of cost to the government, yet there is the advantage that businesses would, of course, get out of a national paid parental leave scheme—being able to keep your employees attached to the workforce, to keep that relationship going and not to have to keep on reinventing the wheel always with re-skilling, retraining and all of the on-costs that come with that.
Do you see that if the government has not that COMMUNITY AFFAIRS CA 22 Senate Friday, 14 May 2010 government were to cover the rest of the cost for the actual paid leave, why superannuation should not be something that businesses pick up?

Mr Gregory—In the context of this scheme, I think we would say a couple of things.
The government has introduced this scheme on the basis of commitments from the Prime Minister and other relevant ministers that they will not support a scheme that imposes additional financial burdens or complexity on small business in particular.

And, in terms of the way in which this scheme is being structured, it is not a scheme that is based upon payments from the employer.

In that context, we do not believe that it is appropriate to impose a superannuation obligation upon the employer.
If the government wants to make some additional decisions about providing further funding from government that is an entirely different consideration, but we do not believe in the context of all of the circumstances that I have outlined—the government’s initial commitments and the way in which the scheme has been structured—that it is appropriate to then impose superannuation obligations upon employers with regard to those payments.

Mr Mammone—I will just add to what Mr Gregory has said.
ACCI was very constructive during the Productivity Commission inquiries by providing extensive written submissions and by appearing in support of those submissions.

In our second written submission, we mentioned that the 18 weeks could be readjusted to factor in the government providing for superannuation payments.

At the time, we considered that perhaps 16 weeks at the minimum wage with a superannuation component of nine per cent would equate roughly to the 18-week proposal.
It is not that we are against superannuation being paid by the government through this community funded scheme, but that is something which we did put on the table for the Productivity Commission to consider.

Senator HANSON-YOUNG—I want to pick up on the arguments that you are putting around the way that the current scheme is being proposed by the government and that it seems if we were to then include superannuation it would be a little out of kilter with the rest of the scheme.
Are you suggesting that the way this scheme has been put together is less of a workplace entitlement and more of a social welfare payment?

Is that your argument as to why superannuation should not be included?

Mr Gregory—That is essentially correct.

We would see these payments as there to provide a very important support for families at a critical stage in their lives.

It is essentially a family support payment rather than a payment that would normally be attributed to an employee entitlement.
Senator HANSON-YOUNG—How do you think that fits with the inconsistencies in the Fair Work Act around the unpaid parental leave provisions?

Do you find it strange that we are not linking the two?
Mr Mammone—We did urge the Productivity Commission and the government to consider the Paid Parental Leave scheme to act in a way that would be harmonious with the National Employment Standards because obviously there would be inconsistencies if someone was or was not entitled under the unpaid parental leave provisions to then be entitled to the paid parental leave payment but have employers act as the paymaster.

We have been conscious of trying to marry the two.


But in this scheme, the government has said that this is a community benefit that should be funded by the community as a whole through consolidated revenue.
The payments are to be delivered by the Family Assistance Office, and in some cases to the employers, and that is why in our submission we have tried to identify the major goals and objectives of the Paid Parental Leave scheme—we have identified them at paragraph 47 of our submission—and then try to extract the policy rationale for involving employers as the paymaster.

In this case we just do not see that there is sufficient rationale for imposing this red-tape burden particularly on smaller firms.
And it seems to be inconsistent with other areas where the government has tried to relieve small business from additional red tape, such as superannuation clearinghouse measures, industrial relations severance payments and unfair dismissals.

So that is where we are coming from in terms of how we see this operate.

Senator FURNER—We have just heard from you with regard to a number of your members that have paid parental leave provisions already.
Are you able to identify the number of members that you might have in your organisation who would have those provisions?

You might want to take that on notice if you cannot provide it now.

Mr Mammone—The issue of employers providing voluntary parental leave, whether it is a formal policy or part of their enterprise bargaining negotiations, the ACCI member network—many different industry organisations are members of ACCI.
They feed back to us through our formal committee structures that in COMMUNITY AFFAIRS Friday, 14 May 2010 Senate CA 23 various organisations—small, medium and large—there are different types of parental leave benefits.

It is probably not going to be something that we would be able to provide on notice.

Senator FURNER—In respect of your members or businesses who have taxable income over $5 million, are you able to identify how many of those there may be?

Mr Gregory—Again, that would be very difficult.


The estimates are that there would be about 3,200 businesses in total that would fall into that category.

Our membership is diverse.

It extends across industry sectors; it extends from large, medium to small businesses.

I would imagine that there would be a very significant proportion of the total number that would be members of the ACCI network.
Right at the moment, it would be impossible to give you a precise indication of just how many of that 3,200 would be involved.

Senator FURNER—That is something to work from anyway.

What would those businesses say about the opposition’s position on a paid parental leave provision that places an enormous impost on them of $2.7 billion to provide paid parental leave for not only their business, but also the rest of businesses in our society?
Mr Gregory—As Mr Mammone has already indicated, our position, which is based upon the feedback from our member organisations and their members, is that they are not supportive of a scheme that is based upon a levy or a tax upon business, particularly one that is based on imposing that obligation on a limited number of business organisations.

Senator FURNER—But what sort of business decisions would they have to make should that scheme be imposed upon them?

Would they shut up business and move overseas?


Would they reconsider looking at employment of female workers?

I am asking those sorts of the questions, whether those decisions would be part of their business if that scheme was imposed upon them.

Mr Gregory—I can honestly say that we have not got to that stage in our discussions with organisations or their members.

The proposal that they are looking at from the coalition is simply a proposal only.
I do not believe there would be businesses that have given it the level of consideration that you are referring to, although we have always been concerned to ensure that any scheme introduced does not have adverse impacts upon any sector of the Australian workforce.

Senator FURNER—In respect to the bill’s keeping-in-touch proposal for 10 days during the leave, how do you foresee that operating for an employee?
What sort of work will they be performing on those 10 days of keeping in touch with the business?

Mr Gregory—That is very difficult to give a considered response to in terms of an across-the-board position.
There will be a whole range of reasons, ranging from perhaps more light-hearted social occasions as to why people might want to keep in touch with the business, to perhaps keeping in touch when there are significant changes or things happening within an organisation that it is worthwhile bringing people up-to-date with.
So there will be whole range of things that would fall into that category, from things that are more social in nature to things that are important in terms of changes taking place within an organisation.

Mr Mammone—And I might add that regardless of whether the keep-in-touch provision is a legislative requirement, although we note it is by consent, employers and employees already voluntarily and sensibly discuss return to work.
We understand that many employers arrange for the employee to keep in touch in many ways, whether it is through electronic communication on the internet or email et cetera or face-to-face by calling into the office now and again during unpaid parental leave.
We do not oppose the keep-in-touch provision per se, although we have not seen any amendments proposed to the fair work legislation, but we think the keeping in touch provision assists with the retention and workplace attachment issues, more so than the paymaster function, which we do not think adds any improved benefit for workplace attachment or workforce attachment, recalling that the Productivity Commission found that they were more concerned about workforce attachment and not the workplace per se.
Senator FURNER—I have a question with regard to whether your members have entered into negotiations or agreements with employees to provide provisions for income protection insurance as part of their entitlements.

Would you be familiar with those arrangements at all?
Mr Mammone—There are many employers who provide all sorts of benefits to employees as part of their negotiations, and whether that is through formal bargaining that results in a collective enterprise agreement, or individual bargaining in terms of contracts and policies, we are aware that many employers provide for payments into health insurance and other insurance policies and we imagine employers will continue to do so if it is within their interests and the interests of their employees.
COMMUNITY AFFAIRS CA 24 Senate Friday, 14 May 2010 Senator FURNER—Relying on my experience in a previous career, where negotiations occurred it became part of the entitlements.

The payment was made by the employer, and the employer was reimbursed by the insurance company through the scheme; therefore, the employer was acting in a paymaster arrangement similar to what you have expressed concerns over.

I am still trying to understand what issues you may have with this paymaster role.
Mr Mammone—I have been in industrial relations for quite some time and I cannot recall any cases—not to say that there are none, but I am not familiar with any—where that would happen, in the sense of the employer acting as some sort paymaster on behalf of the insurance company.

Certainly, employers provide money to third-party funds, which is similar to superannuation.
Our concern is that we cannot identify any other area of policy or regulation whereby the business assumes the role of an agent for the government, and we are concerned that this may signal the beginning of the employer acting as an agent for the government for a whole range of other payments in the future.
In the area of superannuation co-contributions, for example— we referred to it in our submission—there is no analogous situation, whether it is taxation collection or something of that kind, that requires the employer to pass public moneys to private individuals.

Senator FURNER—Okay.

You may wish to check that with the Chamber of Commerce and Industry Queensland, because I am familiar with those arrangements being in place, certainly a few years ago.
Things may have changed, but that was the case in my experience: employers were acting as paymasters for income protection insurance on behalf of their employees.

CHAIR—Thank you.

Senator Adams, you have another question?

Senator ADAMS—I do, thank you.

Could you tell me if employers who are currently paying parental leave to employees are liable for payroll tax.
Mr Mammone—We outlined to the Productivity Commission that we were concerned that employers would be liable for workers compensation and payroll tax.

From our research at the time—this may have changed—we were under the impression that in Victoria, New South Wales, Tasmania and South Australia there was an exemption for up to 14 weeks of pay, and in other states and territories, such as the Northern Territory and Western Australia, there was no such exemption that we could locate.
We understand that the government is in discussions with the state and territory governments to look at addressing that issue.

It remains a concern that payroll tax at the moment is not exempt from the paid parental leave payments under the government’s bill.

Senator ADAMS—Right.

I also want to check a statement.

I am not quite sure when you were discussing superannuation, but did you say that you would cut the payments back to 16 weeks so the super could be paid?

Is that what was said?

Mr Mammone—No.


I was referring to one of our written submissions to the Productivity Commission inquiry which followed the Productivity Commission’s draft report.
We recommended to the Productivity Commission that it could consider adjusting the 18-week payments to another minimum that would also allow the government to pay superannuation on those payments, and we roughly calculated that 16 weeks worth of payments plus the nine per cent superannuation on those payments—all payable by the government—would approximate the 18-week scheme.

Senator ADAMS—Thank you very much for that clarification.

CHAIR—We are wrapping up, but I have one more question.
It is about the costings of the impost on employers with the payroll task—being a paymaster, as you have put it in your submission.

The Productivity Commission did consider that and put out some costings as part of the modelling that they did.
Did you have a look at that and see whether that was something that you understood and accepted or rejected?Mr Mammone—We did look at that and that formed part of the government’s regulatory impact statement, which was predominantly based on the Productivity Commission recommended scheme.

We have mentioned, at paragraph 30 of our written submission, that the government estimates a number of costs to small and larger firms.
But we believe that it is an underestimate of those cost impacts in the way that those costs have been calculated and estimated.

We give one example, at paragraph 32, where we say that the RIS assumes that six per cent of small businesses would pay $300 for professional advice and that six per cent of small businesses would purchase software updates at a cost of $100 each.
We believe that significantly underestimates the cost of both the advice and the software updates as well as the number of businesses affected.

We believe that, regardless of whether there is one employee, 10 employees or 100 employees that are eligible under the scheme, the business has the same cost to obtain advice and update payroll software et cetera.

COMMUNITY AFFAIRS Friday, 14 May 2010 Senate CA 25 CHAIR—Have you done any costings yourself through your organisation?
Mr Mammone—ACCI members have endeavoured to look at the cost impacts on an industry basis as well as for specific sized firms.

I believe that some of our members that will be providing either written or oral evidence to this inquiry may provide some of those estimates.

But within the time that we have had available we just have not been able to get some detailed cost impacts on businesses, particularly the smaller firms.

But they do say that there will be a cost impact and the RIS gives an underestimate.
CHAIR—Is there anything that you wish to add?

Mr Mammone—No, Senator.

Thank you very much for your time CHAIR—And thank you very much for your cooperation.

Mr Gregory—Thanks for the opportunity.

COMMUNITY AFFAIRS CA 26 Senate Friday, 14 May 2010 [11.57 am] SMITH, Mr Stephen Thomas, Director, National Workplace Relations, Australian Industry Group CHAIR—Welcome.

You have information on parliamentary privilege and the protection of witnesses.

We have your submission.

Thank you very much for that.


I invite you to make an opening statement, and then we will go to questions.

Mr Smith—Thank you.

Ai Group welcomes the opportunity to express its views on the bill.

Heather Ridout, our CEO, expresses her apologies.

She would have loved to have been here today, but she had other commitments interstate.
As we said in our written submission, we believe the Paid Parental Leave scheme reflected in the bill is a sensible approach to an issue that has remained unresolved for too long.

We have been very actively involved in the debate about paid parental leave for quite a number of years now and have been supportive of a government funded paid parental leave scheme at the level of the minimum wage.
We believe that the introduction of an appropriately designed scheme, as we believe this one is, will provide many benefits to the community, not least of which is increased participation by women in the workforce.

This is a very important issue, increasingly important given Australia’s ageing population and skill and labour shortages.
We believe that the approach taken within the bill is a sensible and practical approach and we strongly support the fact that increased costs will not be imposed on employers through changes to parental leave eligibility under the Fair Work NES provisions and the leave accrual provisions of the National Employment Standards.

We also strongly support the fact that employers will not be subjected to increased superannuation, increased workers compensation and we hope, of course, increased payroll tax.
We also very much support the fact that this legislation does not attempt to regulate company parental leave schemes and policies.

For several months we were involved in a government consultation process, and the federal government’s views and decisions on these issues took on board concerns that the Australian Industry Group and other industry groups expressed during that consultation process.
In its submission, the ACTU has expressed dissatisfaction with some of these views and decisions, but during the consultation process there were many issues and proposals which the ACTU pressed that the government has taken on board.

We believe that the outcome of the consultation process was a balanced approach which took on board the interests of all parts of the community, and we urge the committee not to seek to disturb that balance through the recommendations that it makes in its inquiry report.
In our written submission we proposed a few technical but important amendments to the bill to ensure that the payment processes do not operate unfairly for employers.

We believe that the issues we have raised could be addressed very simply with a few amendments to the bill.
While we recognise that the intention is that the communication flow between the department and employers is intended to be principally in electronic form, we do urge the government and opposition parties to be very mindful of the needs and characteristics of small businesses.
These businesses may not have regular contact with the department, there may not be an up-to-date email address and there is the real prospect, of course, of mail delays and email transmission problems due to changing personnel and other reasons, and we think these issues do need to be taken into account.

But with those few amendments which we have proposed, we urge the parliament to pass the bill without delay.

Senator ADAMS—You heard me ask the question about the payroll tax.
Can you enlighten me any further about that?

Mr Smith—No—I did hear that answer, and we do not disagree with that.

As we understand it, there are different arrangements in place in different states.

Some of the states, like Victoria, have changed their arrangements in recent times but we believe this issue does need to be addressed and that it will be fairly simply addressed, in our view, with the commitment from the states to make sure that payroll tax is not increased as a result of this scheme.
Senator ADAMS—I was just looking at page 11 of your submission, about education for employers.

Would you like to expand on your comments there, please?

Mr Smith—We believe that it will be necessary to educate employers, large and small, about the requirements of this scheme.

There are important aspects, of course, that employers need to be aware of—the procedural issues and the objectives of the scheme—but there are also very substantial penalties for not complying with the provisions of this scheme.
From the point of view of making sure that the objectives of the COMMUNITY AFFAIRS Friday, 14 May 2010 Senate CA 27 scheme are met and that employees have access to the scheme through their workplace and so on, we think that an education program would be very important.
Senator ADAMS—You have probably heard, or read in a number of submissions, that people have put forward their thoughts on the stay-at-home mothers versus those who are working; how this scheme would work as far as they are concerned and with the baby bonus.

Could you comment on that?

Do you have any issue with it?

Mr Smith—We believe that the issue of stay-at-home mothers is being addressed through the baby bonus.
Right throughout our submissions on the make-up of a national Paid Parental Leave scheme, we have consistently argued that the scheme should be for employees and that the issue of people who are not in the workforce should be taken into account, but that is a separate issue.

We think that this scheme is appropriately designed.
We are aware that the scheme has relatively generous eligibility that extends beyond just employees in the more traditional sense, but we would support the structure that has been proposed here.

Senator HANSON-YOUNG—Can you expand on the feelings on superannuation.

That is an issue that has been commented on in various other submissions and by witnesses today.

If this scheme is a workplace entitlement then surely superannuation should be included.
Mr Smith—This issue was looked at in quite a lot of detail in the Productivity Commission inquiry and the recommendation was made from that inquiry.

We recognise that this would be a significant cost impost on business if they were required to pay superannuation during the period of parental leave.

It would also result in the costs associated with the employment of people on parental leave increasing.
One of the longstanding debates about this issue has been to make sure that there are not additional costs associated with employing women on maternity leave and so on.

We think the government’s decision in this area, not to impose that impost on business, is correct.

We think it is an issue that could be reviewed in a few years time when the scheme is reviewed.

We do not envisage that our view will change at that point in time, but it is an issue that should be considered.
On the issue of superannuation, it is a very substantial cost already for industry, and with the recent announcements those costs are going to increase.

We think the scheme has the balance right at this point in time.

But the superannuation issue is one decision that has been made, along with many others, that we think at this time is appropriate.

Senator HANSON-YOUNG—Those organisations that already have their own paid parental or maternity scheme, of course, pay superannuation.

Mr Smith—Yes.
Mr Smith—Yes.

Senator HANSON-YOUNG—So what is the difference?

Mr Smith—Those companies are providing that benefit as part of a company policy or perhaps an enterprise agreement.

That is something that has been left to be sorted out at the enterprise level.

This is a government funded scheme and this is the same sort of issue as others like accrual during periods of parental leave—accrual of sick leave or annual leave.
Issues of superannuation payments and accruals during parental leave have been around for a long time, since superannuation came into the system and we have had paid maternity leave.

These things are currently dealt with in a certain way and we do not see a need for a change to the safety net at this point in time.

Senator HANSON-YOUNG—So it is not that superannuation is to be included per se; it is that business should not have to cover it.
Is the concern that, if superannuation is to be included, it should come out of the government coffers as well?

Mr Smith—It is a decision for the government as to whether or not it wishes to fund superannuation for the period.

We do think that the scheme needs to be soundly costed and so on.

No doubt the government has considered that issue and come to a view at this point in time that the appropriate financial model for the scheme is the one that exists.
Senator HANSON-YOUNG—You have pointed out that, under this scheme, it is not just that it does not include superannuation; it does not include those accruals of other types of leave as you would have under a business funded scheme.

How can it be claimed then that this is a workplace entitlement?

Mr Smith—I should qualify my comments there.

The issue of accrual of leave under company schemes is an issue that varies from scheme to scheme.
Usually a company is not under any obligation to do that and some do recognise accruals and some do not.

A lot of companies do not but many companies would pay superannuation on it.

This is a government funded scheme.

We support the way that it does not interact COMMUNITY AFFAIRS CA 28 Senate Friday, 14 May 2010 directly with the National Employment Standards because, once you try to achieve that direct interaction, it leads to all sorts of problematic consequences.
Take the issue of eligibility, for example: we would strongly oppose the idea of the eligibility in the National Employment Standards becoming as wide as the eligibility in this scheme.

Then there are all those issues of accruals and other areas that I have mentioned.

So it is a much simpler approach from our point of view to keep the two separate.

Senator HANSON-YOUNG—I turn now to that link or lack of link between the provisions of the Fair Work Act and the National Employment Standards.
In your submission I read that you believe it is a good scheme because it does not interact with schemes that companies and businesses already offer.

How can we be assured that businesses are not going to change their own schemes now, based on the fact that the government is going to foot at least the minimum wage for 18 weeks, if there is no interaction there?

Mr Smith—The interaction, if one was to be developed, would be extremely difficult to design.
We think this is a very well-designed proposal because all the employers I have spoken to, for example, seem to be of the view that the design of this scheme means that they will not need to make any changes at all to their schemes.

A lot of employers have schemes that provide four, eight, 12 or 14 weeks of paid parental leave at the level of the base wage.

The view of the employers that we have spoken to about this seems to be that they will just keep offering that.
The employee will have the opportunity to either take that payment at the same time as the employer’s payment, which to us would not be particularly logical or, more likely, would have the government payment once the company’s payment stopped.

We use the example in our submission that someone that has the benefit of eight weeks of paid parental leave could take that and then the government’s 18 weeks after that which would give them six months of pay.
Senator HANSON-YOUNG—But there is nothing to ensure that, is there?

There is no indication in this legislation that that has to happen.

The government is just trusting that business and companies are going to do the right thing.

Mr Smith—It is like some of the arguments that are run about award modernisation—take that as an example—where people, it has been alleged, are going to go around and reduce people’s pay.

That just has not happened.

Employers value their staff.


They offer benefits to attract and retain staff, and in our experience it is not happening, or likely to happen, that employers are going to reduce existing benefits, particularly with a scheme that very neatly dovetails with those benefits.

It is not necessary for companies to change any of their existing schemes, because this scheme will fit neatly, as we see it, with all of the common models that a company might offer.
Of course, there are contractual-type arrangements in place anyway.

It may well be that a scheme is locked into an enterprise agreement or a common-law contract of employment, and therefore, of course, companies cannot just readily change those schemes in the rare circumstances that some might want to.
Senator HANSON-YOUNG—What would be the opinion of the Ai Group if an organisation did decide, ‘Let’s save a bit on our bottom line by taking off that $530 a week that the government is now going to pay to our employees’?

What is your opinion about that?

What position would you take?

Is that acceptable or is that not in good faith?


Mr Smith—It would very much depend on the circumstances but, as I have said, what we will be saying to our members is that with the design of this scheme there is no need for employers to alter their policies and procedures, at least with any of the common models that come to mind to us.

If any employers do choose to do that, it is difficult to see what should be done about it; that is their right.
But, of course, we talk to employers all day every day, and not one has said to us that they are going to change their schemes—quite the opposite.

They have looked at this scheme as they understand it so far, and it seems to fit very neatly on top of the schemes that they have.
Senator FURNER—On that point, Mr Smith, I take it that most of the schemes you spoke about that your members have—the two, four, six or eight weeks or even longer—would be covered in enterprise agreements that those employers or members have with their employees.

Mr Smith—More often than not they are in company policies and common-law contracts of employment, but there are many, many enterprise agreements that include paid maternity leave arrangements, yes.
Senator FURNER—So ultimately you would essentially need to get agreement to amend those provisions.

Mr Smith—That is correct.

The parties would not be able to just amend those provisions but, even if it were in a common-law contract of employment through a letter of offer and acceptance, that could not be readily changed.

There are companies that just have policies on these issues.
As I say, we have spoken to many COMMUNITY AFFAIRS Friday, 14 May 2010 Senate CA 29 employers over time, and it just seems that there is no need or intent to change those policies.

This scheme, we believe, has been very cleverly designed to make sure it is not going to have that consequence, in our view.
Senator HANSON-YOUNG—I find it difficult to accept that argument just on good faith and to have nothing in the legislation that sends a message or gives any direction when the same groups are saying, ‘We don’t want to have to pay the impost of the administration and there’s no way we can possibly pay the $800 in superannuation.’ The government has really been fooled, in my view, into this false sense of security that it does not have to put anything in the legislation that makes sure that current businesses that have their current paid parental leave schemes in place are not going to try to save on their bottom line once taxpayer dollars are put into the mix.
There is nothing in this legislation that prevents businesses from doing that.

As you have said, it is their right according to this legislation.

Yet they do not want to pay $800 for superannuation.

Mr Smith—But what could conceivably be put in a piece of legislation about that?

Companies are reviewing their policies and procedures about all sorts of issues every day of the week.

At the moment, there is a huge amount of it going on because of the National Employment Standards modern awards.
So you could not put something in saying a company could not review its policies and procedures when best-practice companies and those that want to keep complying with the law do that all the time.

Senator HANSON-YOUNG—There could, of course, be incentives and disincentives, as with many other ways we regulate industry.

Mr Smith—We have a different position from some of the other employer associations on some of these issues, of course.
We have not opposed what has been described as the paymaster function.

We recognise the intended objective of that and we are supportive of that, but we have raised some issues about the detail.

If it turns out, in the review in a few years time, that that has been a major problem then of course we will say, ‘These are the problems; they need to be addressed,’ but we do not envisage a lot of problems.
For example, a small business might have an employee go off on maternity leave only once every three or four years.

It is not like they are going to have five people off at any one point in time.

For a bigger business it will be a very common circumstance, but they are the ones who are more likely to set up the electronic systems with the relevant department and so on.

So we are hopeful that this will work well, and if it does not we will be pressing the government to address any problems it caused.
Senator HANSON-YOUNG—On that point, would you agree with what was put forward by the Human Rights Commission—that the review needs to be more specific in terms of time frames and it needs to be a legislative review so that we do not just promise we will get there and that does not happen?

That review of course is dealing only with superannuation at this stage; that is the way it is drafted.

And there is the paternity leave aspect.


Mr Smith—We do not think the review necessarily needs to be directed at specific aspects.

It should be a general review of the scheme.

The scheme has got many different aspects to it.

If it is proving to be problematic or unfair to employees or employers, of course those issues will arise.

Senator HANSON-YOUNG—If that were the case, it would mean we would need to broaden the scope of the review from how it is currently drafted.
Mr Smith—I would have to take that question on notice.

The way that we would see such a review is that it should be a general review of the scheme.

Senator HANSON-YOUNG—Thank you.

Senator FURNER—Mr Smith, would you be familiar with how many members or businesses within your organisation provide paid parental leave at present?

Mr Smith—We have never done a detailed analysis of it.
Our membership is very broad, and this issue has been looked at in great detail in the public statistics and research reports, and we do not perceive that those publicly available statistics would be any different for our membership than they are generally within the community.

We have large companies, small companies et cetera.

Senator FURNER—Okay.

Would you be familiar with how many of your members have a taxable income beyond $5 million?

Mr Smith—Yes, there would be a significant number of companies.
I could not give you the figure, but it would be very substantial.

Senator FURNER—Can you give me a ballpark figure, then—a range of numbers?

COMMUNITY AFFAIRS CA 30 Senate Friday, 14 May 2010 Mr Smith—I would have to take it on notice.

I could not answer off the top of my head.

It would be very substantial.

The Australian Industry Group has a very large number of large organisations as members, from many, many sectors.
Senator FURNER—What has been their reaction in terms of the opposition’s suggestion, even as late as last night, of a modest levy of $2.7 billion being imposed on them to fund paid parental leave?

Mr Smith—We have been very public in our opposition to the opposition’s proposal.

We have not seen detailed propositions, but as it has been announced we are concerned about the very substantial cost of the proposal.

It would be vastly more costly than this scheme.


Also, there is the fact that it is to be funded by a levy on larger businesses—we have been very public in our opposition to that.

We have discussed the issue within our councils, which are comprised of the chief executives of member companies, and we are very strongly opposed to that proposal.

Senator FURNER—Have they been discussing contingency plans as a result of what they would do if the scheme were implemented?
Mr Smith—No, there has not been that level of detailed consideration.

I think the businesses would be very much hoping that our representations and those of other industry groups might ensure that that scheme was not implemented should the opposition win government.

Senator FURNER—Finally, how do you see the keeping-in-touch provisions—the 10 days—operating?

What sort of work would be conducted during that period of time?

Mr Smith—We support those provisions.

We think it is a sensible proposal.


In fact, it was the Australian Industry Group which reached agreement with the ACTU on keeping-in-touch provisions during the family provisions test case a few years ago.

Those keeping-in-touch provisions flowed into the model award clauses.

So we agree with the concept of it.

In terms of what activities might be carried out, we would think it is more in the realm of attending meetings and perhaps events that are a little more social but are held at the workplace.
It is very difficult to draw a hard and fast rule with it, but we think, unlike the ACTU’s submission and arguments, there is an appropriate level of protection there because it is a proposal that is only implemented if the two parties agree.

We do not think there is any risk that the arrangements will be abused.

Senator FURNER—Thank you.

CHAIR—Mr Smith, I would just like to get on the record the issue you raise in your submission about the time period—the seven-day, 14-day issue.
It is quite a central part of your submission.

Could you give us some information on that for the record.

Mr Smith—The thing that we are particularly concerned about—and it may be just a drafting oversight—is that it seems to us that the date on the notice is the date that the notice is prepared within the department and the employer is exposed to a $33,000 penalty if within 14 days of the date of that notice they do not either accept the directive that has been put out by the department or seek a review.
So we think that this will operate unfairly.

If an employer has preregistered and the electronic communication comes through to the HR manager, it may well work as it is intended.

But, with a small business, where the department does not have an email address and a letter has to be posted out from the department, it could easily get there towards the end of the 14-day period.
As I have said, a small business typically will not have people off on maternity leave all the time, so this might be a completely new facility.

As much as you would hope that regulators and courts would be reasonable with that sort of thing, it is an extremely hefty penalty of $33,000 for failing to send the form back within that period.

CHAIR—And you have recommended 21 days.


Mr Smith—Yes, 21 days in line with where we got to with some of the industrial legislation—and a halving of the penalty to make it consistent with some of the other provisions, like in the Fair Work Act, for similar sorts of things.

CHAIR—So that link with the Fair Work Act but not the other?

Mr Smith—No—just because it was a practical way of dealing with the same sort of issue.
Senator ADAMS—In one of your answers to Senator Furner you stated that the number of companies that would be affected by the coalition’s scheme were substantial.

Are you aware of just how many companies that is?

Mr Smith—Not off the top of my head.

We did do some analysis on this, but I do not have those figures.

COMMUNITY AFFAIRS Friday, 14 May 2010 Senate CA 31 Senator ADAMS—It was 750,000 companies and, out of that, there was 3,200 who would actually be affected.
I was just wondering how many of those actually belong to your organisation?

Mr Smith—We have very substantial memberships from sectors such as manufacturing in all its types, construction, the ICT industry and the transport industry in a very diverse way, with aviation, rail et cetera.

There are many different major sectors within our organisation, and the large and significant organisations in all of those sectors tend to be members of Ai Group.
So a significant percentage of those companies would be our members.

As I have said, we have considered the opposition’s scheme and we are very much opposed to it.

We think this scheme, that is reflected in this bill, is an appropriate scheme.

It is consistent with the propositions that we have put forward over the last eight years or so in various inquiries.

Senator ADAMS—The actual difference in the coalition’s proposal and the government’s proposal is the 26 weeks compared to the 18 weeks to 20.
We had the human rights commissioner here giving evidence earlier that under the human rights guidelines the optimum time is 26 weeks.

Have you got anything to say about how your industry feels about that length of time?

Mr Smith—This was an issue that was exhaustively analysed during the Productivity Commission’s inquiry and, as a result of that inquiry, 18 weeks was recommended.

I think that is the best answer to this issue.


The Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission put its submissions to that inquiry—as we did and as the ACTU did.

After all of that analysis and a draft report, an 18-week publicly funded scheme was recommended.

We think that is appropriate.

CHAIR—The only question I have is to do with the link with the NES.
I understand and have seen the submissions that you have made to the Productivity Commission about that and they are certainly focused around eligibility and what determines the definition of an employee.

One of the clear concerns is the right to return to work and to a job.

I am just wondering whether there has been any discussion about that.

Under the NES with the unpaid scheme it is unpaid but your job will be there to return to.
Under this scheme of paid parental leave that kind of security is not in the act.

Do you have any comment about that?

Mr Smith—I do not think that issue needs to be dealt with in this legislation.

The Fair Work Act as well as federal and state discrimination legislation is there.

In the Fair Work Act it is not just the NES—we have got the general protections.

There is a raft of protection in other legislation for people who have caring responsibilities and are treated in a discriminatory or unfair way.
So we do not think that issue needs to be addressed here.

For all the things that we have raised over time in the consultations with government and in the various inquiries about this interaction, it starts to get very messy once you try to make the Fair Work legislation consistent with this because it will not fit.

The eligibility is quite different.

There is the issue of what is paid leave.


We are not envisaging any problems, but that is an issue that should be looked at, as to whether any problems have resulted, in that review.

CHAIR—The other point is the costings that have been claimed by some other employer groups about the costs to employers for being the payroll managers.

I know AiG has been very strong in saying that it is an option that is real—that the link with the pay and the work is one that you support.
But some of the other groups have said that there would be considerable impost on employers.

Has your organisation done any costings about what would be the impost on employers to be paying their staff this paid parental leave?

Mr Smith—Not specifically.

We are going back to that inquiry, eight or so years ago, that HREOC had.
We proposed to that inquiry that it should be a government funded scheme but employers should have the option of receiving the payment and passing it on because we have believed all along that this will reinforce the link with the workplace.
That is the reason that we are supportive of the arrangements, but we will be monitoring it ourselves—we hope that everyone else will be as well—and if it does prove to be problematic and excessively onerous for employers, we would hope the government would be open to changing it.

We are certainly not opposing it.

CHAIR—That would be another aspect of the review?

Mr Smith—Yes, it should be an issue in the review.

CHAIR—Thank you very much for your evidence and your attendance.
There are a couple of things that people asked you to take on notice, so the secretariat will follow up with you on that.

Mr Smith—Thank you.

COMMUNITY AFFAIRS CA 32 Senate Friday, 14 May 2010 [12.35 pm] ZIMMERMAN, Mr Russell, Executive Director, Australian Retailers Association Evidence was taken via teleconference— CHAIR—Thank you for your patience, Mr Zimmerman.

You have information about the protection of witnesses and evidence.

We have your submission, thank you very much.


Would you like to make an opening statement?

Mr Zimmerman—Yes I would.

CHAIR—Thank you.

Mr Zimmerman—Retail growth has been patchy for 18 months and any month to month growth has been insignificant and usually followed by a month of decline in sales.

The December sales trade, which should have been the best of time for retailers, showed a decline in growth at negative 0.6 per cent.
This was followed by soft growth in January, declining growth in February and uninspiring March trade.

Signs of rising consumer confidence are not translating into retail transactions with many retailers forced into a perpetual sales mode for most of the past 12 months.

It is really not business as usual at the moment and there certainly does not seem to be any sign of a stabilised recovery while the RBA continues to take money away from consumers with a bombardment of interest rate rises.
During this time of difficult trade, small retailers who operate without any in-house human resources or employment relations specialists are grappling to understand their obligations under the biggest overhaul of industrial relations laws and awards for more than 50 years.

The new Fair Work Act has already come into play.


Parts of the new retail award are already in action and the five-year transition of the new award wage bill increases begin from 1 July this year followed by the threat of workplace inspections from the Fair Work Ombudsman.

These changes are major and a major impact on the way retailers manage their employees’ life cycle from hiring to firing and every step along the way.
While they struggle to understand their new employer obligations and update employment contracts, letters, policies and procedures, retailers are now faced with the administrative burden of handling parental leave employee payments on behalf of the government.

Retailers, particularly small retailers, are the cornerstone of local communities and are often family run businesses themselves.
There are many examples of retailers nurturing the concepts of family and community by offering part-time and casual work to mothers getting back into the workforce and to school students who want to secure their first job.

Retailers will support the concept of paid parental leave that provides parents and family certainty and security as long as it is designed in a way that eliminates any cost to employers.
As the representative body for over 5,000 national and independently owned retailers across the country, the Australian Retailers Association believes that the paymaster function of the government’s Paid Parental Leave scheme adds another layer of unnecessary complexity and cost to small business employers who are already struggling with new employer obligations and soft trading conditions.
There is no evidence to suggest that employees will psychologically view the scheme in any way other should their paid parental leave payments come directly from the government and not their employer.

It is the ARA’s belief that the employer paymaster function should be eradicated from the government’s Paid Parental Leave scheme, with payments coming directly from Centrelink to the employee, as is the case for the first six months of the scheme.

Thank you.

Senator FURNER—Thank you, Mr Zimmerman.


Can I, firstly, get some understanding of the jurisdiction of your membership.

Is it the likes of Woolworths, Coles and IGA, or is it another group?

Mr Zimmerman—Woolworths, Coles and those larger retailers belong to a group called the Australian National Retailers Association, or ANRA.

We then pick up from their down.


In other words, we have the larger chains, the companies like Country Road, but we also have an incredibly large number of very small retailers where, in many cases, mum and dad operate the store and they have one or two employees.

Senator FURNER—So would you have an affiliation with the Retailers Association of Queensland?

Mr Zimmerman—No, we do not.

They probably have a constituency similar to ours.

One could say that they are in competition with us in many ways.
COMMUNITY AFFAIRS Friday, 14 May 2010 Senate CA 33 Senator FURNER—In your submission you make reference to examples of women in retail.

You make the point that in the past 12 months there have only been seven per cent on paid leave.

Is that paid parental leave that you are referring to in that part of your submission?

Mr Zimmerman—Yes, I believe it is paid parental leave.

Senator FURNER—Can you give some examples of what sorts of provisions would prevail in those cases.

Mr Zimmerman—Yes.
Mr Zimmerman—Yes.

Myer introduced six weeks paid maternity leave for all permanent employees with a minimum service of 18 months full-time employment.

Aldi have 14 weeks at half pay after 12 months service, but not for casuals.

Esprit offers eight weeks maternity leave and four weeks sick leave at full pay after 12 months service.

They are the examples I would use.

Senator FURNER—They are mostly the larger employers.

Mr Zimmerman—Yes.

It is the larger employer organisations.


The small employer organisations, the people with two, three, four, five or six shops, would not be in that position.

Senator FURNER—However, you make the point in your submission that less than 50 per cent of those respondents have taken up unpaid parental leave.

Mr Zimmerman—Yes, over the last few months.


Senator FURNER—Out of those who are providing paid leave, naturally the employer would administrate the expenses and the payment of that leave during their time off.

Mr Zimmerman—Yes, they would be.

Senator FURNER—In your opinion, has that raised any issues since those provisions have been in operation?

Mr Zimmerman—No, it has not, but you have to remember that those sorts of retailers have huge HR and legal resources—the whole box and dice.
It does also give those retailers a competitive advantage against smaller retail organisations.

I hark back to the small retailer.

He is unable to administer these things as easily as a large retailer can.

You also have to look at the cost involved to a small retailer who is forced to make a huge number of sales because he has to compete with larger organisations who have major buying power.

Senator FURNER—How do you foresee the ‘keeping in touch’ days operating?
They are the 10 days per— Mr Zimmerman—We support that totally for a number of reasons.

We believe it gives a sense of security to both parties.

From an employer’s point of view he knows he has an employee out there who is able to come into the organisation to keep in touch—’How are things going?’ ‘Okay, we’ll see you in another six weeks’ or whatever it may be.
From the employee’s point of view it gives them a nice, fuzzy feeling that the employer is interested and want to get them back once the 18 weeks is over.

Senator FURNER—For example, a shop assistant works in the cosmetics area.

What would they be doing when they come in on their keeping-in-touch day?

Mr Zimmerman—I think that for most employees it would be more a situation of talking to their employer.

I do not know that there would be much work.


It may be discussing what has happened, what new products are there and things like that.

I do not think it would be hands-on work.

It is really about keeping that nice, fuzzy feeling of knowing you have a position to come back to and that your employer is interested in what you are doing.

Senator FURNER—Are you familiar with the opposition’s position on paid parental leave?
Mr Zimmerman—I understand what they are looking for, which is to tax the major employers.

If that is the part you are referring to, I am au fait with that.

Senator FURNER—You are okay with it— Mr Zimmerman—I am au fait with it; I am not okay with it.

I do not support it, but I am au fait with what they are asking for.

Senator FURNER—So what are you members like Myer and the larger chains saying to you in respect of this?
Mr Zimmerman—I would like to take that on notice to talk to them about it before I answer for them.

I think it is a bit unfair to ask me to answer for them.

COMMUNITY AFFAIRS CA 34 Senate Friday, 14 May 2010 Senator FURNER—Thank you.
Senator ADAMS—To continue on that theme, unlike the government’s scheme this proposal would not impose a new regulatory burden on small business, as you were worried about, because the scheme is going to be paid and administered by the federal government through the Family Assistance Office— Mr Zimmerman—Yes, and we support that.

Senator ADAMS—You support that?

Mr Zimmerman—Yes.

Our recommendation is that we believe that the government should administer the scheme.
It should not be up to individual employers to administer the scheme.

Our preferred position was always that it should be a no-paymaster function.

Senator ADAMS—That is part of the coalition’s guidelines for this.

The other thing the coalition is looking at is that the scheme would provide employees of smaller businesses with a benefit that is funded by larger businesses so it would not cost them.

It is about trying to protect small business and their employees.

Would you comment on that?


Mr Zimmerman—Yes.

I would say that we do not support one sector of industry supporting another sector of industry but we do support in total the idea that there should be no paymaster and that the government should be the runner of the scheme.

Senator ADAMS—So you are not happy about small businesses being protected by funds coming from the larger businesses even though your argument was that you do not want any imposition on small business.
Mr Zimmerman—The imposition should not be on any business.

Senator ADAMS—I would like to go back to the consultation process that you explained on page 5 of your submission.

You say that your organisation was part of the consultation to start with but were never contacted again about further consultation.

You are: … concerned that the Government has not taken on board the genuine concerns of business, particularly small to medium sized retailers, with respect to the ‘paymaster’ function.
Could you come back to that again?

Mr Zimmerman—Firstly, I will say that I took over here as the executive director on 7 July 2009.

Over that period of time up until we had to put the submission in a couple weeks ago, there had been no communication or consultation with the ARA whatsoever other than what happened previous to my employment with the ARA.

We have some concerns.

Although we were part of the original process, after that we dropped off the radar.
We did not get any more consultation through the ARA.

We were never contacted about any further consultation.

We see ourselves as a peak body.

I understand we got a letter advising us that we would be involved in further consultation.

That has never occurred.

We believe that we are the largest organisation underpinning the small and medium retailers of Australia, and we have had no opportunity to put in any more input until we put this submission in in the last couple of weeks.
It is of great concern to us that our voice was not heard earlier in the consultation process.

Senator ADAMS—Thank you very much.

CHAIR—Did your organisation raise the issue of the impost on business in your previous discussions with government?

Mr Zimmerman—In the May 2008 discussions, yes.

I was not there, but I believe that we did raise them.

I have a copy of the 2008 one if you want me to have a look through it quickly.

CHAIR—No, that is fine.


It is just that the Productivity Commission raised at length the discussions they had had with businesses at various levels.

I do not know what happened—we will be asking the department about the consultation process—but I feel certain that the issues were taken into account.

Whether in fact the outcome is going to please everyone—we do not know what it is going to be yet—I can assure you that the issues of the involvement of business have been taken into account.
Because I have not worked in your industry I want to follow up a little on the way that small businesses operate their payrolls.

I know that the large ones have HR and payroll sections, but how do the small businesses of which you speak operate their requirements to pay the employees that they currently have and to respond to the taxation and other requirements that they currently have as businesses?
Mr Zimmerman—I will firstly answer that by saying there is probably more than one way small retailers would do their pays.

In the first instance you will get an employer with a couple of shops.

I can speak fairly COMMUNITY AFFAIRS Friday, 14 May 2010 Senate CA 35 authoritatively on this because I have been in retail for 30 years myself.

Those sorts of retail organisations would probably have either a MYOB pay system or something else similar to that.

There are many varied operations.


They will have payroll systems that need tweaking, adjusting or upgrading, whatever that will be, if this PPL goes through.

The next type of retail employer you would have would probably be a one- or two- store retailer again.

When I spoke about the previous lot I would have been talking about retailers with two, three or four shops.

If you have a very small retailer they might have Mum and Dad in the shop.
They may have a couple of employees; they may have a part timer and one full timer.

They are single operators.

They could do their pays by getting their accountant to do it.

That will put an administrative cost on them because they would have to get their accountant to follow through and make all the changes.

In the last place—and I cannot give you any figures on this—there would still be some employers around who would use either a Zion manual pay system or something similar.
It would all be hand done.

CHAIR—There will always be someone who has their book and their pen.

I am trying to visualise what people are required to do now under the various state and federal legislative requirements.

If there were any staff members of any kind, what would this do to the payroll function with the scheme we have before us, which is all we can work on?
The way I see it, and please pull me up if I am wrong, the requirement would be for the employer who has an employee who is thinking about or chooses to take up the scheme, because it is a choice, would have to tell the employer they wanted to do it.

The employer then would have to contact the agency and get the employer certificate, so that would be one task they had not done before.
Once they get certified as an employer, they would have to give their bank account details and the government agency would calculate the money that would be required because the employee would fill out the form, as would the employer.

Then the government agency would make a commitment to providing the appropriate funding at the pay date and then the employer would have to take responsibility for ensuring that that transaction was made at the various pay days.

Is that how you see it?


Mr Zimmerman—Yes, that is how I see it.

CHAIR—So basically the added requirement of this system would be obtaining the certification as the employer, the discussion with the employee about how the process would work and coming to an agreement on that, and then acquitting the money on a fortnightly basis.

Mr Zimmerman—Or weekly basis.

CHAIR—Whatever the agreement is, but it would be the acquittal of the funding that comes in.
That would be the series of tasks that would be an added impost.

Mr Zimmerman—Yes, but then beyond that you are going to have a whole lot of administrative changes to put those into operation.

CHAIR—I am really interested: can you let me know from your perspective what all of that administrative change would be.

Mr Zimmerman—You will need to have either your payroll system upgraded or you would need to make changes within the payroll system.

Every payroll system is going to be different.


For a start, superannuation is not calculated on the PPL payment.

A payroll system would automatically work out what your superannuation is, so you would have to exclude that.

CHAIR—So there would be another step to make that differentiation.

That is one more step in the process.


Mr Zimmerman—My understanding is that workers compensation is not included, so therefore when you do your annual returns for workers compensation, certainly across the eastern states—I cannot speak specifically for all states, but certainly the eastern states—when you do that workers compensation calculation, you have to add into that what your superannuation is.
You are going to have to make sure that in the first place you have excluded the superannuation before you put your workers compensation, so you are going to have an extra check step there to make sure that has been included.

At the end of the year you have a whole host of things to do for the tax department and you are going to have to make sure that those things are included in your returns to the tax department when you run your final pay system.
CHAIR—So it would be the action that is required to set up another way of operating for the particular employee on parental leave?

Mr Zimmerman—Yes.

COMMUNITY AFFAIRS CA 36 Senate Friday, 14 May 2010 CHAIR—So it would be the necessary changes people would have to make in their mainly, as you would agree, automated systems, but in some cases personally driven.

They would have to say that this employee now, for the period of their entitlement, be it whatever it is, would be treated differently.
Mr Zimmerman—Yes.

CHAIR—And then at the end of the year, when they are doing all their calculations, they would have to have another line that says how many people they had on paid parental leave.

Mr Zimmerman—That is correct.

CHAIR—So have I missed anything?

I just want to make sure that we have an understanding of all of the administrative complexities.

Mr Zimmerman—I would like to raise one other thing with you.

Let us assume for the moment we have an employee who applies for 18 weeks PPL.
The employer starts receiving the money and, from my understanding, it is received in around three amounts.

Let us say that all the money is received and, 14 weeks after, the employee is in the office on one of the 10 allowable visits.

The employer is sitting there saying: ‘We’re stretched.

Mary’s off sick and we’ve got problems.’ At the moment, this good, qualified staff member’s husband is not getting a lot of work from his organisation.
She says to her employer: ‘I can come back to work as of Monday because my partner currently does not have a lot of work to do.’ That employer is going to have to make sure that they advise the correct government body that the employee has returned to work early.
There are going to be a whole lot of letters and information going between the employer and the government to ensure that the employer has met all the agreements under the PPL and another employer is going to have another administrative nightmare trying to sort out the last four weeks or so of the 18 weeks PPL.

I put that to you as a situation that could occur.

CHAIR—Thank you, Mr Zimmerman, we appreciate that.

That is the kind of detail we need.


I assure you that I will take that case study up with the department and try and get some answers as to how that could work.

That is really what we are seeking.

There have been lots of statements about the impost, and people have different views about it, but it is important to know exactly what the impost is.

I appreciate your evidence.

Mr Zimmerman—If that happens—and I can see it happening—then you would have an administrative nightmare, quite frankly.
CHAIR—We will sort that out for you, Mr Zimmerman.

Is there anything else you would like to put on record?

Mr Zimmerman—No.

I think we have covered off everything that I would like to cover off.

I would like to reiterate, if I may, that I think it would be a much simpler system.

I do not believe that you would find there was an issue from an employee’s perspective if this were paid directly by the government.

We believe there would be no psychological upset if the government paid this directly.
It certainly would save an incredible nightmare from an administrative point of view, particularly for medium and small employers.

CHAIR—Thank you, and that is your response to the issue of linking the payment into the workplace as opposed to being paid as a quasi-welfare payment?

Mr Zimmerman—Yes.

CHAIR—Thank you very much.

Mr Zimmerman—Thank you.


Proceedings suspended from 1.02 pm to 2 pm COMMUNITY AFFAIRS Friday, 14 May 2010 Senate CA 37 FRANCIS, Mrs Babette Avita, National and Overseas Coordinator, Endeavour Forum Inc. JORY, Dr Colin Holford, Nominated Representative for the Committee Hearing, FamilyVoice Australia MONGAN, Mrs Carolyn Mary, Member, Endeavour Forum Inc. MONGAN, Mr Geoffrey Edward, Member, Endeavour Forum Inc. CHAIR—Good afternoon and thank you for coming to talk with us.
I know that at least Mrs Francis has been to see us before.

Has everybody else been to one of these things before?

Dr Jory—No.

CHAIR—You have information on the protection of witnesses and evidence; it is standard practice.

We have the submissions from the two organisations.

What we will do is go into opening statements from any or all of you, and then we will go to questions.

Who would like to start?

Dr Jory—I have a recent written statement.

I did not realise that— CHAIR—That is fine.


There is no problem at all.

We are here for you to give us your information; that is the most important part of this.

Dr Jory—All right.

We would probably be in synchronicity on most things, so I would suggest that because I have a written statement— CHAIR—Certainly, Dr Jory.

Why don’t you start?

Dr Jory—I will read that.

CHAIR—Then we will go down the line.

Dr Jory—Then it is ad hoc or impromptu.


FamilyVoice defines itself as a movement dedicated to: … upholding traditional marriage, parental rights, the sanctity of human life, democratic freedoms and our Christian heritage.

The Paid Parental Leave Bill 2010 appears to us to pose a grave threat to family life and family relationships, especially the relationship between mothers and their infants.

The draft bill and its supporting documents contain multiple anomalies.
For a start, its title, ‘Paid Parental Leave Bill 2010’, is a misnomer, since its benefits are available to non-employed mothers who have done the required 330 hours of paid work over 10 of the 13 months before giving birth.

A payment to a mother who is not employed cannot be a parental leave payment.
The draft bill’s maternity payment scheme uses financial rewards and punishments to discourage mothers from giving full-time care to their infants beyond the six months deemed optimal by the Productivity Commission.

The concession is made, however, that up to 12 months full-time maternal care can be beneficial.
This raises two questions: (1) why should mothers be discouraged from giving full-time care to their children beyond the supposed optimal period and (2) what criteria or research was referenced to reach the conclusion that the optimal period of full-time maternal care for an infant is six months?
A fundamental assumption underlying the draft bill and its supporting documents is that mothers in the paid workforce are contributing to national productivity and prosperity but those caring full time for their children are not.

Thus a mother caring for children is deemed to be contributing to national prosperity if it is other people’s children for whom she is caring and if she is being paid to care for them but not if she is caring for her own children.
In our submission we show that in reality a mother caring full time for her own children is making an invaluable contribution to national prosperity and productivity.

The draft bill’s supporting documents present no evidence that six months of maternal care is sufficient for breastfeeding and bonding.

By contrast, our submission documents extensive research showing infant needs are best met by full-time parental care until three years of age at least.
Our FamilyVoice submission also notes that the Productivity Commission report anticipates that the proposed Paid Parental Leave scheme is likely to increase the wage work in an ‘average female lifetime’ by ‘around half a year’.

We point out that this is a trivial return—six months extra paid work over a lifetime—for such an expensive and offensively discriminatory scheme.
We have analysed the 83 non-confidential submissions to this inquiry and found that over half of them, 46, oppose the bill because it does not treat all mothers equally.

Even the shoppies union would prefer a scheme which gives paid parental leave to all mothers.

On the other hand, many submissions supporting the bill claim that Australia has been almost alone among Western nations in failing to give paid parental leave to all COMMUNITY AFFAIRS CA 38 Senate Friday, 14 May 2010 workforce mothers.
This is patently false, as the submission by the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry points out.

The baby bonus, introduced in 2005, plus additional family support payments mean that Australia actually gives more financial support than most other countries to workforce and other mothers after they give birth.

Some submissions supporting the bill claim that paid parental leave to waged women is a workplace entitlement like sick leave or holiday pay.
Women’s Health Victoria actually declares, without providing evidence, that paid parental leave is ‘fundamental human right’.

In reality, paid parental leave is a family, not a workforce, entitlement.

It is in the interests of a business to provide sick leave so workers do not return to work and infect others and holiday pay so workers have a break and maintain efficiency.

Only some workers get pregnant, just as only some workers may want to take a break for study or travel to broaden their horizons.
Businesses wanting to retain such workers may offer special parenting, study or travel leave, but they should not be obliged to do so.

It is in the government’s interest to provide parenting support in order to maintain a viable fertility rate and healthy children.

Therefore, the government, not businesses, should pay all families to help achieve this objective.
It is noteworthy that—although the Productivity Commission report alleges that wage force mothers need a maternity wage to keep them from returning to the paid workforce for six months and dismissively declares that ‘a parent caring for children full time does not require incentives to prolong an absence from work’—the commission’s own figures show that, in 2007, 74 per cent of wage force mothers gave at least six months full-time care to their infants anyway.
Thus the scheme would be ‘needed’ only for the remaining 26 per cent of those wage force mothers.

Here again the alleged benefits of the proposed scheme are risibly small when set against its expense and discriminatory offensiveness.
The lack of balanced thought, logical argument and impartial research in the draft bill’s supporting documents and in the minority of submissions made to this committee in support of the bill suggest that the bill’s supporters know that its provisions and goals are indefensible in terms acceptable to the general community.
Moreover, when the illogicalities and inconsistencies in the supporting documents are stripped away, it becomes clear that the true fundamental purpose of the bill’s provisions is unstated, because even to state it would expose its demeaning pettiness.
That goal is simply to make short-term full-time care for newborn infants more financially comfortable than it would otherwise be for mothers who have demonstrated what the Productivity Commission terms ‘a reasonable degree of attachment to the labour force’ and to punish with the denial of the bill’s financial benefits all mothers who have shown no such labour force attachment.
As we show in our submission, a recent Galaxy poll reveals that two-thirds of Australians oppose a discriminatory paid parental leave scheme.

Ordinary Australians sense correctly that such schemes are antiwomen, antichildren and antifamily.

Thus, we of FamilyVoice Australia are representing the general community sentiment when we respectfully propose to this committee that the draft bill be drastically amended or entirely withdrawn.
The only acceptable amendments would be ones which ensure an equal allowance for all mothers whether they have been recently in the wage force or not.

CHAIR—Thank you.

Mrs Francis—I have not prepared a written introduction, because I only got your email at 5 pm on Wednesday and I had a very busy day yesterday with an international guest speaker, but I would like to give in evidence this paper that I wrote in 1991 on the importance of mother care.

It is yellowed with age.


The actual funding of child care discussed in the document is no longer valid, because the funding has changed, but the research on the importance of mother care is still valid.

In fact, it has been confirmed by the major researchers that I have quoted there, who have continued their longitudinal study of infants in day care.

Dr Jay Belsky was one of the major researchers.

CHAIR—Do you want us to keep that copy or do you want us to copy it and give it back to you?
Mrs Francis—No, I have a copy at home.

CHAIR—We will just table that document then.

That is fine.

Mrs Francis—Thank you.

That is for you.

Besides my other qualifications, I am also a trained breastfeeding counsellor with the La Leche League in the United States, so I am rather enthusiastic about breastfeeding.
I promote the World Health Organisation policy, which says that breastfeeding should be continued for two years or more if the baby is willing to nurse—and the baby will be willing to nurse if it is not separated from its mother.

So I think that is very important.

COMMUNITY AFFAIRS Friday, 14 May 2010 Senate CA 39 I want to deal with a couple of points that were raised in submissions this morning.
Stephen Smith referred to the ageing of the population and the shortage of workers as one reason for encouraging women into the workforce, but that will just aggravate the problem in less than a generation, because the mothers who are fully committed to the workforce have smaller families than those who are full-time mothers, who regard their work of raising children as of prime importance and who are willing to make income sacrifices for that.
I also reject the statement that Australia is lagging behind the rest of the developed world in not providing paid maternity leave.

Australia and the United States are accused of being discriminatory in this regard, while other OECD countries provide paid maternity leave, but actually our birthrate is higher than that of most European countries; I think it may be higher than virtually anywhere except possibly Ireland.

The United States has a birthrate at replacement level, 2.1; ours is 1.79.
So whatever discrimination there is has worked to enhance our birthrate, so that argument is no longer valid.

I have said in my submission—I will not repeat it—how discriminatory this is, and Dr Jory has emphasised this.

It discriminates against mothers who choose the full-time care of their infants.

There is a tremendous miscalculation in the GDP which is causing a lot of OECD countries to have serious economic difficulties—I mean really serious, like those of Iceland.
Iceland is bankrupt, and Endeavour Forum is not!

What the GDP calculates is the exchange of services in regard to child care.

A childcare worker’s salary is counted in the GDP but the work of a mother who cares for her children at home is not counted.

That is an absolute fallacy.

Similarly, even with a simple thing like baking a cake, if a mother at home bakes an identical cake to one baked in a shop, only the ingredients are counted in the GDP, not her labour.
But if she buys the same cake in a shop the wages of the person who made it are counted.

So there is a big flaw in our GDP estimates and this relates to not valuing—I am not talking about just emotion, love and caring—the actual physical production and practical work done by mothers in the home in cooking meals rather than takeaway and all those sorts of issues.

It is very important that the Senate supports the role of the mother in the home, who is a worker.
It really grates on me when Mr Rudd comes out with ‘working families’.

Does he exclude families where only one partner is in the paid workforce?

Aren’t mothers who are caring for maybe six children at home also workers?

That work is very hard and many feminists have complained about how difficult it is and how little recognised it is.

In our estimation there are flaws in the GDP, which is leading to serious economic difficulties.

I mentioned that to the Productivity Commission in my submission to them.
There is also an excessive burden on small employers and the kind of churning that is going on.

As far as I can understand it—the draft bill is so convoluted that it is very hard for the average person to understand it—the employer pays the woman the maternity leave payment and then gets it back from the government.

Or maybe it is the other way— CHAIR—No.

Mrs Francis—The other way around: the government pays the employer.
Anyway, that is a lot of churning and a lot of administrative costs which are not helping anybody.

Why not have a simpler scheme like Peter Costello’s baby bonus scheme, which was applauded by everybody.

Mothers loved it.

It even put up the birth rate—one for the husband, one for the wife and one for the nation.

That is a simple scheme that you can have that would avoid all this churning and all the administrative costs.

The other thing we found incredible was the compliance thing.
How is an inspector going to check up on whether a woman has done 330 hours of work if she has done casual or part-time work?

The compliance costs of investigating this is going to be again more churning, which is not going to benefit anybody.

We would recommend that this bill be substantially amended or abandoned or made non-discriminatory.

Give it to all mothers and children.

It should be based on the wellbeing of the child, not the workforce status of their parents.
It also needs to be combined with the childcare subsidy.

Some rational scheme needs to be worked out.

A mother in paid employment gets a childcare subsidy but a mother who is providing full-time care does not get that, she gets family income B, which is not of equivalent value.

This is just endless discrimination against the mother in the home.

The statistics show that most mothers, if given a choice, want to care for their children while they are pre school.
That would be their choice if it was not such an economic burden.

Give them a choice.

It is tremendously important that they should have a choice about whether they are in the paid workforce or not.

Some mothers like being in the paid workforce and do not like being at home caring for children full time, and some combine the two, with part-time work.

COMMUNITY AFFAIRS CA 40 Senate Friday, 14 May 2010 Give them a choice.

Make it rational, simple and easy to administer.


It should be done through the tax system and not like a welfare payment, because these mothers are really producing the most important thing for the nation—they are producing babies and they are caring for these babies.

There should not be this discrimination against them.
They should not be regarded as lesser beings or lesser women and their children should not be discriminated against, because what hurts the parents or hurts the mother will hurt the child.

The paper that I handed out to you as evidence talks about the infections that children get in long day care, which will be inevitable if mothers go back to work after six months.
Long breastfeeding and home-cooked meals have a relationship to obesity, which is becoming an increasing problem in this country—takeaway meals and the easy option of going to McDonald’s or KFC.

When you are tired after work that is what you do with your children.

If you are at home and you are relaxed and you can prepare a healthy meal of three vegetables and two fruit, which is recommended, that is so much better.
There is obesity, allergies and infections—all of which are reduced by children being cared for in their own home by a mother who breastfeeds for as long as possible.

I would be happy to answer any questions.

CHAIR—Thank you, Mrs Francis.

Mrs Mongan, have you got any opening comments you would like to make?
Mrs Mongan—I have not had a lot of time to consider this—I have mostly come along to support Babette—but one thing that stood out when I looked at this was that it must be incredibly hard to construct a bill such as this when you are looking at it in such an isolated way, as an employment issue.

I think seeing it only as an employment issue ignores the social impact, and Babette expressed that extremely well.

Our priority should be looking at the impact on the future generations of this country.
I take Babette’s comments on breastfeeding.

The government has recently released a strategy on that, and that is to be commended.

But there is some tension between those issues when you think of the social impact.

It also concerns me that some women do not have any choice but to work.

I think that mothers who choose to stay at home could be better supported, especially in their children’s early formative years.
I do not see the bill as totally negative but I certainly do not think it goes far enough, especially in that it does not look at the possible social impact on those women at home.

CHAIR—Would you care to give some comment about what you think the social impact would be?

Mrs Mongan—The social impact could be quite extensive.
It takes probably a good couple of months to establish breastfeeding, and women who do get to breastfeed like to continue for at least 12 months—I think that is the norm, it is what our society tends to accept.

Also, early separation—that is, before the child is about 12 months old—can often cause problems, which are probably not too longstanding in the children, because they tend to get very good care anyway, but certainly could contribute to depression and anxiety in working mothers.
Those are hidden issues; they have not been brought out.

CHAIR—Mr Mongan, would you like to make some comments?

Mr Mongan—Yes, just briefly.

There are great incentives for to us to plan all aspects of our lives.

The government encourages us to do financial planning for our retirement, and planning of children is a factor in financial planning.

It is not uncommon for parenthood to be delayed.

Financial plans—dealing with mortgages et cetera—are often dealt with before a couple embarks on parenthood.
As I understand this bill, eligibility for paid parental leave will at times require formal and direct participation in the workforce.

If this remains the case then couples’ choices about when to have children and how many to have will be compromised—they will certainly be limited.

CHAIR—Would you care to expand on that point?


Mr Mongan—As I understand it—and Dr Jory has raised this—whilst a woman is on parental leave, she may lose eligibility for it, or may not gain eligibility for it for a subsequent child, if the timing does not allow her to build up the required 330 hours of paid work over 10 months.

It could dictate the frequency and timing of having children.
It may unnecessarily force women to go back into the workforce and to delay having children until they are older, which they might not wish to do.

They might wish to have their children close together after they have delayed it for some years whilst preparing financially.

The parental leave payment will obviously be a factor for many people in deciding when to have children.
A woman’s only choice might be to go back into the workforce to qualify for the payment and therefore help her family plan better financially.

Senator ADAMS—Thank you all for your contributions.

Firstly, I would like to ask you if you agree that some paid parental leave is better than none.

How do you feel about that?

COMMUNITY AFFAIRS Friday, 14 May 2010 Senate CA 41 Mrs Francis—Provided it is non-discriminatory, yes.
I would recommend a scheme such as the scheme in Norway—I do not know whether I mentioned that before—where they found that the cost of providing child care was so high and not worth the effort that, I think, mothers half their salary for three years if they do not use government child care.

I am not certain of the figures, but they give a substantial amount to mothers who care for their own children.

I would recommend something like that.


Paid parental leave cannot be seen in isolation from childcare subsidies, from income tax and from family tax benefit A and B.

The whole thing is a kind of incoherent package right across.

It has to be rationalised and uniform and made simple to administer and simple to comply with the tax system.

It is a hodgepodge—you get a bit here, you get a bit there if you do certain things.

It eventuates in the single- income family being discriminated against.
They do not get the second tax-free threshold.

Family tax benefit B is not the same as the childcare subsidies.

Why is a mother’s care valued at less than care by strangers, where the child can pick up infections and colds and where the child does not have someone who loves it.

A child needs that in its early years, and I think that is why we are having problems with our teenagers, adolescents and even young adults— nobody told them they were the most important person in the world.
A childcare worker cannot do that, no matter how dedicated or competent they are.

To a mother that is the most wonderful baby in the world.

That is what the baby needs and it needs it until it has developed its own self-esteem, its own identity and its own self- confidence.

But our children are lacking that when they are left for most of their waking hours in childcare centres or are cared for by strangers.
Dr Jory—Could I point out that there is an anomaly in the drafting of the bill, which will be of considerable interest and concern to the committee.

And it works like this.

There are two streams of payment.

If a woman is actually in employment at the time that she has the child then there is legal fiction whereby the government pays the employer and then, in return for getting this lump sum, the employer agrees to pay maternity leave to the mother.
When the 18 weeks maternity leave comes that way, technically, it is the employer giving 18 weeks maternity leave.

That 18 weeks is technically work, so if that woman then, say, gets pregnant halfway through there will be no problem of her getting the paid parental leave when her next baby is born, because you go back 13 months and all she has to do is have the 330 hours—essentially, that is two months—within 10 months of that.
It can be fairly easily managed because, again, the key thing is that, when she is on maternity leave from the employer for those 18 weeks, the 18 weeks are technically work— employment.

It is rather ironical because, on the one hand, she is not allowed to be in employment but, on the other hand, she is.

But, still, that is in the bill.


If, on the other hand, she has the required 330 hours over 10 months et cetera but she is not employed at the time that she gives birth or her employer has just gone broke or something like that then, sure, she gets the 18 weeks at the basic wage.

But that does not count as 18 weeks of employment.

So that is different from the other one.


Therefore, if she gets pregnant within that 18 weeks she will not get the benefit for the next child because, technically, she cannot go back to work in any other way than being on maternity leave until the end of the 18 weeks.

That means that then there are nine months and she will not be able to get the 10 months work out of nine months.

It is a mathematical problem.

You have these two streams of payment.


If the payment comes one way via the legal fiction of the paid maternity leave by the employer then the woman is pretty safe getting pregnant during the 18 weeks.

But if, on the other hand, she gets it straight as social security because she is not employed at the time of the birth then if she gets pregnant at the same time, say, halfway through the 18 weeks she will miss out on the paid parental leave for the second child.

So I do point that out as an anomaly.


CHAIR—As you point out in your submission?

Dr Jory—Yes.

CHAIR—Mrs Mongan, did you wish to add something?

Mrs Mongan—In relation to Senator Adams’s question about whether something is better than nothing, I think it is very difficult to predict exactly what impact this would have on families.
Having been a long-time Canberra resident I know that, during the seventies and eighties, the Public Service employed probably most of the people in Canberra and maternity leave was available, and there would probably be a lot of stories from that time about the impact on families where the women did not work, even though I think Canberra at that time had a higher percentage of working women than the rest of the country, probably for that reason.
So I think there is probably data out there as to what the likely impact would be if you looked at that period in Canberra of the seventies and eighties.

Some of it may impact adversely—I think it will—on families where the mother does not work and do not get some sort of compensation for the work of the women in the home.
COMMUNITY AFFAIRS CA 42 Senate Friday, 14 May 2010 Mr Mongan—I think, especially in that period of the seventies and eighties in Canberra, it was very rare to have a generation above the parents to help with raising children, so Canberra was perhaps a unique example of having and raising children and participating in the workforce.

Senator ADAMS—Do you agree that women should have a choice as to whether they work or not?

Mrs Mongan—Yes, absolutely.

Mrs Francis—Absolutely.


Endeavour Forum includes members who are full-time mothers and mothers who are in the full-time, paid workforce—single women, married women, widows, divorced women.

We have all kinds of members.

We just want an equitable system, not a discriminatory one, and the thing that stands out with this PPL is its discriminatory nature and the tremendous churning involved.
Colin Jory just pointed out one of the churning aspects: if you left the paid workforce three months before your baby was born then you are not technically employed, so then if you get pregnant you do not qualify for the next lot.

For your information, I have eight children, so I know what I am talking about when I talk about both the joys and the difficulties of mothers.

Senator ADAMS—Have you looked at the coalition’s proposal for this particular issue?
Mrs Francis—I have not seen the detail of Mr Abbott’s proposal, but I think it is worse because he is talking about six months leave.

This one is 18 weeks, so I think Mr Abbott’s is probably worse.

I have not seen the detail of how it is to be funded.

Maybe he is going to give the equivalent to mothers who stay at home, who are full-time mothers; I do not know.

But if he just means six months paid maternity leave for those in the workforce then it is worse than this one.
Senator ADAMS—Why is it worse, when you have got 26 weeks versus 18 weeks?

Mrs Francis—Yes.

Senator ADAMS—Why is it worse?

Mrs Francis—I have not seen the rest of his family policies.

Maybe he will give the equivalent to mothers who stay at home.

I do not know.

But if it is just a stand-alone thing, if he is giving that only to mothers in the paid workforce, then I think that is worse.
Dr Jory—The key thing in Mr Abbott’s scheme is that he intends to pay mothers in the workforce their full average salary from before for six months, so in that sense it is more discriminatory—quite apart from the other peculiarities in doing so, in the sense that the gap that is likely between what is paid to workforce mothers and what is paid to other mothers is much greater.
For example, I find paying the baby bonus to women who are giving full-time care extremely anomalous and I cannot see any merit in that.

Mrs Francis—We have conveyed our views to Mr Abbott and his colleagues.

The other way it will hit us doubly hard is because I think he is getting big business to pay for it, but big business is not going to fund it out of their pockets; they will raise the prices of whatever they are selling, and so the consumers, everyone, will have to be subsidising this.
So it is going to hit the single-income families even harder—unless he balances it out with something in his family policy for the single-income families and the mothers who care for their own children and stay out of the workforce.Dr Jory—The other thing is that, whereas the government’s scheme discriminates between women who have been committed to the paid workforce in some way and others, you have got this incredible differentiation with Mr Abbott, which implicitly is eugenics.
It is sort of saying that we have got to pay more to quality mothers to get them out of the workforce to have children and look after their children than to common, run-of-the-mill mothers.

The implication is that we should pay more to get high-class children than to get low-class or lesser quality children.

I do not find that at all appealing.

Senator ADAMS—I do not think that was the intention.

You talk about mothers breastfeeding up to 12 months.
Have you got any statistics on how long mothers do breastfeed?

In this day and age, I think 12 months is probably far more the exception than the rule.

Mrs Francis—I have not got the statistics for Australia.

I am going by what the World Health Organisation recommends and what I and my daughters have done, and we have raised healthy babies without serious illnesses or requirements for hospitalisation.
We have not had a baby that has had to be rushed to hospital for gastroenteritis or something like that.

Just from personal experience, I think it is great.

Not all babies will nurse for two years.

Some will just laugh and walk away.

Senator ADAMS—That is something you have stated.

Would you be able to let the committee know if you have got any evidence that states how long the average person does breastfeed for?
COMMUNITY AFFAIRS Friday, 14 May 2010 Senate CA 43 Mrs Francis—Breastfeeding in Australia?

Senator ADAMS—Yes.

Mrs Francis—I think the Nursing Mothers Association/Australian Breastfeeding Association would have that data.

It is just what is recommended, what is ideal.

We should always aim at the ideal here and not cut mothers short at the knees and say 18 weeks, six months or whatever.
The World Health Organisation recommends exclusive breastfeeding for six months—no solids, nothing else, just breast milk.

I think one of the reasons we are suffering from an epidemic of obesity—and probably allergies as well—is that children are having other foods which they are not intended to have under the age of six months.

I was born in India, and in India if you did not breastfeed it was a death sentence for your baby, so mothers breastfed.
I have seen them happily breastfeed for two or three years.

It is great for the bonding between the mother and baby.

I have got that ideal in the back of my mind.

Why can’t women in an affluent country like Australia do it when mothers in India, Africa and some of the developing countries can do it?

Senator FURNER—The Australian Human Rights Commission appeared before us today.
Part of their submission to us reads: The Commission endorses the Exposure Draft of the Government’s announced Paid Parental Leave Scheme as a sound first stage of achieving a beneficial and equitable scheme of paid leave entitlements for parents in Australia.

Consistently today we have heard some of you using the terminology of ‘discrimination’.
To assist me in understanding where you are coming from, can you just point me to what part of the HREOC Act you attribute your arguments that this bill is discriminatory?

Mrs Francis—I have not based my argument on the HREOC Act, because I disagree with several aspects of it.

It only recognises the child when it is born.

It does nothing to protect the child before birth.

As you know, a lot of brain development, child development, occurs before birth.

So I will not go into the HREOC Act.


But it is obviously discriminatory if you are giving a payment for maternity for women who have an attachment to the paid workforce and not to mothers who— Senator FURNER—Wouldn’t you think the commission would have raised that this morning or raised that in their submission if that were the case?

Senator FURNER—But they haven’t.


They are the Australian Human Rights Commission and they have not raised that either in their submissions or orally here today in providing evidence.

Dr Jory—Can I make a comment, Senator.

I think an awful lot of people, probably most and certainly many, would regard the Human Rights and Equal Opportunities Commission as highly ideological, would not regard it as at all impartial and therefore would not attach any importance at all to what it would deem in this matter.
Mrs Francis—For example, they recommend a charter of rights.

They were tremendously enthusiastic about it—more jobs for the girls and boys.

That was rejected even by the ALP cabinet.

So let’s not take too much notice of the Australian Human Rights Commission.

They are very selective in the human rights that they support.

They certainly do not give any support to mothers who want to care for their children on a full- time basis.

We have made recommendations to them and we have got absolutely nowhere.
Senator FURNER—I have not found that.

I have represented workers for over 20 years and in many cases I have represented women in cases of discrimination.

In all cases I have found the commission, whether it be the Queensland Anti-Discrimination Commission, very thorough, very helpful in terms of resolution in cases of discrimination.

Mrs Francis—We have not found them at all helpful.

The charter of rights is an example, because we made submissions to them on that.
The majority of the Australian public and governments, including Labor governments and Labor premiers—New South Wales—rejected their recommendations.

Their policies do not work in the real world.

I have not seen them make any submissions on behalf of, let us say, equity in family taxation—recognising the family as a unit; it is all based on the individual, ignoring even the individual who may be carrying a child in her womb.

I agree with Mr Jury: they are ideological.

Mrs Mongan—Could I make a point?


CHAIR—Yes, Mrs Mongan.

Mrs Mongan—When you look at this as an employment act, it is obviously a perfectly valid act in that way.

But if you look at the social aspects—what Babette’s argument has been about—there is discrimination against the child whose parent does not work.
When you take that into account with the fact that the work that COMMUNITY AFFAIRS CA 44 Senate Friday, 14 May 2010 the woman does in the home is not counted under GDP, there is an element of discrimination if you look at it in that light.

Senator Adams commented about women having to choose whether they work or not.

I don’t think many women really do have a choice these days, with the high cost of housing and mortgages.
I think that choice should be paramount and if low-income families need compensation to keep the woman at home, if that is her choice, it should be there.

If you have women who are going out to work under duress, they become stressed and families become dysfunctional.

Look at the mental health problems that confront us today.

You can see often their genesis is in the pressure on young families.

Mrs Francis—Postnatal depression seems to be a growing epidemic.

CHAIR—Certainly.
CHAIR—Certainly.

Most of your submissions actually talks about the baby bonus and family tax benefit B and do a calculation and compare it with the proposed PPR.

That is the basis in one sense of your claim about discrimination.

You are actually saying that under the current system—and you are all aware that the PPR is optional; any woman can choose not to have it and to choose the baby bonus instead.

Dr Jory—Yes, that is right.

CHAIR—Actually, I am not sure whether the baby bonus is optional.
I honestly do not know.

Maybe you can reject a payment, but I am not sure.

It, simplistically, is an argument whether you think the baby bonus should be equal to the PPR?

Dr Jory—If so, it would be a matter of being indexed equally, because if it is equal you can get discrepancies.

But if it is a matter of statue, that they are indexed equal, then you do get equality.

As far as I can see, FamilyVoice and most organisations with a similar outlook would support that.

CHAIR—So it is as straight as that?


Dr Jory—I would think so.

That would be provided it was indexed so that it was a fixed parity and not a casual one that could be blown away with the next bit of case or legislation.

Again, I am assuming what FamilyVoice and others— CHAIR—Certainly, most of the submissions lead off with that.

There is no intrinsic opposition, although there is concern around the social aspects to having a paid scheme linked to work because women actually make that decision.
I take your point totally, Mrs Mangon; often it is a choice, but it is actually a choice which has been affected by the environment in which they are operating—I take that fact.

If women make the decision that they are going to stay in the workforce when they are having their family, one of the things is we support the fact that there should be a paid parental scheme.
However, some of the submissions—yours included—say that if women choose not to be in what is the paid workforce—allowing for the fact that there needs to be absolute acknowledgement of the economic employment and value of people who stay in the home, as that is a given—you want to see some equity in the payment amounts.

Mrs Mongan—Yes.
Mrs Mongan—Yes.

Dr Jory—That is another reason that Abbott’s scheme is, I imagine from most of our point of view, far worse—the one that has been floated by him, to the detail that he has floated it.

You could not then index it that way.

Mrs Francis—I missed his reply to the budget speech last night, I was at this function we had organised.

I do not know whether he offered anything to the mothers who stay at home.

CHAIR—I think it is available now on the internet.


That way you would also be able to see that there was some comment.

But I do not think it went into the detail that you are seeking for this area.

I am afraid that we have run out of time.

Is there any point that we have not been able to get from you which you want to make sure is on record?

Dr Jory—I am right, thank you very much.

Mrs Francis—I would just urge you to look at the Norwegian scheme.
I do not have— CHAIR—Yes, I have made a note that that was one of the things.

If there is anything that you want to add when you go away and read other submissions and see the Hansard, please be in contact with the committee.

Thank you very much.

Mrs Francis—Thank you very much for inviting us.


COMMUNITY AFFAIRS Friday, 14 May 2010 Senate CA 45 [2.47 pm] CANNON, Mr Tim, National Research Officer, Australian Family Association HARVEY, Mrs Tempe Margaret, President, Kids First Parent Association of Australia McCORMACK, Mr Luke, Queensland Executive Committee Member, Australian Family Association CHAIR—You have information on parliamentary privilege and the protection of witnesses.

We have your submissions, thank you very much.


I invite any or all of you to make an opening statement and then we will go to questions.

This particular section is due to go until 3.30 pm—we will see how we go.

Mrs Harvey—We will make a joint opening statement and we will confine our opening comments to claimants under the Paid Parental Leave scheme who are mothers.
A key objective of the bill, as stated in the explanatory memorandum, is to improve the health and wellbeing of children, parents and society—and so it should be.

However, the scheme outlined will undoubtedly achieve the opposite, for three reasons.

I will address the first, and hand over to Mr McCormack and Mr Cannon regarding the second and third of these.
The first reason is that the scheme will fail to improve our health and wellbeing in that it discriminates unfairly against families using Australia’s most popular child care, that is, mother care.

Mothers caring for their own children between pregnancies risk failing the bill’s work test and thereby missing out on parental leave pay averaging around $7,300 after tax.

These mothers will instead get around $2,000 less in birth funding via the baby bonus.

This amounts to childcare funding discrimination.


No one will dispute that whatever other purposes may be attributed to paid parental leave, both it and the baby bonus fund a family’s childcare costs following birth.

To be precise paid parental leave under the bill is short-term government funding for maternal child care.

It helps mothers afford to give up income in order to spend 18 weeks bonding with their babies aged under 12 months.
However, every mother must give up income in order to bond with her baby.

It is grossly unfair to deny this funding to a family simply because a mother has given up income long-term to exercise her career choice and her childcare choice, as I have done to work as a mother caring for our children.

There is a limited pot of money in the federal government’s budget for children’s care like everything else.
All parents pay for child care including mother’s care by giving up income and this is a fact that is practically ignored by the federal government in the way it funds child care as though families that do their own childcare work do not pay for it.

Of course they do.

The parents either give up income or another family member does or else they earn it and give it away, but it comes down to the same thing.

It is only fair to fund every child’s care equally.
Instead the bill’s scheme would underfund parent care families.

These are families that may have chosen for that particular time in their lives to offer parent care.

At other times the mother or father may choose paid work.

It is only fair to fund every form of child care equally.

What will happen by underfunding parent care is that more children will end up in day care centres.

This is exactly what happened as a result of the paid parental leave scheme that was introduced in Sweden in the early 1970s.
In that country 81.3 per cent of children were in day care centre’s in 2008.

Looking at the comparable ABS figures for 2008 in Australia around 34 per cent of children aged between zero and four were in equivalent day care for the same year.

So way over twice as many children in Sweden are in day care because day care and paid parental leave go hand in hand.
The Senate’s provision of child care inquiry in 2009, to which I gave evidence, considered high-quality childcare research and found that formal early childcare risks stunting—and I am quoting from the inquiry’s final report—children’s social, emotional and behavioural development.

It said infants are typically best cared for at home by their parents.
Far from promoting better health and wellbeing for Australians the bill institutes what amounts to a bonding time reduction scheme that will cap not expand the time that parents can afford to spend with their children and result in more babies spending more time in day care centres.

CHAIR—Thank you.

Mr Cannon, do you have anything to add?

Mr Cannon—I will pass over to Mr McCormack.


Mr McCormack—I will briefly outline how the scheme under the bill would harm business productivity and be a net cost to taxpayers.

The net cost of the scheme to government is estimated at $730 million over four COMMUNITY AFFAIRS CA 46 Senate Friday, 14 May 2010 years from 2009-10 to 2012-13.
The government expects that the cost of the scheme will be offset by increases in tax revenue and by reductions in the baby bonus and FTB part B outlays and tax offsets for people receiving parental leave pay.

This offsets are likely to be insufficient for the scheme to pay for itself.
Our submission refers to the 2008 economic study in Quebec which showed child care subsidies as distinct from paid parental leave were only 40 per cent recouped from the extra taxes generated by the increased maternal workforce participation attributable to the scheme.

There is no evidence that taxes would actually make up the funding shortfall in the scheme.
In fact, it seems highly unlikely considering the major extra costs to government that have not, as far as we are aware, been budgeted for by the government.

The scheme will very likely expand over the next 10 years as the number of claimants, duration and/or scheme benefits grow as occurred in Canada and Sweden which started out with quite modest schemes.

What about the cost to government of funding the work given up by parents taking on paid work because of the scheme?
The scheme sets up obviously a sort of financial pressure, if you like, or gentle coercion to be more involved in the paid workforce.

What about the various unpaid work that those parents were doing when they were not in the paid workforce?

For example, my wife, Caroline, is a trained professional podiatrist.

She worked in the paid workforce for some time until our first child arrived.
She is now a happy mother of three and, in addition to all the work she does with the children at home, she does other things, which I am sure is quite common.

For example, she assists a new mothers’ support group in a weekly playgroup where she is involved in caring for other children, all unpaid.

She also does pro bono podiatry work for the elderly.
If, as it would do, the scheme attracts more mothers in particular to unpaid work, the government needs to attempt to calculate the costs of providing all those services that were previously unpaid.

It has not done that; therefore the costs are underestimated.

How will the scheme effect national productivity, one of the key reasons for the scheme?
It would possibly add just six months to the lifetime employment rates of women, according to the Productivity Commission report on the scheme, but at what cost?

Needless to say, I think that the paid parental leave scheme will most likely result in a reduction in the birth rate, as evidenced by what has happened in Sweden.

If you are looking for long-term productivity and you have a falling total fertility rate, you have a serious problem.
Unless you take in a considerable number of migrants or refugees or do something about getting the birth rate at least to replacement level, you are going to have a long-term, ongoing, compounding productivity problem.

If you are looking for data on birth rate, it is in our submission.

The administrative costs of the completely unnecessary employer paymaster obligations are estimated by the government to be almost $200 million in the first year and about $100 million in later years.
This impost on the employers would completely disappear if the government implemented our key recommendations and removed employers as paymasters for the scheme and paid equal birth support to all families.

Mr Cannon—The third point essentially looks at the question of whether the public wants this kind of scheme.

Our point is that that the public does not want this kind of scheme, regardless of what is said about whether it is beneficial.
Ordinary Australians place a high value on family work—on doing their own child care—which is why so many mothers decide, usually for a period of years, to do full-time family work over paid work when they have had children.

Most mothers make this choice because they believe that they can provide the optimum care for their children.
But most Australian families, under this scheme, would be penalised for their choice to care for their own children at home, because this bill particularly excludes them from the benefits.

We talk a lot about discrimination and, taking a general understanding of discrimination as differential treatment based on certain criteria, here we have differential treatment of mothers based on whether or not they are in the paid workforce.
It is a fairly acceptable and reasonable assertion that this is a form of discrimination.

The question is whether it is a justifiable form of discrimination, and our conclusion is that it is not in any way justifiable.

With regard to the attitude of the Australian population, polling shows that a majority of Australians reject paid parental leave, particularly as proposed, for two main reasons.

Firstly, they reject discriminatory funding.


This is borne out in three polls which have been conducted by the Australian Family Association and by Kids First.

CHAIR—Can we get a copy of those polls, Mr Cannon?

Mr Cannon—You can indeed.

COMMUNITY AFFAIRS Friday, 14 May 2010 Senate CA 47 CHAIR—It would be very useful to table those with information on when the polls were done, what the survey size was, where they were done and what questions were asked.
Mrs Harvey—We can also supply you with a summary which we have done of the polls.

CHAIR—That would be great, but we would like to see the original data.

Mr Cannon—These trials were conducted in the time since December 2009.

There was a nationwide Galaxy poll in March 2010 that asked in 1,042 adults the following question: in your opinion, should the government’s paid parental leave plan give equal funding to both mums in the paid workforce and stay-home mums to afford bonding time with their babies?
So it was a simple question: should there be equal treatment?

An overwhelming majority, two in three voters, said yes to equal funding for all mothers.

For those in the 18 to 34 age bracket—and there you are looking at persons in the Australian population who are most likely to have children—the response was even more emphatic.

Seventy-nine per cent of those respondents said they wanted equal funding.

This is confirmed in similar early polls in two Brisbane federal seats.
One was in the marginal seat of Ryan; the other was in Prime Minister Rudd’s safe Labor electorate of Griffith.

The bottom line is: voters want equal funding.

In addition to concerns that the bill discriminates against stay-at-home mums, there was a Mother’s Day Galaxy poll which established that mothers are wary of the costs of paid parental leave.

The poll interviewed over 1,200 mothers who had children under the age of 18.
Thirty-five per cent of those mothers did not want a paid parental leave scheme in the form that has been proposed by both the coalition and the Labor government.

That is almost as many as those who support it.

Thirty-seven per cent support the Rudd scheme; 35 per cent do not want either.

That is quite telling as to how enthusiastically the Australian population, and mothers in particular, is likely to embrace this scheme.
The concern over the cost of a substantial paid parental leave scheme is likely to be exacerbated.

We would say that any support that it has would effectively evaporate if it were more widely understood and acknowledged that modest schemes, like the one that is proposed, are in fact a rarity as far as paid parental leave schemes go and that these schemes inevitably become more costly over time.

They expand in their provisions.


This has been the experience certainly in Quebec and even in other OECD countries that have implemented these paid parental schemes, and it is borne out in the submissions that have been made by the Australian Council of Trade Unions, simply by virtue of the Liberal Party’s proposed scheme.

These are much more generous schemes.

These costs are going to blow out.

They are certainly going to get bigger and bigger.


To sell this scheme as a modest scheme, we feel is probably attracting even more support than it would otherwise, if the real costs and projected costs were better understood.

I will hand back to Tempe to make a concluding remark.

Mrs Harvey—In conclusion to our opening remarks, we are recommending amendments to this bill or that it be withdrawn.

Our recommendations are similar to the ones we just heard from FamilyVoice Australia.
Firstly, we would not support the bill at all unless the expenditure under it and the baby bonus were amalgamated, so that the total of 306,000 anticipated recipients of either paid parental leave or the baby bonus were amalgamated and all mothers instead got around $6,300 each, which is $1,000 more than the current baby bonus.

That is a far fairer plan than the current Paid Parental Leave Bill.
The other option, which may be more politically saleable, would be that for just $300 million more funding in 2011-12 the government could afford to give all of those mothers the minimum wage for 18 weeks.

However, of course that would be on the basis of the $150,000 family means test.

Here I point out just how grossly unfair the means test is in the Paid Parental Leave Bill.

It treats mothers as though they are individuals and that we do not have families in our society.
It is grossly unfair when compared with families who are receiving the baby bonus.

The second class of families who are doing their own child- care work, who are caring for their own children, are given much less funding.

The paid parental leave will average 37 per cent more funding than the baby bonus.
Also, they are further insulted by having their payments means tested on their family income, whereas, for some strange reason, the federal government has proposed that paid parental leave be means tested on the mother’s income.

That is absolutely ludicrous when you consider that a woman earning $150,000 who is married to a multimillionaire would receive this funding, whereas another woman, who has a very low income and may be struggling, will just receive the baby bonus.
When you look at both ends of the spectrum, it is just unfair.

The only fair thing to do is to give the same funding to every single newborn and means test it on family income of $150,000.

The income should be considered in the period following birth, like the baby bonus.

The COMMUNITY AFFAIRS CA 48 Senate Friday, 14 May 2010 relevant period for considering a means test is the period when the family needs the funding, which is when they will be without the mother’s income.
I reinforce here that all families give up income to provide bonding time between mothers and babies.

So it is grossly unfair to say, ‘You are giving up income long term, so we are not going to give this funding to you.’ The other point I would make is that this funding should be delivered through a voucher to all families, and it should be regarded as what it is: a voucher for the cost of children’s care.
It should be a childcare voucher and it should continue from birth so that we do not have further discriminatory funding down the track.
The funding analysis that we submitted in attachment 1 of the submission shows that ongoing childcare funding discriminates even more and that, on average, families that outsource their childcare work will get around $6,041 per family in 2011, whereas families who do their own childcare work will receive just $3,112 through family tax benefit B. I make the point that family tax benefit B is not childcare funding anyway; it was intended to compensate families for the fact that they are unable to share their income for tax purposes.
So, when you look at it that way, ongoing childcare funding is only for outsourced child care, which makes it particularly unfair.

A single childcare benefit, which is what we are recommending, would have the advantage of eliminating the inequities in the current system, which Dr Sharman Stone in the opposition has been talking about.

For example, families using nanny care miss out altogether.
So if you have a family with both parents in the paid workforce and they do not qualify for family tax benefit B, they do not put their child in a day-care centre and the grandmother looks after the children, they do not get childcare funding at all.

That is exploiting the unwaged childcare work of that family, just as the system exploits the unwaged childcare work of mothers who care for their own children, by underfunding them.

Senator ADAMS—Thank you for your evidence.


First question: should there be a paid parental scheme?

Mrs Harvey—Not if it discriminates.

Definitely not.

Mr Cannon—We just reiterate the point that there is an illusion that Australia does nothing to support women in the paid workforce after childbirth.

Those women are eligible to receive the baby bonus.

That is a form of child support which is directed to that immediate period after birth.
What we are suggesting is that any type of scheme that is introduced that is directed towards ensuring that women can bond with their babies after childbirth should be directed universally, at all mothers, and not just at mothers in the paid workforce.

Certainly, it should not discriminate according to the level of funding that those mothers receive just by virtue of the fact that they are in the paid workforce.
Senator ADAMS—If there were equal funding for paid parental leave, if both lots were equal, do you think there would be a drop in productivity, with regard to women in the workforce versus women at home?

Mrs Harvey—The premise of that question is that women in paid work are more productive than women doing family work.

We reject that premise.

We say that adults in either workforce are equally productive.

They are all doing productive work.

Senator ADAMS—That is not what I meant.


Let us use a hypothetical figure.

Say there is $10,000 there for everyone.

Are women who are working going to stay home for a longer time because they have that $10,000, or are they going to go back to work?

I am looking at productivity, if there is $10,000 for them to stay at home.

As a mother, I stayed at home and looked after my children.

I worked on the farm as well, so I was working but unpaid.
If someone who is in the workforce gets $10,000, hypothetically, as a baby bonus and the one at home is getting exactly the same, are we going to cause mothers to stay home longer, rather than going back to work?

How are we going to value that employee to get her back to work?

Is she going to be away longer?

Mr Cannon—In terms of the impact on productivity, we can speculate.
If this bill is aimed purely at inducing women to go into the workforce and increasing paid workforce productivity, I think that should probably be spelt out in the bill.
The point that we would like to make is that, to somehow place financial pressure on women to influence their choice as to whether they stay at home or enter the paid workforce and at what point they do that following the birth of a child—to somehow influence or place pressure on them to choose one option or another—we do not think is a justifiable outcome of any piece of legislation.

CHAIR—Doesn’t that happen now?

Can you describe what happens now?

Mr Cannon—At the moment, women receive the baby bonus.
CHAIR—They all do.

COMMUNITY AFFAIRS Friday, 14 May 2010 Senate CA 49 Mr Cannon—That is right.

The choice in a sense is there to forgo work and use that money as some kind of income subsidy.

Here we have got a completely different level of funding that gives a greater payment to women who are in the paid workforce, in a sense suggesting to women that, unless you are in the paid workforce, you are going to get a lesser amount.
We think that that is just blatant pressure on women, especially at a time when so many working families depend on two incomes.

It is just adding pressure, taking away that choice to provide child care in the home.

Mrs Harvey—Senator Adams, could I answer a question that you asked previous witnesses?

You asked: what about women who have to work?

I think that is a very important question.

We assumed that you were talking about low-income families.

Is that right?
Is that right?

Senator ADAMS—It is much as Mr Cannon was saying.

Twenty years ago, you probably had one person working.

Now it is probably far more the norm that two people are working and, if they cannot manage their finances, they have got to the stage where the second person has to go back to work.

It may be the father staying home and the wife has a higher paid job so she goes back and he looks after the child.

Mrs Harvey—Our point is about helping those families.
Low-income families predominantly prefer parental child care.

You can tell that, because 2005 figures showed that the vast majority of families receiving family tax benefit A, which is non-discriminatory, also received family tax benefit B.

That means low-income families are doing their own childcare work to a very high degree.
What people are telling us, particularly struggling sole-parent families, is that the last thing those mothers want to do is lose their children or spend less time with their children.

They do not want to be forced into paid work when their children are little.

They want the opportunity to actually look after them, because they believe that is in the very best interests of their children.
We believe that our proposal of giving equal childcare funding—ongoing as well as ameliorating the effects of this scheme, making it equal—will actually give those families broader childcare choices because they will have more funding for parental child care and they will not be forced to place their baby in a childcare centre if that is not their childcare choice.

They will have more opportunity to actually care for their own child.
The real point about this is the evidence which I quoted earlier about the long-term harm, the emotional and behavioural harm risks, associated with long early day care.
Where our productivity is going to go down the drain is, if we do adopt this parental leave scheme, it will become more generous, it will conscript almost all women except the very rich and the very poor into the paid workforce and we will have what a Swedish childcare activist described—it is in our submission—as a Lord of the Flies scenario, where you have income- dependent parents unavailable for their children.
Is that really what we want for our society or do we want to give families a genuine childcare choice so that they can do what is in the very best interests of their children?

We do not believe the government knows what is best for children.

We believe that families do and the only way to let families have that choice is if there is funding, modest funding, it should go to the parents, not to day care centres.

It should not be tied to workforce participation and it should not be tied to childcare choice.
It should go to parents to let them decide and an overwhelming majority will probably choose parental child care if they have a choice.

That is what the polling shows.

Senator ADAMS—You have obviously read the coalition’s guidelines on this.

Do you consider that 18 weeks or 26 weeks is the optimum time if someone is going to go back to work?

Mrs Harvey—If you look at it as childcare funding, childcare funding goes on ad infinitum, doesn’t it?

Childcare funding does not stop.


It is just childcare funding; that is all it is.

So we do not support the coalition’s scheme one iota because it is massively discriminatory.

It will give very wealthy women who are earning up to $150,000 a year $75,000 when they have a baby and low-income or unwaged women will get either the minimum wage or even less than that.
We do not know what they will announce for unwaged mothers, but Mr Abbott has said it will be something more generous than the $5,000 baby bonus.

When you ask when childcare funding should cut out, I answer: it does not.

It is all childcare funding.

You get day care centre funding until your child goes to school and then you get childcare benefits and childcare rebates for outside hours school care as well.
The real issue should be the level of government funding because that is what we are talking about here.

It is not an employer funded scheme.

At what level should those payments be?

As a society, should we agree with that taxpayer funds, consolidated revenue, should be paid to families at a slightly more generous level in the early months and then drop after that for whatever childcare choice families have, whether it is granny care, nanny care, day care or parental child care?
COMMUNITY AFFAIRS CA 50 Senate Friday, 14 May 2010 Mr McCormack—Effectively what this scheme promotes in the end, if you understand it all as child care, is an inefficient labour swap of labour hours and work.

It is unnecessarily bureaucratic and inefficient.


Because of the provisions for the employer as paymaster, it is like a multimillion-dollar fig leaf, in that you are making it look like it comes from the employer to try to create a sense of attachment to the workforce, but I do not think women—mothers in particular—are going to have a problem with being attached to the workforce.

In history, they have not; everyone wants to work whether waged or unwaged.
What you are creating here is an inefficient labour exchange and it was proven, when they did the studies in Quebec and in Sweden, that it did not pay for itself.

You end up hiking taxes to cover it and whatever you subsidise—for example, childcare today because it is quite well subsidised—grows and expands.

This will grow and expand and you will not be able to pay for it.

Senator FURNER—My questions are around the polling.

You referred to the Galaxy poll, the Mothers Day poll, in your submissions.
There were 1,269 respondents and you gave the percentages.

I remember seeing that poll myself, but I cannot remember the numbers.

There were 37 per cent of respondents in favour of Kevin Rudd’s plan.

Do you remember how many respondents there were?

Mr Cannon—I have the numbers here.

CHAIR—You going to send us all that information, aren’t you, Mr Cannon?

Mr Cannon—What figures are you after?

The question was: which of the two parental leave plans do you prefer?
Senator FURNER—Yes, you relied on 37 per cent.

Mr Cannon—There was 37 per cent in favour of Kevin Rudd’s plan.

Senator FURNER—How many respondents were there?

Mr Cannon—There were 1,269 mothers.

Senator FURNER—That was overall, though, wasn’t it?

So what is 37 per cent of 1,269?

I do not have a calculator in front of me here.

Do you have that figure handy?

Mr Cannon—I am not sure.

This was a poll conducted in accordance with the policies of Galaxy poll, which I think is a respected organisation.
Senator FURNER—I will go back to that polling and have a look.

Mr Cannon—I think it is as valid as any other poll you might find— CHAIR—As valid as a poll can be.

Mr Cannon—as far as polls are a reflection of public opinion.

Senator FURNER—You have done three polls yourself as an organisation?

Mr Cannon—No, we commissioned an earlier poll regarding whether parental funding should be equal.
Again, that was a Galaxy poll commissioned by the Australian Family Association, and then Kids First Australia commissioned two polls in particular Queensland electorates.

Senator FURNER—So they were all Galaxy polls, the three of them?

Mr Cannon—No, the Queensland ones were Market First, I think.

Mrs Harvey—Of the two that we did ourselves, the first one was done in the marginal electorate of Ryan.
Kids First volunteers randomly called 500 adults who said that they resided in the electorate and we asked them two questions.

One was about whether paid parental leave should be the same for stay-at-home and paid work mums, and the other question was about whether government funding for the cost of children’s care should be the same amount per child whether the child was cared for by a parent at home or in a day care centre.

The three polls all came up with the same result.


Over 60 per cent of respondents in each case answered yes to both questions.

This reflects studies that have been done overseas as well.

The figure for a very big survey done in America about five years ago, which is quoted in the Day Care Deception book that we referred to in our submission, is that 71 per cent of families responded that they would rather see policies that make parental child care more affordable than improve the quality of day care.
Really, what paid parental leave does is it promotes outsourced child care, because it is rewarding paid work participation by mothers.

If I can make one other comment about childcare funding, there is a misunderstanding amongst a lot of people that by pouring money into day care you will somehow improve the quality of it.
You may have read in COMMUNITY AFFAIRS Friday, 14 May 2010 Senate CA 51 our submission that it is in fact the reverse, because what you do is you flood the system with children, as has occurred in Sweden.

In fact, in the different provinces of Sweden they cannot afford to fund their day care centres properly.
The Rudd government has agreed through COAG to spend a lot more money on day care as a result of the recommendation of the provision of childcare inquiry, but in order to reduce class ratios and that sort of thing we believe the evidence is that that will have the reverse effect.

In Sweden they have abandoned teacher-child ratios and they have abandoned limits on children in day care centre classes because they cannot afford to fund them.
Mr Cannon—We have already seen this year the commitment to fund a certain number of childcare centres.

The number of childcare centres that was initially proposed to be funded was obviously based on some analysis of the need for childcare centres.

That number has been drastically reduced.

Who knows what that means for the children in those childcare centres and the demand for childcare centres.

Who can say what the impact is going to be on those children?

We will see.
We will see.

Mrs Harvey—Would I be able to ask you a question?

CHAIR—Go ahead.

We will see whether we can answer it.

Mrs Harvey—Thank you.

We have raised the issue that we cannot see where the explanatory memorandum or the government have actually shown that they have looked at what the true cost to government will be of subsidising mothers to exchange family work for paid work.

The government has justified the scheme based on its cost estimate in the explanatory memorandum.
Can you show us where that cost estimate has taken account of the extra cost of day care and the extra cost of doing the work that was formerly done by those mothers when they move into paid work?

CHAIR—We will take it to the department.

These issues were raised in the Productivity Commission.

They definitely were raised in the debate by the Productivity Commission.

I saw information that came that way.


Certainly this particular scheme that we have in front of us is looking at providing a choice for parents who are in the workforce.

The key point here is that parents who are already in the workforce, who are having to make a choice about staying in the workforce or not, seems to be— Mrs Harvey—We are questioning why it would be limited to— CHAIR—That is the focus of this particular process that we are going through.
It seems to me that a lot of the issues you are raising are about effective valuing of the work of people who stay at home and—as you have said over and over again—provide family based care.

That seems to be the crux of most of your argument.

Mrs Harvey—What we are really saying is that the scheme will not pay for itself, because it will generate more costs than any productivity or increased taxes or whatever it brings in.
CHAIR—What has happened in the scheme is that the Productivity Commission has made a recommendation to government.

Government have come forward with a scheme that is going to be government funded.

They have listed the costings.

They have listed the offsets that are going to be there.

But it certainly does not seem to me that there is any commitment that any government program automatically pays for itself, whether it is this one or another one.
The government have put forward the scheme for consideration.

This is the paid parental scheme that we are taking forward into the parliament for consideration.

The figures that we have very much based on the Productivity Commission process.

You are concerned about whether it has taken into account the ongoing costs of child care— Mrs Harvey—My concern is: if the scheme is not going to pay for itself, how can you justify a discriminatory scheme?

You cannot justify a discriminatory scheme.


CHAIR—Your position of discrimination is much wider, and it is one that has come into the debate now, which is the debate about effective funding of people to stay at home and keep the children in an ongoing way.

This particular scheme is looking at women who are in the workforce who take time from the workforce to have their children and have the option to return to the workforce.

That is one group of women.


It does not include the families about which you are speaking.

I think they need to be considered, but it is not either/or.

Mrs Harvey—You are effectively agreeing that it is a scheme to fund children’s care costs.

We are saying: how on earth can you— CHAIR—I do not necessarily see it that way.

The simplistic nature of the argument is not that clear.

Certainly that is the position you put in your submission.
That is the submission that you put in your evidence, and that will be considered in the process.

You can be absolutely assured of that.

It will be considered in the COMMUNITY AFFAIRS CA 52 Senate Friday, 14 May 2010 process.

The points you have raised about the ongoing costs of the child care are aspects that need to be considered.

There is no doubt about that.

In the Productivity Commission papers they said that.
This is one step in the overall scheme of how we are going to build families in our current society—families that are going to be caring for children and balancing work and family responsibilities.

This particular payment, the paid parental scheme, does not cover the childcare costs.

You have been raising those costs today in this argument, so we need to look at that, without doubt.

A child is not just for the period of 18 weeks; the child does not just exist for 18 weeks.
There is the whole aspect of children going into schools, school care, after-school care and all the things you mentioned in your submission.

They are all part of the overall social issues, as the previous witness talked about, that surround the whole element.

They are augmenting this bill, not instead of this bill.
Mrs Harvey—We want to say that, instead of all of this, the government should just be simply funding parents with a simple payment directly to them and not be enquiring as to what child care a parent is using.

CHAIR—You said that in your opening statement.

It is very clear that that is your position.

It is the position that you have put forward from the Kids First Parent Association of Australia and so have the Australian Family Association.

They made a very similar argument.

Would you agree with that?


Mrs Harvey—Yes.

Senator ADAMS—I would just like to reiterate that it is the workforce participation area; it is not the child care.

CHAIR—But they need to be considered.

There is no doubt that this bill is about parents who have the choice in front of them of returning to the workplace after having had their child and a period of time away from their child.

It is not the end of the need to consider children and the care of parents.
Mrs Harvey—Instead of postponing the consideration of how the majority of parents will be funded— because most parents lose out under the scheme—could you amend the scheme to give the same funding to all parents?

CHAIR—That is your recommendation?

Mrs Harvey—It is, yes.

CHAIR—We will consider that and we will put it to government.

Thank you very much for your time and your submission.

If there is anything that you have not had a chance to get to us, please send it to us later.
Is there anything that you want to put on the record before we end the session?

Mr McCormack—I will just add one more thing.

In particular, I feel for all those small businesses out there, which will have to get involved in pretending to be the paymaster for the scheme.
Surely, it would look far more friendly to small business, not to mention medium or large businesses, to not try to pretend the money is coming from the employer—with pages and pages and pages devoted in the bill to make it look like it does—and just pay it directly.

The Family Assistance Office already has all the data it needs.

It would be a good way to save some money and it would look better.

It would look cleaner and it would be more efficient.
I am sure the public, as would the business community, would support that as opposed to the other option.

I offer that for your consideration.

CHAIR—Thank you.

You would be aware that other people have made that statement in terms of the process and you would be aware of the alternative arguments of the Productivity Commission.

I will not raise that with you.

COMMUNITY AFFAIRS Friday, 14 May 2010 Senate CA 53 [3.31 pm] BRIDGE, Ms Gwynneth May, President, Australian Childcare Alliance CHAIR—Welcome.
Thank you for giving up your time and coming to talk with us.

You have information about the protection of witnesses and evidence.

We have your submission; thank you.

I invite you to make an opening statement and then we will go to questions.
Ms Bridge—The Australian Childcare Alliance, which is the auspices under which Australian Childcare Alliance and Childcare Associations Australia are identifying as we progress through an amalgamation process, represent in the vicinity of 3,000 long-day-care centres Australia wide.

Our staff care for in excess of 400,000 children.

I am the president of the Australian Childcare Alliance and executive director of the combined group.
We applaud the government’s initiative to support mothers and their young families and to encourage women to return to the workforce after having a child.

As one of the largest employers of women of child- bearing age we believe this policy should and must be supported by business.

However, we have some serious concerns about the cost and administrative burdens on our members, the majority of whom are small business owners and operators.
These members need to be considered for exemption from some of the more onerous administrative tasks of the scheme.

Childcare Alliance Australia represents 70 per cent of the long-day childcare sector and members range from those operating very small childcare centres with an average of six staff per day to larger centres employing, on average, 24 staff.
Averaging this out across Australia at, say, 16 staff per centre, inclusive of relief staff, our representation is in the vicinity of 48,000 staff, which is about half of all those paid primary contact staff employed by Australian government approved childcare services.

Our centres employ mostly women, aged between 17 and 50, with the majority in the 17- to 35-age group.
CAA is concerned that, considering the considerable number of small businesses we represent, we have not been included in the reference group chosen to oversee the introduction of this new system.

We would seek urgent inclusion on this important panel of stakeholders.

As the federal government will appreciate, its increasing regulatory requirements through the introduction of national standards will mean that the number of staff employed in the industry will also increase substantially.
Included in our concern is: the administrative burden on small business, the recruitment of suitably qualified relief staff, payroll tax inclusion, the review of the superannuation liability in two years time, worker’s compensation liability, and the need for a comprehensive education program.

Whilst we strongly support a Paid Parental Leave scheme, our members will face increasing financial and administrative burdens as a result.
Unfortunately, increased operational costs will be passed on to the consumers by way of increased fees, and in this case consumers are the working families.

As such, we seek government support in neutralising the negative aspects of its scheme in the long-day childcare centre sector.

CHAIR—Thank you, Ms Bridge.

I know that in your submission you have raised a series of different points and you can be assured that all those will be before the department—we will be raising them.
I do not think that it is our job to answer all your questions today but, nonetheless, you have covered specific points about the impact on your industry so we will go to questions and that will be fine.

Senator ADAMS—Ms Bridge, do you think there should be a Paid Parental Leave scheme?

Ms Bridge—Our secretary is very supportive of a Paid Parental Leave scheme.

We speak to our workers constantly about it and they are quite excited that this is being recognised now.
Senator ADAMS—And for the 18 weeks versus the 26 weeks, how do you feel about that?

Ms Bridge—It is something that we have not discussed as an association and I think that would be individual to each person who was off on leave.

At the moment a lot of our staff take 12 months unpaid leave.

But there are also staff who are back within a matter of a couple of months because of the need for them to work.
Senator ADAMS—You were talking about small business and, more or less, the burden that it would place on them as far as trying to deal with the funding.

Could you just elaborate a little bit more on that?

Ms Bridge—Most of our childcare centres are small operators.

We have services that are licensed for 18 children and those little operators are struggling.
They still have to do the huge amount of work that is expected by both the state and federal governments and they are really drowning in it and finding it very hard to keep going.
We are just going to add another level and, whilst we understand that hopefully in the little COMMUNITY AFFAIRS CA 54 Senate Friday, 14 May 2010 centre with six they would not have too many off on paid parental leave at the same time, it is still just another level of administration that they have to be very mindful of and deal with to ensure that they meet all the compliance requirements.

Senator ADAMS—Have you looked at the coalition’s scheme versus the other one?
Ms Bridge—I have not analysed it to a great extent.

Senator ADAMS—I would just like to comment that with the way the funding is done, it is big business that will be actually funding the— Ms Bridge—Yes, the percentage— Senator ADAMS—scheme rather than small business, so that is taking the burden away from small business.

Also they are looking at the government doing the administration through the Family Assistance Offices, making the payments rather than small business having to do it themselves.
Have you a comment about that?

Ms Bridge—I think that in our submission we have addressed that.

If the Family Assistance Office is doing it for the first six months, could they not continue to do it for the rest of the period, because they will be set up to do it, rather than then moving it over to the small businesses to do it themselves?

Senator FISHER—In that context, how would you define ‘small business’?
Ms Bridge—The definition by which we fall under small business in other areas is a turnover of $2 million a year.

I would not know what would be a small business.

In the sector we look at a small business as somebody who is operating a business in a community by themselves and not somebody who has got human resource sections of their department.

They are a small business, a small operator, and doing it all themselves.
Senator FISHER—So you are saying that if the government implement this scheme then they should facilitate payments to be made by your members and, in respect of staff utilising the paid parental leave benefits, you are suggesting that those payments should continue to be made through the Family Assistance Office for your small business members.

What are you saying to the government about what the definition of ‘small business’ should be, as part of that recommendation?
Ms Bridge—We have not stated to the government what the definition of ‘small business’ would be because we firmly believe the government already has an opinion of what small business is.

But, as I am saying, it is usually people who are running the business themselves.

An operator with one or two centres is considered a small business.
Senator FISHER—My final question on this—and thank you, Chair, for your indulgence—is: do you see a difference in that respect between your small business members and other small businesses in the community?

Ms Bridge—No.

I think that the tyre fitter down the road would have as much difficulty with the paperwork.

Senator FISHER—Thank you.

Senator ADAMS—I would like to talk about payroll tax, which you brought up in your submission.

Have you spoken to the government about the problem with payroll tax?
Ms Bridge—Yes.

We have not received any decision back yet as to whether the paid parental leave amounts would be included in payroll tax.

Senator ADAMS—When did you write to them or talk to them?

Ms Bridge—We have spoken with them over the last month.

Senator ADAMS—Thank you.

Senator FURNER—Ms Bridge, with regard to the keeping in touch days, the 10 days per period, how do you think that would operate for your members in some of those businesses?
Ms Bridge—Keeping in touch with our worker who is on paid parental leave?

Senator FURNER—That is correct.

Ms Bridge—I think that is something that happens automatically in a small business.

You welcome that baby into the small business family, because that worker, if she has been there long enough to get paid parental leave, would certainly be an integral part of the business.

Usually there are visits back and forth.

It is probably more on a social level, but that contact would certainly be happening.
COMMUNITY AFFAIRS Friday, 14 May 2010 Senate CA 55 Senator FURNER—Okay.

We heard from the Australian Retailers Association this morning, and they represent a group of employers ranging from the likes of Myer—large organisations where they have human resources management—down to small mum-and-dad stores and those types of businesses, and they described the matters associated with the administration of those small businesses.
How do you foresee the PPL working with regard to administration in the small businesses that you cover?

Ms Bridge—Basically, we see our association members—apart from the corporate membership that is there—as being small business operators because they are basically in a community being a small business.

The impost on them would be that they would have to deal with all of this.

It is not something that they are doing at present and it is additional; it does not matter what size business it is.
It is why we have asked for the whole of the childcare sector to be exempt: we already have a huge administrative burden in providing information to both the federal and state governments.

There will also be an increase in that with the inclusion of the rollout of the national quality framework and the national standards in child care.

Senator FURNER—How do their payroll arrangements work currently?

Do they have MYOB to facilitate their payroll arrangements?
Ms Bridge—Up until recently we were a sector that was not really IT savvy.

However, over the past few years we have had to be computerised to interact with the government on the payment of the childcare benefit.

Many of our employers and operators have learnt that system, but they are not fantastic with other systems.

Some outsource their BAS; some do use MYOB.


It would be difficult to say—I would only be making a guess—how many are really able to do everything they do on their computers, but there would be quite a substantial number who would be having difficulties.

CHAIR—I want to follow up on that, as I did earlier with the retail association, to identify exactly what the administrative impost is going to be.
In your submission you say that one of the concerns is that your industry is facing another round of things for which you have to comply with the national standards.

My understanding is that that is coming in and that there are processes that you have to acquit against the national standards in order to be able to report that each childcare centre meets those needs.

So you have that.
So you have that.

You also have the ongoing interaction with the federal government on your payments your subsidies, and at the state government level you have things about regulation.

Senator Furner has just gone through the variation in the payroll systems that people have.

On the basis of my experience I have tried to go through to see just what the added impost would be per person in having to handle a staff member who was on paid parental leave.
For Mr Zimmerman, it was becoming an employer and doing the certification for that, which is an interaction with a national group.

So you have to do that, and then you have to acquit the funding that comes through to pay that person through your payroll system on the same day as they would have been paid anyway.

So there is no difference there.


I certainly take the point which was raised that, should something go wrong and there was a complaint, you would have to go through the complaints system that was set out.

But I am struggling a bit to see, if you are looking at this process alone as being the administrative burden, whether in fact it would be so scary if people could see how it was going to work.
On the basis of your submission it seems to me that there is an amalgam of things that are scaring your members and that at the moment they are saying, ‘Too much; it’s all too much.’ Have any of them said to you, ‘It’s the paid parental scheme and how it’s going to work that is the thing that is really going to put me over the edge’?
Ms Bridge—I think it is the fact that it is something else that they are going to have to learn and, if they get it wrong and there are some errors in it, there could be repercussions.

That is why I go on, further in the submission, to talk about the education— CHAIR—Absolutely and without question the education component is important.
In the proposed scheme there are certainly significant penalties if people are doing the wrong thing, but it is also a question of building up the confidence to say, ‘What support is there and how do you stop doing the wrong thing?’ I am getting the sense that it is the fact that this is just one more thing rather than the thing in itself that is the issue for your industry.

Ms Bridge—We have members at the moment who are at the point where they cannot read any more.
They feel that it is all panic, that everything is coming in and they are saying about this one, ‘We can’t do it.’ CHAIR—So you are raising an industry issue about this transition period in your industry.

Is that right?

Ms Bridge—Yes.

COMMUNITY AFFAIRS CA 56 Senate Friday, 14 May 2010 CHAIR—We will definitely take that up in terms of the process but, from the point of view of a former personnel person, I am just trying to work out why these people are so fearful of this scheme in itself.
Senator FISHER—I refer to your recommendation about government intervention to make sure that your member services remain compliant during the period of absence due to paid parental leave of a staff member.

Your members would have staff who today would be on paid parental leave, so how is that going to be any different in the future?

Ms Bridge—At the moment we do not have staff on paid parental leave.

CHAIR—Is it not in your awards?

Ms Bridge—No.


Senator FISHER—So on what basis are you able to say that there are nonetheless none of your association’s members who are providing that as a benefit over and above the award?

Ms Bridge—We cannot say.

There could— Senator FISHER—There could well be, couldn’t there?

Ms Bridge—Yes.

Senator FISHER—So the fact that it is not a condition of award based employment does not mean that you do not already have members out there doing it?
Ms Bridge—No, that is quite possible.

Senator FISHER—Presumably it could mean that you have members out there facing this challenge and managing it?

Ms Bridge—Yes.

Senator FISHER—You request in your submission ‘intervention by government to ensure that services remain compliant’.

What do you mean by that?


Ms Bridge—Basically ensuring that, through the education processes, if services are having difficulties, we can get assistance from government—that we will not just be left there and have to struggle through it.

If somebody is doing it manually—and some people, probably more than one or two, are still manually paying— and if they do fall into issues, we just need to know that before compliance comes in they can get assistance and be helped through it.
Senator FISHER—Say your recommendation refers to remaining compliant with the paid parental leave obligations— Ms Bridge—Yes.

Senator FISHER—not other child care obligations?

Ms Bridge—There is a section there where we are talking about in the amount of time that staff are absent we are having huge difficulties recruiting suitably qualified staff in child care.

Senator FISHER—You already have those issues, don’t you?

Ms Bridge—We certainly do have those issues.


Senator FISHER—So what are you saying about the paid parental leave proposal in that context?

Ms Bridge—Just that, if we are looking at this being as popular as we think it might be, it might put extra stresses on us.

If we have a three/four staff off on paid parental leave, in some areas it would be nigh on impossible to replace that staff with a qualified.
We do not want to have to be in a position where we would have to shut a room down because we have somebody on paid parental leave and not provide care to those children, which can happen if you are not meeting the ratios with the qualifieds.
So we need to know that, if it does happen, if we have done the advertising and we have done everything, government will consider that we are in a bit of a different position to somebody who can put somebody behind the cash register; we cannot just put somebody in charge of a group of children.

Senator FISHER—Retailers might have a different view about just putting someone in front of the cash register.

At what point, then, would your members say that paid parental leave is bad for business?
There must be a point, if the scenario that you are exploring were to unfold, where you did not actually have the skilled hands on deck to deliver the very child care services that your members are set up to provide.

At what point COMMUNITY AFFAIRS Friday, 14 May 2010 Senate CA 57 would you say, ‘Compulsory, effectively, and paid parental leave is a bad thing, if it is ending up with this result where we cannot do our business’?
Ms Bridge—We certainly would like to never get to the point where we think it is a bad thing, because we do think it is a good thing.

What we are saying is that there has got to be something that government can do with federal or state regulations if we are unable to replace somebody—and we want to and we have done everything we can—where we may be able to have extensions in getting that placement.
Senator FISHER—But what, Ms Bridge, would work if governments of whatever persuasion are not able to deliver that to your child care centres today to fill the skills shortages and gaps?

It may be exacerbated in the scenario, because it is only going to be for a short window—up to a nine-month maximum window, not quite that long.

Ms Bridge—There are centres now who are unable to open rooms because they cannot get suitably qualified staff.
Senator FISHER—Yes, so government ain’t helping you with that right now.

Ms Bridge—No, they are not, but we want to support the paid parental scheme.

Senator FISHER—’At what cost?’ is what I say, because going to the next recommendation in your submission about the administrative burden, you talk about requesting that the Family Assistance Office continue to make payments for child care personnel to alleviate the additional cost on families.
Earlier on in the submission you say: The additional time and handling of the administrative requirement of the Paid Parental Leave will increase costs to services.

This will lead to a further financial burden on our families ... By that you mean your paying customer families, don’t you?

Ms Bridge—If there is recognition that some would pay a percentage in some areas for administering paid parental leave, we are assuming that there will be a cost in doing it.
That cost could be with somebody who has to help out in a service during the administration of it.

If there are costs, they would certainly have to be— Senator FISHER—They will be passed on to working families, you are saying, by your members?

Ms Bridge—Yes.

Senator FISHER—Okay.


What do you then think about paid parental leave, which is supposedly set up to benefit working families who make the decision to have a child, ultimately impacting negatively on those very working families in the scenario you have outlined?

Ms Bridge—I do not think under the current financial status of many of our sole operators and small businesses that they can absorb any more costs.

They just cannot do it.


Some of them are concerned about hanging on until the end of the year.

It is fairly critical.

Operating a childcare centre is not like what people thought it was years ago.

A lot of these operators are being stretched to keep the doors open and to maintain their business and hours.

Senator FISHER—So you are saying this is another factor.

It could well be the straw that breaks the camel’s back.

Ms Bridge—We do not know what the costs involved will be yet.
Hopefully, they are not going to be that exorbitant.

We are just saying that if there are costs, they will have to be passed on.

Senator FISHER—So what is the point of something that is set up to benefit in this case working families that ultimately results in costs being passed on to them?

Isn’t that a round robin?

What is the endpoint?

Ms Bridge—The thing is the costs would not only be passed on to those families but they would be shared by all the families in the centre.
If we have 70 children a day, we have about 130 families in the centre.

The costs may be small when they are shared across the whole community of the service.

Senator FISHER—Thank you.

CHAIR—Do you have anything to add that we have not covered, Ms Bridge?

Ms Bridge—No.

CHAIR—Thank you very much for your time and your effort.
Proceedings suspended from 3.37 pm to 4.17 pm COMMUNITY AFFAIRS CA 58 Senate Friday, 14 May 2010 BRYANT, Ms Therese, National Women’s Officer, Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees Association van BARNEVELD, Dr Kristin, Deputy Secretary, Community and Public Sector Union CHAIR—We welcome the witnesses from the Community and Public Sector Union and the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees Association.

You have information on the protection of witnesses and evidence.
We know that you have been involved in this process for a long time.

Would you like to make opening statements?

Then we will go into questions.

Who has won the toss?

Dr van Barneveld—I will go first.

CHAIR—I should put on record that CPSU is my union.

I have to establish that.

Dr van Barneveld—Thank you.

I would like to thank the committee for giving the CPSU the opportunity to provide feedback about the bill.
The CPSU supports the submission made in writing and verbally this morning by the ACTU, and our submission adds to that submission by providing a public sector angle.

I just want to go into a bit of the technical detail around the scheme from our perspective and the perspective of our members as public servants who have to administer the scheme, as well as touch on a few elements of the scheme that we believe need clarification in the bill.
The first thing I want to do is recognise all of the hard work that has already gone on and has been done by public servants working on the Paid Parental Leave scheme.

In the 12 months since the government announced the scheme in May last year, they have done an awful lot.
Our members at FaHCSIA, Centrelink, DEEWR and a number of other agencies have worked incredibly hard to deliver the legislation that we have been discussing today, and that work goes far beyond the legislation and the Productivity Commission.

In the last few weeks, public servants have worked incredibly hard to get the employee and employer fact sheets, the entitlement calculators and all the other information ready on the website for people to access.
The information explaining the practicalities of how the scheme will work for both parents and business, along with the question and answer sheets that are available on the website, has been of great assistance to our members and presumably to the public in developing an understanding of how the scheme will actually work and how they will be affected.

CPSU members are specifically interested in the detail of the scheme.

Our latest member email newsletter was sent to members late on Wednesday afternoon.
It contained a detailed ‘frequently asked questions’ sheet, as well as a cover letter explaining the process of making paid parental leave a reality on 1 January 2011.

We have had more than 1,000 unique page views of that information since then.

In the last fortnight—I have checked—six members have called our member service centre seeking detailed information about parental leave entitlements.
In the financial year to date, we have had more than 180 member queries specifically about accessing paid parental leave, and around 1,200 of our members at any given time access paid parental leave.

Given our members’ interest, for us it is vital that the scheme that is so widely known does commence on 1 January 2011.

In order to have a scheme starting on that date, the legislation must be passed by 24 June 2010, and that is the last sitting day before the winter break.
If the passage of the legislation is delayed even until the August sitting, our members tell us that it will be incredibly difficult for the APS to deliver the scheme for a start of 1 January.

The delivery of paid parental leave will require a significant system-build by Centrelink.

Unlike the previous changes to government payments, the Paid Parental Leave scheme cannot be piggybacked onto the existing systems of Centrelink.
While this sounds complex, it has to be noted that the Productivity Commission recommended this model as the most efficient way of making the payment, and we support the changes, as they ensure that this entitlement is an industrial entitlement and not a welfare payment.
It follows that the system that Centrelink needs to build to deliver the payments cannot be built until the legislation is passed, so any delay in the passage of the legislation will put an unrealistic workload on our members who are responsible for the delivery of the Paid Parental Leave scheme.

Before this committee, in an additional estimates hearing on 11 February 2010, the branch manager of the PPL Branch in FaHCSIA, Mr Mark Warburton, confirmed these complexities.
At that hearing, Senator Boyce asked why a scheme that had been announced in May 2009 was delayed and would not be in place by January 2011.

Mr Warburton explained the process in some detail, recognising the changes that Centrelink has to make and explaining the need also to allow employers some time to modify their payroll and administrative systems.

Finally on this point, the budget that was announced this week does include some funding for the implementation of the scheme.
Agencies must be properly funded in order to do the work required for the COMMUNITY AFFAIRS Friday, 14 May 2010 Senate CA 59 further development and implementation of the scheme.

They cannot undertake this work in addition to their current workload.

We are pleased that paid parental leave as an industrial entitlement is reflected in the aims of the scheme and that the government did not turn the scheme into a new and complex welfare payment.
I would like to reiterate the ACTU’s comments this morning that it is important for the bill to include a provision that employers not reduce existing entitlements and also for pointers to be included in the Fair Work Act and the bill to ensure that employers and employees do not overlook any entitlements and for employers to be required to provide employees with an information statement about their entitlements.

We are pleased that the bill includes a keeping in touch provision.
This is important to ensure that women can retain their attachment to their employer, and it will facilitate an easier return to work following maternity leave for many women.

However, it is vital that this provision be used only for the benefit of employees and for one-off events such as specialist training and planning days.

Keeping in touch should never be used by employers to cover workforce shortages or busy periods.
It is important that both employers and employees be made aware that these keeping in touch provisions are strictly voluntary and that an employee cannot be compelled to attend work.

The committee should consider the circumstances of a woman who has been employed for 10 months as of the expected birth date of her child.
This woman would be entitled to the 18-week government payment because she would meet the work test, but under the National Employment Standards she would not have an entitlement to return to her job.

Clarification is needed to ensure that employers do not use workplace attendance under the keeping in touch provisions as a condition of returning to work for a mother who finds herself in these particular circumstances.
It also needs to be clear that attendance at work for a keeping in touch day will require the employer to pay wages for the time the woman is at work, regardless of whether the employee is receiving paid parental leave or is on unpaid parental leave as provided for under the National Employment Standards.

The last couple of issues I wish to touch on are superannuation and the accrual of leave.
Given that the scheme is designed to provide an industrial entitlement, it is vital that the entitlement operates like any other employment entitlement.

I support the ACTU’s comments this morning about how much difference the accrual of leave over the 18-week period would make to women who often use their entire sick leave entitlement caring for their children, leaving nothing for them to use when they are sick themselves.
In relation to superannuation, I also reiterate the ACTU’s comments that is important for superannuation to be paid on the 18-week government entitlement.

It is incontrovertible that women are well behind men in terms of retirement incomes, and paying superannuation on the 18 weeks would make a difference.

The CPSU do an annual women’s survey, and our survey of 2009-10 had 9½ thousand responses.
That survey revealed that 40 per cent of women aged between 25 and 34 had just between $10,000 and $50,000 in superannuation.

These women are likely to be members of an accumulation scheme, where amounts put in early make a significant difference to the outcome at retirement.

To this end, late last year the CPSU began seeking, through bargaining, that the government as employer pay superannuation on periods of paid and unpaid parental leave for up to 12 months.
We have achieved this so far at the ABS, the Bureau of Statistics, and at the Fair Work Ombudsman.

The CPSU will continue to negotiate this entitlement on behalf of members, but we seek that the committee consider an amendment to the bill to ensure that all employees receive superannuation payments on periods of parental leave.

I am happy to answer any questions you might have about our submission.

CHAIR—Thank you very much.

Ms Bryant, would you like to speak now?

Ms Bryant—Yes, thank you very much.


I would also like to thank you for the opportunity of talking to you today.

Paid parental leave is an important issue for our members, who are predominantly female and on low incomes.

The SDA first called on the federal government of the day to introduce a paid maternity leave scheme in 1978 as a government payment to all mothers, subject to a means test.

Paid parental leave in Australia is long overdue and has been greatly anticipated.
The SDA welcome the introduction of this bill and congratulate the government on making the decision to provide paid parental leave and on the great deal of work which has been done to bring it to fruition.

We believe that the bill does achieve the government’s proposal as announced in the budget last year, but there are some aspects of the detail which we would like to see finetuned.
We also see this bill as a good start in terms of the provision of paid parental leave but would like to see it improved over time.

We welcome the announced review of the bill and the allocation of funding for this purpose and especially the commitment to COMMUNITY AFFAIRS CA 60 Senate Friday, 14 May 2010 review the provision of paid paternity and superannuation contributions for the period of paid parental leave, both of which we would like see introduced.
We would also like to see introduced the ability for employees to accrue entitlements during the paid parental leave period and, in time, see the quantum increased to 26 weeks.
Another major concern for us is the number of people, including working people, who will not benefit from this scheme: those who were recently employed or who have small amounts of casual employment; those who have not returned to work for a sufficient period after the birth of an earlier child; those who resign during pregnancy, not always by choice, including those who were subject to pregnancy discrimination; and those who have pregnancy related illnesses which take them away from work for substantial periods.
We appreciate that the government has created a broader work test than exists for unpaid parental leave in the NES to try to cover more women, but its own statistics show that approximately 48.1 per cent of women will miss out on this payment.

Most of those women can be expected to be eligible for the baby bonus and possibly family tax benefit part A, which, by our estimates, could be as much as $2,800 less than the maximum paid parental leave payment.
Even those eligible for the paid parental leave payment can be paid quite different amounts depending on income, the timing of the birth in the tax year and tax treatment.

Therefore, there is substantial inequity in the payments which we believe should be rectified.

The SDA believes strongly that all families earning below the upper income limit should receive an equivalent government payment around the time of having a baby.
To achieve this under the proposed arrangements, we propose that the baby bonus be increased and that then, over time, there be a mechanism in place to provide further increases to keep pace with unpaid parental leave payments.

This is a particularly important point and one which has not yet been addressed.
We have a real concern that the current gap in payments could be not only be maintained but also potentially increased over time, further disadvantaging those who do not meet the paid parental leave criteria.

The SDA’s other major concern is the timing of the commencement of payments.
If a person makes an effective claim satisfying the work test, the income test and the Australian residency test and providing the necessary documents including the expected date of the birth, employment information and tax file information, clauses 26 and 27 of the exposure draft of the bill provide that the secretary may make an initial eligibility determination acting on the assumption that this state of affairs will remain unchanged.
The claim could be made up to three months before the expected date of birth, and if it was it would be reasonable to expect that the initial eligibility determination could be made before the woman started her parental leave, usually in the six weeks before the expected date of birth.

Once the initial eligibility determination was made, the woman would be assured of receiving the PPL payments so long as she verified that the birth took place, whether the baby lived or died.
This last step seems somewhat superfluous given that it is inevitable that the baby will be born, but it could be done after the commencement of the payment.
Clause 11(4) refers to a maximum PPL period start date, which seems to say that if by the relevant day— that is, 28 days after the birth of the baby—the primary claimant has made an effective claim and verified the birth, including registering the baby, then the earliest the PPL period can start is the day the child was born, and so the payment can be backdated to then.

What is not clear is how soon after verification of the birth that first payment will occur.
The drafting does not make it clear whether the payment determination by the secretary will be made immediately after verification is received or not occur until 28 days after the birth.

In either case, if the employer is to be the paymaster and an employer determination is in place, the payment will need to be sent to the employer along with the notice of the payment determination and the employer will then pay the mother on the next due date in her pay cycle, which could be in two to four weeks.
Independent research by SDA members has shown that six per cent of women who took parental leave returned to work one to three weeks after the birth and 10 per cent of women who took parental leave had returned within six weeks after the birth.

Most of these women did not think that this was enough time off, but they returned to work due to economic necessity.
We are concerned that the above scenario, which seems to apply in the draft bill, in combination with whatever time the woman may have taken off before the birth— which could be at lease three weeks and possibly more if a woman has experienced ill health—will mean that the family is under financial stress and that the woman will be forced back to work before the first payment has even been made.

This would obviously defeat the aims of the scheme.
The SDA advocates that, provided an initial eligibility determination has been made, the PPL payment should be available to the mother from the time she starts parental leave or at least from six weeks before the birth if she has had to commence her leave earlier.
COMMUNITY AFFAIRS Friday, 14 May 2010 Senate CA 61 At the very least, it will be very important that the government sufficiently resource the Family Assistance Office to enable quick processing of claims and payments and that employers pass on the payments as quickly as possible.
It will also be important that sufficient resources are allocated to the functioning of the Family Assistance Office website and the accessibility of the call centre, given the expected increase in questions in relation to this scheme, as our members have reported difficulties in the past in the ready and consistent access to these avenues of information.
In regard to the keeping-in-touch provisions, the SDA recommends that it be stipulated in the legislation that attendance at work whilst on paid parental leave must be strictly voluntary.

We are still concerned that employees are particularly vulnerable to pressure to attend work, especially where there are ongoing negotiations around return-to-work arrangements, such as rosters matching childcare availability for example, and may feel unable to refuse requests to work.
We would also support the inclusion of a statement providing protection for employees against duress, discrimination or victimisation if they refuse to attend work.

The time period in clause 50(c) provides that a keeping-in-touch day is not within 14 days after the day the child was born.
In consideration of the mother’s recovery from the birth, the tender age of the baby, issues around the establishment of breast feeding and the usual need for frequent feeding at this age, including through the night, the SDA recommends that this clause be amended to be not within six weeks after the day the child was born.
This time frame is consistent with the time frame allowed in the NES where employers may not require an employee to return to work after instances of stillbirth and death of the baby for at least six weeks after the birth of the child.

We support the provision that any time worked on a keeping-in-touch day does not affect the paid parental leave payment and the explanatory memorandum foreshadows changes to the Fair Work Act to accommodate such work.
Such changes would only be supported by the SDA provided the person was paid at least what they ordinarily would expect to be paid had they worked on that day.

There are also a number of other changes that should be made to the NES to provide consistency with this bill.

Ideally that should also be done by 1 January next year.

We would also like to see the eight-week permissible break extended to 12 weeks to better cover sessional, seasonal and casual employees.
In some instances mothers need to take extended periods of sick leave and/or special maternity leave before they have reached six-months pregnant due to pregnancy related illnesses and conditions.

The SDA recommends provisions that would allow these periods of leave in legitimate circumstances and with the provision of medical certificates without affecting eligibility for the PPL payment.
We are pleased with the provisions which allow the paid parental leave payments to mothers of stillborn babies and we are also pleased that there will be one point of contact, the Family Assistance Office, for parents with questions or difficulties in the first instance.

In conclusion, paid parental leave is a significant issue in the industries we cover and this scheme will provide a material new benefit for many of our members when it is introduced.
We therefore support its introduction as an important milestone, but one that is a good basis on which to build in the future.

Concurrently, we strongly recommend that inequities in family assistance payments to those who are ineligible for the payment, or even to those who are eligible for the payment, be rectified.
Especially in the interests of those families who are experiencing severe financial stress in the early weeks after the delivery of their baby, we urge the Senate to pass this bill to enable the commencement of payments to parents from 1 January 2011.

Senator ADAMS—Just to put your minds at ease, you obviously heard our session with the ACTU— Ms Bryant—I am sorry, I didn’t.

Senator ADAMS—All right.


I actually said to them that the coalition does not intend to block this bill, but if we are elected we will improve it.

That is the message.

Ms Bryant—That is great.

Senator ADAMS—I am really worried about some of the scuttlebutt that has been going around about this bill being delayed and not coming to the Senate.

That is not the coalition’s remit; the government has to put the bill into the Senate.

Then we will deal with it as we see fit with amendments.
It is not the coalition’s stance to actually block the bill, but we really would like to improve it.

We are not that happy with the way it is, but we will deal with that through the amendment process in the Senate when the bill is presented to us.

Have you discussed with the government whether employers will have to pay payroll tax in this particular context?

COMMUNITY AFFAIRS CA 62 Senate Friday, 14 May 2010 Ms Bryant—Our union has not discussed payroll tax with employers.
My understanding from being on the consultative committee is that there have been discussions with state governments in regard to payroll tax, but I have not been involved in those discussions.

Senator ADAMS—What about you, Dr Van Barneveld?

Dr Van Barneveld—No.

Senator ADAMS—Do your members consider that 18 weeks is long enough?

Would they prefer to have a longer time?

Dr Van Barneveld—We have done some calculations with our members.
The CPSU’s formal position—as developed by our members in our document called Building our agenda for change, which is the five-year plan of what members want the union to achieve on their behalf—is for 26 weeks.

But there is a recognition and an acknowledgement from our members that 18 weeks is a fantastic start and that we have been building on that through bargaining.

Already Commonwealth and Territory public servants, although not state public servants, get on average 14 weeks paid parental leave.
In the ACT government they get 18 weeks paid parental leave, and that applies to men as well as to women.

We have done some calculations on the basis of the 18 weeks and, depending on your salary, whether or not that translates to actually having 26 weeks full replacement wages, which is our position ultimately.

Women up to APS4 will be getting at least 26 weeks full replacement wages when you add their existing enterprise agreement entitlements onto the 18 weeks at minimum wage.
For women above that it is a sliding scale and they do not, depending on how much more they earn.

For us this is a vital first step, and we will continue to pursue it through bargaining.

But, particularly given what I said in my opening statement, we certainly do not want the scheme to be delayed any further because of an argument that it should be more than 18 weeks.

Ms Bryant—To answer your question, Senator, our members were very supportive of even getting 14 weeks.
That is the international standard, so when 18 weeks was proposed they were delighted.

I am sure if 26 weeks was available they would be very happy with that as well.

But the union’s position on behalf of our members is that we are focused on people that wanted this payment yesterday.

We certainly do not want to have any delays beyond 1 January either.
There are a lot of low-income families that are in need of this payment and will be benefiting from it from 1 January next year, if that is when it is introduced.

Senator ADAMS—Have you raised the issue of superannuation with the government in your deliberations?

Dr Van Barneveld—The CPSU raised it in our first submissions, in the deliberations through the Productivity Commission, and we have raised it at every available opportunity since.
We understand why superannuation has not been included and we welcome the fact that the Productivity Commission put in its report that there should be a review and that superannuation is one of the things that could be considered at that stage.

From the CPSU’s perspective, as I said before, we have been negotiating with government as a employer around that particular issue, given the importance our members place on superannuation.
Our research shows that our members, even though on the whole they earn more than the SDA members, also do not have fantastic outcomes in terms of retirement incomes.

So that was why we sought government as an employer pay superannuation for up to 12 months to women whether it is paid or unpaid, and we have secured that in two agencies and will continue to secure it through bargaining.

That said, we are in a position that we are able to do that.
More broadly for the union movement, I think I would be vital for working women to have superannuation available to all of those women.

Ms Bryant—We also have included in our submissions to the Productivity Commission, whether they be written or oral, and in every opportunity that we have had, we have sought that superannuation payments be included, and that is still the SDA’s policy.

We welcome superannuation payments being made on this payment.
Senator ADAMS—Have you had any feedback from your members on the level of their superannuation in the last month?

Ms Bryant—What do you mean by ‘on the level’?

Senator ADAMS—As to what has happened with their superannuation with regard to the tax implications that have been announced?

Has anybody come back to you as to how their super fund has fared?

COMMUNITY AFFAIRS Friday, 14 May 2010 Senate CA 63 Ms Bryant—No.
I think most of our members are members of the Retail Employees Superannuation Trust Industry fund.

Predominantly, they would be members of that fund.

So, no, we have not had any comments back.

Dr van Barneveld—We have been running superannuation sessions specifically for our women members, and I have to say they are one of the most well attended things that we have run.
This is probably not entirely relevant, but women are hungry for information about their super and are increasingly becoming concerned at younger ages.

I think we used to say that women were not interested in their superannuation until they at least turned 45.

I have been incredibly pleased to see younger women have been coming along to these super sessions as well.

Thankfully, there is an increasing awareness, but I think there is a long way to go.

Senator ADAMS—Okay.
Senator ADAMS—Okay.

Senator FISHER—Do you think many dads or blokes will take advantage of paid parental leave, were it to come into being?

Dr Van Barneveld—I understand from the construction of the scheme that the mother has the ability to sign over her parental leave.

I can imagine that that will happen in some circumstances, but I suppose the proof will be in the pudding and we will have to wait and see how often that happens.
In terms of the ACT government where there is an entitlement for fathers or mothers to have 18 weeks, there have been some instances of men taking the paid parental leave entitlement, which in my view is fantastic.

Senator FISHER—So it is all about families rather than just women?
Dr van Barneveld—Yes, but I would say that it is incredibly important, in the first instance, that this entitlement is directed to the woman and then it is up to the mother to make the decision as to whether or not she signs that over or takes that provision herself.

Senator FISHER—Why?

Ms Bryant—Because, primarily, the woman has to recover from giving birth and there is the fact that women are the ones who breastfeed.
So this would enable that ideal situation of the bonding time with the baby and the establishment of breastfeeding.

Men can’t do that!

Dr van Barneveld—There is a broader position that we would like to see some paid paternity leave, for want of a better term.

From memory, from our agenda for change document that members want us to pursue it is six weeks, and I think that that would be a significant achievement.

Ms Bryant—We are pursuing bargaining two weeks unpaid paternity leave at the moment.
We also support the provision of paternity leave.

It is very important for fathers to be involved and there are many instances where mothers need their support in those early weeks.

Senator FISHER—You have spoken about an ACT experience.

In either the CPSU or the SDA experience, are you aware of any employers of your members doing over and above what may be the minimum legislative or indeed the bargained outcome in respect of giving parental leave to fathers?
Dr van Barneveld—I think the ACT government example is a stand-out example of having 18 weeks available to men or women.

Employers will generally pay a bargained or legislative outcome.

That is where an entitlement is found.

I would have thought it would have been unusual for employers to be giving an entitlement that is above that, not that we would discourage that by any stretch of the imagination.

Senator FISHER—You ‘would have thought’ it is unusual.

Do you know?
Do you know?

Others may think it to be not unusual.

Dr van Barneveld—In our experience members get their industrial entitlements.

Ms Bryant—In the retail industry the experience is a little different.

We have not had a history of employers providing paid maternity or paternity leave.

In fact, across the industry there are still not a great number of employers who do provide it and there are only a few who have even included it as an entitlement in agreements.
A number have introduced it over the last year or two as a policy arrangement.

So it is over and above what they are legally required to do.

They have been waiting on the outcomes of this Productivity Commission process to see what they may or not be required to do to decide what they will do in the future.

We are hopeful that more retail employers will include the provision of both paid maternity and paternity leave in our agreements with them.
COMMUNITY AFFAIRS CA 64 Senate Friday, 14 May 2010 Dr van Barneveld—Just to add that, it is concerning when employers put these things in policies rather than in enforceable instruments, because often it is left to managerial discretion.

You will get disparate application of a policy and it leads to inequities.
Ms Bryant—It certainly is difficult to enforce and it is possible for the company to change their policy at any time, not that I am expecting that they are going to do that at whim, but nonetheless it is not as strong a provision for the employees, that is for sure.

Senator FISHER—Would you agree that what you and your members might regard as inequitable—that is, lack of uniform outcome—might be regarded as necessary for business by the business community?
Dr van Barneveld—To be honest, I have not extended myself beyond our area of coverage, which is predominantly the public sector, and—as I said—our position is that we would prefer to see these entitlements in legally enforceable industrial instruments where the application of those is fair and does not allow for inequities just because a manager does not like you or does like you.
You might end up with 20 weeks because your manager likes you and your colleague, who is in exactly the same position—she is a pregnant woman who is working—may end up with nothing.
Senator FISHER—Then again—extending your scenario—could it not be because your colleague is in a job that is less able to be managed in terms of a period of leave and, therefore, has underneath it all the consequent questions about your colleague: what happens to her job in the meanwhile and then the sort of job to which she comes back if the employer, be it the public sector or a retailer, is to oblige that request?
Ms Bryant—The experience in our industry is that a number of employers have their paid parental leave provisions as a matter of policy.

In reality, they do apply those policies fairly uniformly.

That is what actually happens.

I am not aware of the sorts of scenarios that you are talking about happening in our industry sector coverage.

Senator FISHER—It was the sorts of scenarios that your colleague, the doctor, was talking about that I was trying to flesh out using her example of inequities.
Dr van Barneveld—I think that your concern extends to things that perhaps the keeping-in-touch provision and those sorts of things that are in the construction— Senator FISHER—Which provision?

Dr van Barneveld—The keeping-in-touch provision and those sorts of provisions in the construction of the bill would aid that.
So there would be no reason, if the person on paid parental leave agreed, for the employer not to give an incentive for them to attend a really important conference for example that, if they were a lawyer, allowed them to maintain their legal qualification requirements while they were on paid maternity leave or paid parental leave.
There are those provisions and I think that there is probably sufficient flexibility within the bill as it stands to allow those sorts of things to happen which I think gets to the question you are asking.

Senator FISHER—One side of the coin essentially because the keeping-in-touch provisions are about looking after a worker who is on leave and facilitating their return to the job, but a business or an employer might have a concern about filling the gap whilst the worker is on leave.
Using your scenario decisions might be taken, if a business was flexible, that might result in your language in inequities comparing one to another.

So the keeping-in-touch provisions ain’t going to help a business fill the gap.

Dr van Barneveld—Perhaps I misunderstood your question to a degree because currently women are entitled to 12 months unpaid maternity leave, on the whole, provided they meet the requirements.

Senator FISHER—That is right.


Dr van Barneveld—So I do not see that there would be any difference between an employer having to fill those positions as opposed to an employer having to fill that position when this bill becomes a reality.

I do not think there would be any difference.

An employer would have to backfill a maternity leave position whether the bill is in not.

Senator FISHER—That is a fair point.


I think I heard both of you saying that whilst it might be good for dads to get a bit along the way—we are talking about paid leave—paid parental leave is primarily a girl thing, a mother thing.

Dr van Barneveld—No, I do not agree.

COMMUNITY AFFAIRS Friday, 14 May 2010 Senate CA 65 Ms Bryant—I think it is primarily a family thing.
But, as I said before, it is inevitable in the first instance that the mother needs to be financially secure so that she can take some leave in at least the initial period after the birth and hopefully— Senator FISHER—Are you talking about breastfeeding and stuff?

Ms Bryant—establish breastfeeding and have bonding time.

Hopefully the dad can be involved in some of that bonding time as well and be a support.

Then it is up to the family to work out what is going to suit them best going forward.
Dr van Barneveld—There might be instances in our membership—and there is an example that comes to mind—where a father is currently taking as much parental leave as he can because he works as an EL1 in a large agency and his wife works as an SES employee in a different agency.

Because he is not the primary earner in the family, he is the one trying to take as much of that leave as he can.
I can imagine in such circumstances, when the bill becomes a reality, that a woman would be signing over her 18-week entitlement to the man so that he can provide the caring role.

Senator FISHER—That is another example, beyond your ACT example.

Dr van Barneveld—Yes.

Senator FISHER—Do you have any views about the impact of this bill on women in the workforce if the end result is more mums taking up paid parental leave than dads?

Let me ask the question in two stages.


If this were to become law, do you think that—at least in the short to medium term—more mums than dads would avail themselves of the length of the leave?

Dr van Barneveld—Yes, of course.

In relation to the second part of your question, because it is a government entitlement and because it is a uniform entitlement, I cannot imagine that employers would discriminate against hiring women subsequently.
One of the concerns that unions— Senator FISHER—You mean subsequent to the legislation becoming law—if it were to?

Dr van Barneveld—Yes.

There has been an argument—it was certainly something that we thought about very early on.

We did not want a scheme that had an adverse impact.

Senator FISHER—By driving discrimination underground.

Dr van Barneveld—That discouraged employers because they thought they would have an increased cost.

I do not believe this scheme will result in that.


It assists employers with having women in the workforce and with retaining those who logically would be valuable employees: those they have invested in and would like to return after they have had the baby and sufficient time off.

Senator FISHER—These days every women is ultimately potentially pregnant, at least to the external world.

Dr van Barneveld—Depending on their age, one would have thought.
Senator FISHER—That is right; that is why I said ‘at least to the outside world’.

Dr van Barneveld—If you look at the statistics, we have something like 60,000 members in the PSU group of the CPSU, and our data was that 1,200 of our members are eligible for or taking parental leave at any period in time.

I think that the Productivity Commission’s report—I cannot remember it off the top of my head— provided the information about the proportion of women at any point in time who are off having babies.
It is surprisingly low.

I understand that for small business, for example—I think Ms Bryant can correct me on the data—it is something like three per cent of small businesses that would have a woman off on leave at any point in time.

Please do not quote me on that, because I am doing it off the top of my head.

It is, surprisingly, incredibly low.

It also reflects the fact that our birthrate is incredibly low.

We have an ageing population.

We do not have a paid parental leave scheme.


CHAIR—It reflects people who do not identify.

They leave work.

It does not appear in the stats that they are off having a child; it appears in the stats that they have left work.

The figures are not transparent.

Dr van Barneveld—Yes, that would be true too.

Senator FISHER—Did you hear the evidence of Ms Bridge from the childcare association?

Dr van Barneveld—No.

Senator FISHER—I will risk mischaracterising— CHAIR—We will watch for it.
COMMUNITY AFFAIRS CA 66 Senate Friday, 14 May 2010 Senator FISHER—I’m sure you will!

Her organisation supports the principle, but she was concerned about the administrative implications for her members.

The implications in part included not just the administration of facilitating the leave but also ensuring that they had enough skilled workers to fill the gap if a worker took the leave.
While you might argue that paid parental leave of itself does not result in discrimination against a woman who potentially is pregnant, could it not be those flow-on factors?

It is not about a woman herself being absent from work on leave; it is more about what a business has to do as a consequence of that—for example, administrative costs from filling the gap—that could cause a business to pick one worker over another if this were to become law.
Ms Bryant—I do not think that by introducing payment for period of parental leave, compared to having unpaid parental leave, which has been in existence since 1979 or something—these issues have been around since that time.

Employers every now and again say, ‘Oh, but I’ve got to find a replacement employee’ and talk about the administrative costs.

In all of that time we have only seen women’s participation increase.
Senator FISHER—That is a fair point, but earlier in discussion with the chair you said not to quote you but talked about the low incidence of three per cent take-up.

So, if that figure is correct, it has not been happening much.

Dr van Barneveld—That is the proportion of women who have had babies in small business.

It is actually incredibly low.

Senator FISHER—Okay.

That is my misunderstanding.

Ms Bryant—So it is not three per cent of take-up.

Dr van Barneveld—No.


What I am saying is the impact on some small businesses is actually very low because a small business will have a female employee have a baby and take leave once every eight years.

CHAIR—It is very low.

Dr van Barneveld—Small businesses are saying that this scheme is going to have a huge impact, but I just cannot see how it would, given the incidence of them having an employee who has a baby is only once every eight years.

It does not bear out.


Senator FISHER—That does bear out the flipside of the argument because that may be so, as the chair suggested, because women are leaving the job rather than contributing to the figure you were talking about.
There may be a difference between a scheme where there has been an automatically available period of unpaid leave that women have chosen not to take advantage of or not be seen to have taken advantage of—that is, they have terminated the employment rather than taken the leave—and a scheme where there is a packet of money attached to it.

That may then have a consequence in terms of the employment of a woman versus someone else, albeit illegally.
Of course if there is discrimination on the basis of pregnancy or potential pregnancy it would be against the law, but I am sure you will tell me about in the experience of your union the difficulties of proving in some scenarios that someone has been discriminated against.

Dr van Barneveld—Perhaps you have just highlighted something and we need to look at the antidiscrimination legislation and tighten it up.

Senator FISHER—There you go.

It may well have an impact.


If there is a ‘perhaps’ there then you might be accepting that there might be an impact in that respect.

Dr van Barneveld—I think we will have to wait and see.

I would have thought that, in all honesty, given that there is not a difference and women can take 12 months off—and I realise there can be people who become hidden unemployed when they go off on maternity leave—I guess we will have to wait and see whether that bears out.
I would have thought that most employers do the right thing.

Senator FISHER—Indeed.

Dr van Barneveld—I would have thought that most employers do not discriminate against women on the basis of pregnancy or potential pregnancy.

So, hopefully, that is not going to be an issue at all.

Ms Bryant—Certainly in our industries—and we have the largest industry in the country—it is not an issue.
We do not have complaints—that is not to say there is not pregnancy discrimination with people on occasion encouraging people to leave earlier than they would otherwise or something like that.

We are not having employers come to us saying it is difficult to arrange replacement employees for the period of maternity or paternity leave at all.

Senator FISHER—Thank you.


COMMUNITY AFFAIRS Friday, 14 May 2010 Senate CA 67 CHAIR—I am interested in the issues that have been raised about the complexity of employers’ responsibilities.

This has come through a number of submissions.

Do either of you have any comment on the issue that has come up from major employer groups that they are concerned about the impact of this on medium and small businesses who have to work through this?

I hope it is not an issue for the public sector.


I think they would have their payroll and HR under control.

Certainly, Ms Bryant, in your area, where a lot of employers would be small to medium—the large ones are to one side— Ms Bryant—They should be able to cope with it.

CHAIR—It is part of the gig.

In the work within your union and the various consultative mechanisms you have have you heard concerns about the complexity of the payroll function for this scheme being imposed on employers?
Ms Bryant—I have had some discussions with employers.

Pretty universally the ones I have spoken to are saying that they would prefer not to have the paymaster function.

Some of them are claiming that it is going to be very costly for them to change to their software systems.

My research from talking to people who are in that business has shown that it would not be costly.
If you have a modern software system, the addition of another code can take the end user 10 minutes to achieve and that is the end of the cost with regard to the software aspect of it.

Even in larger companies that have old IT systems the information I have been given is that normally they would have contractual arrangements with payroll software providers that would provide regular maintenance to implement any changes in government legislation, of which you would expect this to be one.
But, even in the instance where they do not have such a contractual arrangement, the estimated cost of doing a software update is no more than $1,500—and this is from a business that does this sort of thing.

In terms of costs with regard to the software that is information I have received.

When I looked at the exposure draft of the bill I thought: ‘Oh my goodness.
When employers see this they will be seriously scared.’ Most owners of small to medium businesses are very busy— CHAIR—They do not read those documents.

Ms Bryant—They are not going to be able to or wish to put aside the time to go through all of that.

When they see lines that talk about financial penalties, jail terms and things like that, I imagine they will think they need to get on top of all of this and it is going to take them time and it is costly.
I think there is a job ahead for the government and for employer associations to be educating employers about exactly what their role will be and helping them to see that it is not going to be that onerous.

CHAIR—And the wider aspect of education is critical across the community in terms of responsibilities and accountability.

Ms Bryant—Sure.

CHAIR—There has been some evidence about the need for an education campaign for employers and for employees about how this would operate.
Do you see a role for the union movement in that?

Ms Bryant—Yes.

We normally try to provide education obviously to our members about what their entitlements are, but in the process of doing that the employers often read the same material and it is an educative process for them.
But, in terms of their administering of the scheme, that would not normally be part of our role but it does not hurt for us to be informed as well because there has been many a time we have helped employers through their legal requirements.

They will get information from wherever they get it and, if we can help, I am sure the union movement would be glad to do so.

CHAIR—You would see a role for the union specifically in relation to employees?

Dr van Barneveld—Most definitely.

Ms Bryant—Absolutely.


CHAIR—About entitlements and— Dr van Barneveld—We have already started the educative process with our members with, for example, the document we sent out via enews on Wednesday.

It is clear that members are really interested.

One thing we have done is direct them to the really useful documents on the FaHCSIA and FAO websites as well.

They are fantastic.

They allow you to put in things like an expected date of birth and see how your entitlements are going to flow as a result.
Those sorts of things are invaluable tools.

COMMUNITY AFFAIRS CA 68 Senate Friday, 14 May 2010 CHAIR—We will be asking the department next week about the uptake of those things and whether there has been interest up till now.

Is there anything we have not asked you that you would like to put on record?

Dr van Barneveld—No.

Ms Bryant—No.

CHAIR—If there is anything you think of later, please contact us.

Sometimes you think of something as soon as you go away.
Thank you very much and thank you for being our last witnesses today.

It is always hard being the last ones.

We will be considering further aspects of this bill next Wednesday.

Committee adjourned at 5.15 pm COMMUNITY AFFAIRS