Page 997 - Week 03 - Wednesday, 25 February 2009
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commonwealth. I thought it would be more elegant to word it in this way and to set it in context. I commend those foreshadowed amendments to the house.
MS BURCH (Brindabella) (3.22): I am speaking to the motion proposed by Ms Hunter and to the amendment moved by Mr Hargreaves. The Stanhope Labor government has long supported paid maternity leave. Our employees—that is, ACT government employees—currently have access to paid maternity leave that is far above the national average. The ACT government made its support for paid maternity leave known in its submission to the Productivity Commission inquiry into paid maternity leave. There is a copy here which I would seek leave to table.
Leave granted.
MS BURCH: I table the following paper:
Paid parental leave—ACT Government submission into the Productivity Commission Inquiry.
In this submission, we supported a universal paid maternity leave scheme funded by the Australian government. Our position remains that we support the introduction of a universal paid maternity leave scheme that is funded by the Australian government.
Due to the caretaker period, the government could not make a formal response to the Productivity Commission’s interim report. Of course, the final report is due soon; I understand that it is due this Saturday. The question is: do we support the Productivity Commission’s interim report recommendation to use employers as paymasters for a national scheme? This government does, and we hope to see that in the final report. We support the interim report’s recommendation for 18 weeks paid maternity leave, and we also want to see that in the final report when it comes through. We also support the interim report’s recommendation for a national scheme to be paid at a national minimum wage. That is also something that we want to see in the final report.
With the report so close to release, I am not going to speculate now on which elements of the scheme outlined in the interim report should be supported, for the very good reason that the final report may be different, but this motion goes to its being, in essence, what we have seen in the interim report.
Why would we support a national paid maternity scheme? We do so because our children and our babies need our support. Why would we not support the development of universally available paid maternity and paternity leave? We—and by “we” I mean we in Australia—lag behind the developed world in this area.
Some in this place might say that it is the responsibility of individual families to sort out their own affairs when it comes to caring for a child. We on this side do not agree. Families need our fundamental support at this time. These are our families, our friends’ families and our neighbours’ families.
We have the highest rate of female labour force participation in the country, currently at 68-plus per cent. We have provided a first-class education system, with ACT
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