Page 996 - Week 03 - Wednesday, 25 February 2009
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uneasy about the terms and conditions of the Labor-Greens alliance, but that is something for them to work out. It is something that we and the rest of the community need to watch fairly carefully.
In relation to the whole notion of a national paid maternity or parental leave scheme, Mr Seselja did touch on some issues this morning which were of concern to us. While we endorse the general thrust of this, that endorsement needs to be tempered with a little caution. While being in favour of finding a mechanism for funding a maternity leave scheme for all workers in Australia, we need to do that in a way which is equitable, and we need to do that in a way that does not have unintended consequences.
I look forward to the final Productivity Commission report, which hopefully will be out later this week—it is anticipated that it will be out later this week—to see the extent to which the Productivity Commission is helping the Australian community to come to terms with some of the things which may be unintended consequences, so that we can avoid the pitfalls of treating some people inequitably.
Mr Seselja raised the point today that, under the proposed scheme, people who are not in the workforce will continue to receive the baby bonus, while people in the workforce will now receive something which is worth substantially more than the baby bonus, and there will be a considerable disparity between people in the workforce and people out of the workforce if they are having a child. I do not know whether that is something that the Australian community is entirely comfortable about. Yes, there is an increasing proportion of married women and mothers in the community who are in the workforce, but we do not want to force people into the workforce because there are unintended consequences of the taxation system or the benefit system that forces people to make those decisions when they would perhaps rather stay at home for longer with their children.
These are important social issues. The Canberra Liberals will participate in debates on these issues actively and vigorously, with the aim of putting together the most equitable scheme possible. I commend Ms Hunter for bringing forward this motion. I understand why she did it, but I am sure that we will have to revisit this issue in light of the Productivity Commission report, as Mr Hargreaves has already foreshadowed. Madam Assistant Speaker, I seek leave to move the two amendments that have been circulated in my name.
MADAM ASSISTANT SPEAKER: Mrs Dunne, I understand that we need to deal with Mr Hargreaves’s amendment before your amendments can be moved.
MRS DUNNE: In that case, I will foreshadow those amendments, and speak to them briefly. One of them is a process one which refers to parental leave rather than maternity leave in relation to the Productivity Commission report, because that is, in fact, what the Productivity Commission report is about. I understand that Ms Hunter has some concerns about that because she is more interested in maternity leave than in the overall concept of parental leave. She sees maternity leave as a higher priority than parental leave. The first amendment tries to set this in some context, in that we are being asked to refer our views about the Productivity Commission report to the
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