COMMISSION OF AUDIT HUMILIATES ABBOTT ON PAID PARENTAL LEAVE

Media Release

Thursday, 27 February 2014

The Prime Minister’s signature election policy has been dealt a massive blow today with the Commission of Audit calling for the Prime Minister’s Paid Parental Leave Scheme to be scrapped.

“We didn’t need the Commission of Cuts to tell us that Tony Abbott’s paid parental leave scheme is unaffordable and unfair,” Shadow Treasurer Chris Bowen said. 

“This is a huge embarrassment for the Prime Minister, who has repeatedly said he wants PPL to be one of the policies for which his Government is remembered,”

In Opposition, the Prime Minister repeatedly swore that his unfair and unaffordable Paid Parental Leave scheme was his “signature policy”:

The Coalition's paid parental leave scheme is a signature policy.

[Tony Abbott – Doorstop – Adelaide – 26 April 2013]

This is the settled policy of the Coalition.

[Tony Abbott – Australian Financial Review – 29 May 2013]

“The Commission of Audit has confirmed what Labor, the Nationals, business and community leaders and many within the Liberal Party itself have been saying all along: Abbott’s Paid Parental Leave is unfair, unaffordable and must go,” sShadow Minister for Families and Payments Jenny Macklin said. 

“The only person who continues to stand by this scheme is the Prime Minister himself.”

“The Prime Minister’s continuing commitment to this scheme highlights the hypocrisy of the Government’s calls for an end to the ‘Age of Entitlement,’” Mr Bowen said.

“This is the most extravagant entitlement this country has ever seen.”

“At the same time as the Government is preparing to introduce a massive $5.5 billion Paid Parental Leave scheme that will give $75,000 to wealthy women to have a baby, it is preparing for a massive round of cuts to support for people with disability, people on the age pension and the unemployed,” Ms Macklin said.

“The priorities of this Government are completely twisted”.