ABBOTT’S SIGNATURE SCHEME STILL UNFAIR

Media Release

Jenny Macklin MP

Shadow Minister for Families and Payments
 Shadow Minister for Disability Reform

Wednesday, 30 April 2014

Tony Abbott has been forced into an embarrassing backdown on his signature Paid Parental Leave Scheme.

This Prime Minister seems completely incapable of delivering on what he promised before the election.

Today’s change to the Prime Minister’s Scheme is desperation from a desperate Prime Minister who knows that his Paid Parental Leave Scheme does not have the support of his own party room, let alone the parliament.

Just yesterday, the Prime Minister steadfastly defended his Scheme.

Now he says it will change.

The Prime Minister simply cannot be taken at his word.

But these changes do not change the fact that Tony Abbott’s Paid Parental Leave Scheme is fundamentally unfair.

The Prime Minister has today confirmed that there will still be no means testing on the Scheme, meaning that millionaire mums will still receive $50,000, rather than the $75,000 he promised women before the election.

The only way the Prime Minister can make his scheme fair and affordable is to dump it entirely.

Tony Abbott still wants to pay $50,000 to wealthy women for six months leave, while making cuts to age pensioners, who receive $20,000 a year.

And reducing the upper payment limit on his signature Paid Parental Leave Scheme from $75,000 to $50,000 will make only minor changes to the cost of the Scheme - a fact that both the Prime Minister and Treasurer have admitted.

Speaking today, the Prime Minister confirmed that the savings ‘would not be vast’.

And earlier this year, Joe Hockey admitted that the financial benefit of such a change would be “not significant,” because “very few people over $100,000 will be claiming it.’’

Only 3 per cent of women earn more than $104,000, according to the most recent ABS data.

The reality is that Tony Abbott’s Paid Parental Leave Scheme is fundamentally unfair.

No amount of tinkering will change the fact that Tony Abbott wants to pay millionaire mums to have a baby, and he is doing so at the same time as he prepares to make savage cuts to support for pensioners in his budget of broken promises and twisted priorities.