16th Jun 2010, 6:29 PM – Senate Paid Parental Leave Bill 2010, Paid Parental Leave (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2010 - In Committee - Administration of payment

The majority voted against a motion "...that subclause 69(1), subclause 70(2) and the note, part 3-2, clauses 85 and 86, clauses 93 and 94 and part 3-5 [of the Paid Parental Leave Bill 2010] stand as printed"

In other words, the senators were voting on whether they supported those clauses and parts.

Someone who voted Aye supported the clauses and parts. Since there were an equal number of Aye and No voters, the Chairman found that “the clauses and parts lack majority support”.(The Chairman's ruling can be found here. ) This means that an amendment to oppose these clauses and parts will be attached to the bill when it is returned to the House of Representatives for their consideration. The House will then decide whether it agrees with the amendment or not.

In this case, the House rejected the amendment to oppose the clauses and parts and so they remained as they were. The bill was ultimately passed because the opposition did not insist on the amendment.(Read Senator Fifield's statement here. )

Debate in Parliament

The motion on whether to support the particular clauses and parts was put after Liberal Party Senator Mitchell Fifield moved that they should be opposed.(See that motion here. ) The clauses and parts transferred the responsibility for making payments under the paid parental leave scheme to the employer rather than the department secretary. When opposing this, Senator Fifield said that the administrative burden of the scheme should be on the government rather than on employers.

Labor Senator Mark Arbib disagreed with the amendments. He said that the paid parental leave scheme is based on a design recommended by the Productivity Commission and argued that paid parental leave should be treated as any other work entitlement and therefore “paid in accordance with an employer’s normal pay practices and the employees’ usual pay cycle”.(Read Senator Arbib's whole argument here. )

Background to the bills

The Paid Parental Leave Bill 2010 and the Paid Parental Leave (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2010 were introduced by the Labor Government to establish a Government-funded Paid Parental Leave (PPL) scheme from 1 January 2011.(Read more about the Government's paid parental leave scheme in the bill's digest (522 KB) and the Department of Human Services website.)

References