17th Jun 2010, 11:56 AM – Senate Paid Parental Leave Bill 2010, Paid Parental Leave (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2010 - In Committee - Entitlement to paid parental leave

The Aye voters failed to pass a motion to amend the Paid Parental Leave Bill 2010 and the Fair Work Act 2009 to introduce an entitlement to paid parental leave.

This means that the majority of senators rejected the amendments.

The amendments were introduced by Greens Party Senator Sarah Hanson-Young, who argued that these amendments were necessary to ensure that the Labor Government’s paid parental leave scheme is more than “simply an entitlement to a payment”. According the Senator, this is a concern “because the entitlements for the payment are different to the existing entitlements for leave in the Fair Work Act”. As the eligibility for the paid parental leave scheme is more generous than the eligibility for the existing unpaid leave provisions contained in the Fair Work Act 2009, it is possible that some women will be covered by the former and not the latter and therefore would not have the protections offered by the Fair Work Act, such as the return to work guarantee.

Senator Chris Evans, speaking for the Labor Government, did not support the amendments. He relied on the Productivity Commission’s recommendation that the eligibility under the paid parental leave scheme should be more generous than eligibility for unpaid leave under the Fair Work Act 2009. He also made the point that the proposed amendments do not in fact "propose to provide all people eligible for paid parental leave with an unpaid leave entitlement and a return to work guarantee, only those with three months continuous service". He commented that this was really "just drawing the line in a different spot". Finally, he considered it inappropriate to expand the employment standards in the Fair Work Act at this time as they had only been in operation for five and a half months (they started on 1 January 2010).

The Coalition’s election victory in 2013 may see changes to paid parental leave. A copy of their proposed paid parental leave scheme can be found here [1.7MB].