Joe Hockey has characterised employers who change their parental leave schemes to ensure workers maintain the same level of benefits as trying to “scam” the government and the taxpayer.
Under the budget changes, the government will no longer fund paid parental leave for some 34,000 mothers a year whose employer already pay as much, or more, than the taxpayer-funded scheme, which is worth $11,500 to each mother.
But business groups have already warned that employers are likely to shift payments to other benefits, so that their employees still qualify for the taxpayer scheme.
The treasurer told the ABC that by changing their benefits, employers were trying to “utilise what is meant to be a safety net”. He said the government scheme was targeted at those on lower wages.
“It’s something we’ll have a look at but a good employer will offer fair-dinkum paid parental leave to their employees, like the ABC does, like the government does, like many businesses do,” Hockey said.
“And if [employers] change the scheme to try and scam the government and scam taxpayers, well, I mean that reflects on them as much as anything else.”.
The chief executive of the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry Kate Carnell told Guardian Australia last week: “It’s hard to see why employers would continue to pay parental leave if it meant the government stopped paying and they were simply footing the bill for the government.
“It seems likely employers and employees would look for other benefits that suited them, if this meant the government still paid the parental leave bill and the employer payments continued to be in addition to it.”
The Coalition’s strategy to sell the policy change in the budget has revolved around the concept that parents who access both employer and commonwealth schemes are “double dipping” – even though it is legitimate to use both schemes.
Before the budget, Joe Hockey agreed using two schemes was – in many cases – fraud and the social services minister Scott Morrison described it as a “rort”.
Bill Shorten said the attempt by the government to stop parents accessing the commonwealth scheme was a return to “the real Tony Abbott”.
“I think his support for a rolled-gold paid parental leave scheme was a tactic to say that Tony Abbott was a modern man, that he was beyond his narrow thinking, but he’s reverted to type here,” said Shorten. “So I actually think the real Tony Abbott’s emerged.”
The government rhetoric around the change in parental leave has been questioned, including by the communications minister Malcolm Turnbull and Arthur Sinodonis, both of whom have urged the government to show more empathy for young parents.
On Friday, Tony Abbott was asked about the possibility of employers changing their parental leave schemes following the budget.
“I’m really pleased that more and more Australian businesses are offering paid parental leave and they do it because they want to attract the best possible staff and they want to keep the best possible staff, so I’m pleased that they are doing it,” Abbott said.
