Thursday, November 03, 2016

Turnbull – Cuts to Paid Parental Leave

AEU – Help fight threat to Paid Parental Leave

Next week the Turnbull Government will try and pass legislation through the Senate which would cut Paid Parental Leave for thousands of educators.

Labor and Greens won’t support the cuts and so the Turnbull Government will be negotiating with Senator Nick Xenophon and his team to enable this attack on families.

If you support PPL you need to click here and sign the petition telling Senators you will not accept cuts to this workplace right.


Australia already has one of the worst government-funded PPL schemes in the developed world and the changes Malcolm Turnbull wants to make would see us go even further backwards.

The AEU has fought to make Paid Parental Leave part of EBAs covering educators because we recognise how important it is for our members and their families to be supported while they spend time with new babies.

The existing Federal Government scheme sees workers get 18 weeks of PPL at the minimum wage.

However the new legislation means workers who receive Paid Parental Leave from their employer, will lose the same number of weeks of the Government’s scheme. That means if an educator receives 14 weeks through their EBA, they will lose 14 weeks from the Government PPL scheme.

This harsh measure will effect an estimated 80,000 families who will miss out on the support they need to spend time with their newborn.

Senator Xenophon said prior to the election that he was committed to preserving the scheme, but has since said he is willing to negotiate with the Federal Government to make the scheme "fairer" and "more equitable" — particularly for low-income earners — but has not given specific details of what changes he would accept.

Australian parents deserves a world-class PPL scheme. That’s why the AEU will oppose any attempt to drag Australian parents backwards and limit access to PPL.

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