Meet the Press - Jenny Macklin - 27/6/10

There's a definite disconnect there in the ALP...

People won't support Tony Abbot's parental leave system because to fund it he wants to tax big companies by 1.2 (?) percent and everyone knows that this will increase what they have to pay when they go to Target to buy their babies' clothes. (paraphrased)

Funny how she explains that prices will go up with taxation and the punters will feel the pain when it's the Liberal party increasing taxes... but it doesn't seem to carry through to a supertax on mining.

Heard yesterday - missed this one...

Paid parental leave...

TONY ABBOTT: Well, don't assume, Lyndal that this is the last word from the Coalition in terms of benefits for families. I mean, I am very committed to a fair go, to a fair go for families and there will be all sorts of policies that we will be putting forward between now and the election, Lyndal, including policies that will, that will help families generally.

But it is very important to appreciate that in the modern world, a fair go for families means a fair go for women in the workforce because 62 per cent of people are in the workforce. Women are in the workforce when they have a baby and of those, some 40 per cent go back to work within six months, nearly all of those people citing financial pressure. That is why this is such an important social innovation.

LYNDAL CURTIS: But it makes 38 per cent of the workforce, of mothers who aren't in the workforce, are they going to get something as equitable, that is equitable?

How unfair it is for women who don't work not to get paid maternity leave... the angle being pushed by the interviewer. WTF?

And the pay will go to people who earn up to $150k per annum? Why doesn't their employer fund their maternity leave?

Many of these larger companies who will be hit with the tax (and they won't be absorbing it, that's for sure), already have paid maternity/paternity leave as part of their employment conditions.

Read the interview here.