Greens Oppose Labor’s Tax Plan, Call for Enhanced Paid Parental Leave

The Greens will block Labor’s plans to tax wealthy retiree funds unless the government commits superannuation payments to paid parental leave. 

The Greens want to use their balance of power in the Senate as leverage to make the government take action after being voted down by Labor earlier this year on compulsory super payments being added to Commonwealth parental leave payments.

Meanwhile, the Coalition is opposed to the Labor government’s plans to double the tax rate for superannuation balances above $3 million from 2025, a move they hope will generate $2 billion in revenue for the Treasury. 

Greens Spokesperson for Women Larissa Waters says the parental leave scheme would only cost $200 million a year. 

The government does have aspirations for adding superannuation to paid parental leave, but amid budget constraints, has not indicated when. 

“Here’s your perfect opportunity to act on this alleged commitment to put superannuation on paid parental leave. Do it now.  You want our support for this proposal, here’s what you can do to guarantee that,” Ms. Waters said in an ABC radio interview on Sept. 1. 

Ms. Waters says women take most of the responsibility for caring for a child and often retire in poverty. 

“With a stroke of a pen, the government could fix that,” she says. 

“I think their latest excuse for not acting was that they couldn’t afford to do it—which was just nonsense—when they’re wasting $313 billion in Stage 3 tax cuts for the wealthy,” she told ABC radio. 

That $313 billion is the estimated cost of Stage Three tax cuts over the next decade. 

Ms. Waters doubled down on her claim the government was wasting money on projects like nuclear submarines instead of tackling the cost of living crisis, and also claimed that if superannuation was added to parental leave, balances would increase when people hit retirement. 

In response, Treasurer Jim Charles has encouraged the Greens to vote to remove concessions for people with millions in superannuation. 

“We’ve already extended paid parental leave as part of a multi-billion dollar agenda to support women’s economic opportunity,” Mr. Chalmers said in a statement.

“We’ve already made it clear for some time that we intend to act on the super guarantee on paid parental leave when budget circumstances permit—that remains the case and we’ve said so publicly and repeatedly,” he said.

The government gave a boost to the Child Care Subsidy in July affecting about 1.2 million families. 

That covers 90 percent of the childcare costs for families earning less than $80,000 per year, an increase from the previous 85 percent. 

Under the new Child Care Subsidy regime, higher-income families will be eligible, increasing the cap from $356,756 to $530,000.

The government also changed parental leave in July, allowing partnered couples to claim up to 20 week’s paid parental leave between them. 

Meanwhile, single parents at the time of their claim can get the full 20 weeks.