Tony Abbott – a man of principle and conviction?
Tony Abbott’s timeline on paid parental leave
2002
In 2002, Tony Abbott’s hostility to paid parental leave reached a crescendo, when he declared to the press: “Compulsory paid maternity leave? Over this Government’s dead body, frankly.”
2008
Writing for The Australian in October 2008, he claimed that paid parental leave – like abortion – was part of a “radical women’s agenda” championed by extreme feminists in the Labor movement. He spoke out about his opposition to the scheme based on the ways it reduced stay at home mothers to second class citizens, lambasting then Prime Minister Rudd’s commitment to women workers as an example of “Political Correctness”; extreme lip-service to the feminists in Labor ranks.
“Providing more government benefits to employed mothers than to stay-at-home ones is not only unfair but it’s going to strike many people as an attack on the traditional family. Conservative brownie points for making it easier for employed women to stay at home with their newborns won’t outweigh the scheme’s ideological bias towards the two-income family.”
2009
Productivity Commission Report: “Payment at a flat rate would mean that the labour supply effects would be greatest for lower income, less skilled women — precisely those who are most responsive to wage subsidies and who are least likely to have privately negotiated paid parental leave. Full replacement wages for highly educated, well paid women would be very costly for taxpayers and, given their high level of attachment to the labour force and a high level of private provision of paid parental leave, would have few incremental labour supply benefits.”
2010
Mr Abbott first announced his paid parental leave in 2010 after he emerged from a luncheon event on International Women’s Day. The scheme would pay new mothers their regular wage for six months, up to a maximum of $75,000, and is to be funded by a 1.5 per cent levy on more than 3000 big companies.
May 7 2013
TONY Abbott’s expensive paid parental leave scheme is “all about” encouraging women of “calibre” to have children, the Opposition Leader said today.
“We do not educate women to higher degree level to deny them a career,” he said.
“If we want women of that calibre to have families, and we should, well we have to give them a fair dinkum chance to do so. That is what this scheme of paid parental leave is all about.”
July 23 2013
LABOR is on its own believing a parental leave plan should be paid at “welfare” rates rather than a worker’s real wage, Opposition Leader Tony Abbott says.
May 2014
The Abbott government cut $450 million from the Outside School Hours Care program.
They tightened the criteria for providers who care for children in their own homes from July 2015 (and for new providers from 2014). The new rules mean family day care providers must be the only service in their local area and the Government expects to save $157 million over three years as a result of this change.
The Government cancelled funding to all Indigenous Children and Family Centres, totalling $78 million per year.
October 9 2014
Prime Minister Tony Abbott is standing firm on his prized paid parental leave scheme, saying it is still his “firm intention” it will start next July amid renewed calls from government MPs that it should be dumped to pay for the mission in Iraq.
The Prime Minister said on Thursday he has promised the policy at two elections and took a swipe at MPs who had raised concerns about the policy only after the Coalition’s election to government. Mr Abbott insisted he did not want to break an election promise.
February 2 2015
In a bid to convince colleagues he is listening, Mr Abbott will use a much-anticipated speech to confirm he has dumped his paid parental leave (PPL) scheme in favour of a “families package” and “a bigger, better PPL scheme is off the table”.
April 28 2015
On Tuesday, Social Services Minister Scott Morrison announced almost $250 million for a two-year nanny trial, providing funding to about 10,000 children. Nannies will not need to hold a minimum early childhood qualification.
May 11 2015
Almost 80,000 new mothers will lose some or all of their government parental leave payments in a move slammed by a key consultant for the paid parental leave scheme as “the mother of all insults”.
The move represents a stunning turnaround from the government that less than six months ago was still promising to provide six months of paid parental leave for families, under Mr Abbott’s now-dumped “signature” policy.
It will see almost half of new mothers lose access to the full $11,500 available under the federal government’s existing scheme from July 2016.
May 11 2015
National party senators are joining the Labor party and the Greens in questioning the cuts to single income families’ benefits that the Abbott government says are essential to pay for the new childcare package that forms the centrepiece of its budget.
But Coalition backbencher, Queensland Liberal National party senator Matthew Canavan agrees the payments should not be linked….
“We are deeply concerned about the divide between support for working families and support for families where one parent stays at home … the system we are proposing massively penalises families where a parent stays home to look after children and we think it does not properly value the benefits of unpaid work,” he said.
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John Lord -
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Florence nee Fedup -
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Return to home pageYou have put a pin in the “thought bubble” Kaye.
given he is a self-appointed prancing feminist holding a grudge toward Labor feminists, maybe the Abbott is simply not qualified to be Minister for Women ??
A well documented trail of inconsistency ….. what exactly does Tony Abbott really believe in I wonder?
Abbott has reverted to the position that he held in 2002 (or possibly since birth). He has always held these opinions and will always hold these opinions. He presents as hostile to women and threatened by them. He appears to be pathetically juvenile and eternally adolescent.
Great article Kaye
I have 6 kids ranging from ages 36 down to 9 and never received a brass razzoo from the gov nor anyone else in any form of maternity leave, I gave up a career to have kids, but I don’t whinge about it, women cannot have their cake and eat it ask Tones he will tell you, women/mothers in this country that work or stay home are doomed, it wont be long and Tones will all have us tattooed so he can persecute women even more,
How he got to become the Slime minister is just gob smacking,
Tones is a useless tool and has been his whole fecking low life..
flohri1754:
He believes that he was born to rule.
Principle and Conviction?
I think he should certainly be convicted – just on principle.
The more things change……….
Thanks for the days brain snap Kaye.
How much longer can we stand this insanity.
At a time when interest rates are low (how low can they go?) Hockey has announced the taxing of people’s savings. A double dip? No, a triple whammy, to the PAYE riff-raff after paying tax on wages, any earnings placed in a interest bearing account will now be taxed, should there be sufficient funds to earn any interest, taxes apply if unfortunate riff-raff earns sufficient income to put in a tax return.
Of course the excessively wealthy have accountants to avoid such inconvenience.
BTW this cunning stunt was first suggested by Labor in 2013.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-03-28/federal-government-set-to-introduce-tax-on-bank-deposits/6355662
Will childcare be tax deductible?
Just sayin’…
Whenever he spoke I felt quite sick
Did he think I was stupid?
Did he think I was thick?
He made false promises and told so many lies
He kept making excuses and he’d blame other guys
So I stopped listening, so over it all
The lies, the excuses, hypocrisy and gall
Then he started pleading, said he had changed
I saw no difference, he must be deranged
Yet all of his mates were still right by his side
But they can’t be trusted, all of them lied
So whenever he spoke, I just turned off
I knew he’d be lying, enough is enough
He became more deluded like Monty’s black knight
He kept changing the story saying black now is white
When called to account he’d build lie upon lie
with a wink and a smirk and a bogus blue tie
So I’ve moved on, I’m so over the lies
Now I eagerly await his certain demise
DanDarkm once upon a time, basic wage was calculated on the needs man, wife and two kids. That was the Harvester Judgement.
Today the government is saying for the good of economy all woman must work. Yes even single parents.
Women no longer have a choice.
The days are long gone since mums wage provided sugar for the table.
Yep Florence “Once upon a time” is how every good fairytale starts
and then it get goes down hill from there as we know,
And yep women have no choice about anything really in this country and is it going to get better…. um that’s a no from me.
But I battle on everyday to pay the mortgage, because when you rent a house on average you move once a year not usually because of anything the renter has done and that’s not a stable environment to raise kids, but after many years raising a few kids, if Govs of all stripes don’t pick up their socks this country is stuffed and single parents with young kids, the disabled, our first peoples, the unemployed, the elderly, our asylum seekers already are and will continue to be the casualties of dumb people running the country and the people into the ground…
Abbott’s all over the shop.
“let’s bury this era of gutless spin and give our country a fresh start where politicians say what they mean and do what they say.
Under the next Coalition government, parliamentary questions will finally get real answers because I’ll change the old rules that gave ministers endless licence to attack the other side.
Water is probably the most urgent environmental challenge facing our country. The Coalition will end Labor’s procrastination and fully and finally implement the Howard/Turnbull/Anderson plan for the Murray Darling basin. Carefully targeted water buybacks plus much more efficient use of water has the potential to rejuvenate the Murray mouth and to protect Adelaide’s water supply.
My wife Margie and I know what it’s like to juggle a family budget and share people’s anger when government wastes billions on indulgent schemes designed to fix headlines rather than to fix problems.
There’s little point announcing new initiatives for families if the money to pay for them has to be borrowed or taken from the very families it’s supposed to help. That’s why the Coalition’s family initiatives in this election don’t rely on extra borrowing or on new taxes on consumers.
The introduction of a fair dinkum paid parental leave scheme is the obligation that a serious political party owes to modern society and that an aware political parent owes to his three daughters.”
– Tony Abbott election speech 2010
http://electionspeeches.moadoph.gov.au/speeches/2010-tony-abbott
Can we start a countdown – how many days to Abbott bites the dust?
That poor baby in the photo with Tony will be scarred for life.
Wonderful work Kaye, as usual – I am in awe.
Your research is impeccable, your prose – cutting and succinct, and your articles desperately need to be spread far and wide to counteract the bias, inanity of flaccidity of the MSM who have clearly forgotten the purpose of the media.
I’m still not clear on the PPL and the double dipping and suggested fraud and rorting that we are being told has been going on. Taking a legitimate government benefit cannot be rorting can it ?
The existing legislated PPL is for 18 weeks at the minimum wage ($640 per week) and in some cases employers top this up to the employees normal wage and they probably include in that compulsory super and may extend it to 26 weeks.
Where is the double dipping ?
It’s all hidden in the triple lying Terry2.