Peter Strong: The government’s paid parental leave system encourages small businesses to break the law

Some years ago, the then Labor Government announced it would make paid parental leave (PPL) available to everybody.

Those of us in the small business community thought that was pretty good. Finally, universal paid parental leave. Excellent!

Then the government said Centrelink would not pay the eligible people directly but would send the money to the employer, who would then have to pay the employee, by putting the money into their bank account via each pay run.

We thought that was pretty stupid. Nobody unnecessarily includes a third party in a payment process. Nobody who understands business does that. 

Basically, Centrelink would approve the eligibility of the person, then send that person’s funds to the business, and then the business would give those funds, through a pay run, to the eligible person.

We complained about the extra unnecessary red tape, but were told it would “only take five minutes”.