Senate Passes Increase to Paid Parental Leave
The Albanese Government has succeeded in raising the government funded paid parental leave entitled to 26 weeks, after the Senate passed legislation this week to give effect to the increase.
From 1 July 2024, the entitlement increases by two weeks to 22 weeks, before rising to 24 weeks in July 2025. By July 2026, the entitlement will hit 26 weeks of leave.
The Government has been pursuing these changes to the PPL Scheme since October 2022 (see our related article) while the benefit payment will also start to attract superannuation (funded by the Government) from 1 July 2025.
In a media release issued on 18 March 2024, the Government said:
Labor’s changes to Paid Parental Leave – expanding the scheme to a full six months – will now be law after the Paid Parental Leave Amendment (More Support for Working Families) Bill 2023 was today passed by the Senate.
That means new parents will be eligible for more Paid Parental Leave from 1 July this year with the passage of this historic legislation.
More than 180,000 families are expected to benefit from the expansion of the scheme each year with expecting parents able to pre-claim from March 26.
The bill delivers on the Government’s commitment to expand Paid Parental Leave to 26-weeks by 2026, as announced in the October 2022-23 Budget, and represents a $1.2 billion investment in the Paid Parental Leave scheme through to 2026-27.
From 1 July, two more weeks of payment will be added each year until the overall length of the Paid Parental Leave scheme reaches 26-weeks by July 2026.
The Bill increases the number of weeks reserved for each parent on a use it or lose it basis to four weeks in order to encourage greater sharing of care and household responsibilities. It also provides more flexibility by increasing the amount of leave that parents can take at the same time, from two to four weeks.
Expanding Paid Parental Leave to 26-weeks also complements the Government’s plan, announced earlier this month, to pay superannuation on Paid Parental Leave from 1 July 2025.
https://ministers.dss.gov.au/media-releases/14186
Employers will remain obliged to administer the PPL payments to eligible employees (though, in certain circumstances, individuals can elect to be paid directly by Services Australia) after Senator David Pocock and Senator Jacqui Lambie failed to convince Parliament that small business employers should be permitted to opt-out of processing the payments. More information regarding the PPL Scheme for Employers is available here.