Tony Abbott’s flawed and unpopular paid parental leave (PPL) scheme has hit another major roadblock, with “Treasury officials revealing limited progress is being made in determining how state public service schemes will dovetail with the proposed Commonwealth one, or how much it will eventually cost”. From The Canberra Times:
Discussions between Canberra and the states had commenced before Christmas, according to the officials, and continued at a Council of Australian Governments meeting earlier this year, but they have apparently ceased with no discussions since the May budget.
The admission suggests the policy… is in serious trouble…
Under close questioning from Labor’s Penny Wong on Wednesday, Treasury officials Leesa Croke and Nigel Ray appeared to reveal negotiations with states to introduce the program were not advancing…
Fairfax Media has been told the scheme has only one serious advocate internally and that is the Prime Minister…
You have gotta question the political nous of the Prime Minister. Almost everyone – economists, the opposition parties, and most Coalition members – think Abbott’s signature PPL scheme is inequitable, a waste of scarce taxpayer dollars, and inconsistent with the Government’s message of “ending the age of entitlement” and needing to trim expenditure to overcome the so-called “Budget emergency”. And yet Abbott continues to spend political capital trying to sell the scheme, which has next to no chance of ever gaining enough support to pass the Senate.
With PPL slated for a July 2015 start, there’s still time for Abbott to engineer a dignified reversal on PPL before it causes even more damage to the Coalition’s reputation and further derails its Budget agenda. But given Abbott’s stubbornness and ringing tin ear, the issue is likely to continue haunting the Coalition, potentially opening the door for a leadership challenge down the track (Malcolm Turnbull anyone?).
