Senator Nick Xenophon has slammed the Coalition’s paid parental leave scheme, equating it to the Monty Python ‘dead parrot’ sketch.
In the sketch, a man returns a dead parrot to the pet shop where he bought it, only to have the shop keeper try and convince him it’s still alive.
“I think the paid parental leave scheme is a bit like that Monty Python’s dead parrot,” Senator Xenophon said.
“The government thinks it’s alive, but it’s well and truly gone.”
He said Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s paid parental leave scheme was confusing people with their economic message. Having an extravagant government paid maternity scheme but campaigning for a tough budget to get the government back to surplus seems contradictory, Mr Xenophon believes.
“The government has a tin ear when it comes to some of the issues facing Australians who are struggling out there … who are worried about what the impact of the budget will be on them and we have an extravagant paid parental leave scheme, a Rolls Royce scheme, that seems to go against the government’s message in respect of the age of entitlement,” he said.
Fairfax media revealed that the $5.5 billion parental leave scheme has been shelved and won’t be put to parliament this year.
Government backbenchers have said the scheme is overly generous.
The scheme offers new mothers six months’ paid leave based on their wage and is capped at $75,000.
Source: The Age
