Parental Leave

Having a baby already means less money coming in and more going out. Working families count on paid parental leave to get them through the early years with their children.

In 2020, when a lot of women lost their jobs during the pandemic while pregnant, parliament had two separate chances to let them keep access to paid parental leave anyway. Malcolm Roberts voted no both times.

That wasn't a one-off.

• March 2024 – three votes on making paid parental leave better: getting the full 26 weeks sooner, and starting superannuation on it a year earlier so parents don't retire worse off for having kids. Roberts voted no on all three.
• March 2023 – three votes: adding superannuation to paid parental leave, and extending eligibility to PhD students. Roberts voted no on all three.
• June 2020 – alongside the two pandemic votes above, a third vote the same day would have let fathers claim the leave when the mother earned too much to qualify. Roberts voted no on that one too.

Across all nine of those votes, Roberts voted no every time. Pauline Hanson voted no on five and was absent for the other four.

It goes back further. In 2017, when the government wanted to lift paid parental leave from 18 to 20 weeks, Hanson opposed the increase outright, calling it part of a “welfare handout mentality”.

None of this is hidden. See the full record on paid parental leave, with every vote sourced.