Abbott dismantles the decade-old Howard compact with families

IT was the policy that kept the Coalition politically successful for 11 years. Tomorrow, Tony Abbott will break it to pieces.

Former Prime Minister (L-R) John Howard, Prime Minister Tony Abbott and wife Margaret at the Liberal's campaign launch for NSW Premier Mike Baird at City Recital Hall, Angel Place, Sydney.

TOMORROW’S Budget will pull apart the John Howard legacy on family policy which kept the Coalition politically successful for 11 years with Tony Abbott’s agreement.

The stay-at-home mum, once adored and protected by the Howard government, will be prodded off her pedestal and into the workforce.

She will be “penalised”, something John Howard said he would never do.

Prime Minister Abbott’s changing positions on families and parenthood — particularly the 20 per cent of households with one wage earner — will be illuminated by this Budget as he reverses measures he once swore by.

There will be more changes on display than Mr Abbott’s twists and turns on paid parental leave, which he once said would be introduced over his government’s cold and lifeless corpse.

He then changed his mind and proposed a “signature” scheme which was so generous it would need a special $5.5 billion levy on business to be funded. Then that scheme was dropped and the Budget will present a counter proposal which would see paid parental leave cut.

Mr Abbott will have achieved almost a complete policy circle on this issue.

Tomorrow’s Budget will undo a decade of what have been core Liberal beliefs — centred on the Family Tax Benefit B, which will be less accessible in this Budget. This has been the centrepiece of the compact the Coalition had with families.

Former prime minister John Howard vowed he would never penalise stay-at-home mums.

This was reinforced by Prime Minister John Howard a decade ago and endorsed by his Health Minister Tony Abbott, then bluntly unenthusiastic about working mothers.

Specifically, tomorrow’s Budget will reverse some of the positions announced by Mr Howard and the Liberals in the 2004 election campaign.

Much has changed in the past decade, and the single-income household simply isn’t viable for many families.

Mr Abbott has undergone changes in personal policy positions, saying in 2012: “I might have been a slow learner but I have learnt my lesson well; principally, I think, because the main influences here have been my wife, my kids and my colleagues.”

Mr Howard launched his 2004 election campaign with a pledge the Government would help families make choices, including the decision to have a stay-at-home parent.

The Howard 2004 election speech said: “I respect those mothers, and in some cases fathers in Australia, who decide that the best thing for them is that mum or dad should be at home full time while the children are young.

“I will never lead a government that punishes and penalises stay-at-home mothers.”

The Coalition promised to maintain “the principle of choice to all of our policies” and revealed some $8 billion had been spent over six years on child care.

Tony Abbott has credited his wife and daughters with changing his mind on working mums.

Mr Howard announced “a new taxation rebate of 30 per cent on parents out of pocket childcare expenses” to recognise “childcare costs faced by families vary enormously across the country”.

“At the same time, to ensure complete fairness of treatment for families where one parent makes the choice to stay at home full time, we will provide an appropriate increase in the rate of Family Tax Benefit B,” he said.

“That is the benefit paid to parents who are at home full time caring for their children.”

The Budget will propose a $3.5 billion Jobs for Families policy to provide a single childcare payment directly to childcare centres, calculated to save $30 a week for families with a joint income of up to $165,000 a year.

Funding will depend on the Senate passing cuts to John Howard’s family tax concessions. Stay-at-home mums will lose almost all the child care assistance they now get.

By one calculation, families will be asked to forego more than $9 billion in assistance over four years to pay for the child care largely limited to working parents.

Originally published as Abbott dismantles the decade-old Howard compact with families