As a self-funded retiree and pensioner, I am seriously alarmed at the impact of Tony Abbott’s proposed Paid Parental Leave (PPL) scheme on people like myself.
This is because the tax to fund his PPL scheme will be imposed in part on business. Business in its turn will then pass on the costs of the additional tax and the loss of franking credits as lower dividends for superannuation investments to self-funded retirees, and higher store costs to pensioners.
I object to Tony Abbott’s PPL scheme on the basis of its extravagance and its inequity. This scheme would be the most generous such scheme in the world.
Is it not exceedingly strange that he is proposing such an extravagant scheme at a time when the economy is emerging from the mining boom and will require careful and austere management in the years ahead?
Yet he is proposing to pay people who are already rich sums of up to $75,000 for six months’ leave for mothers, and up to $5,770 for two weeks’ for a father.
Moreover Tony Abbott’s proposed PPL scheme is not even fully funded. The proposed tax on businesses along with the proposed ‘savings’ still do not cover its projected costs.
This raises the prospect that if Tony Abbott were elected, the proposed business tax would have to be increased and expanded to cover these shortfalls, impacting further on self-funded retirees and pensioners.
Ron Nuttall, Eungella