Mr PRICE (2:17 PM) —My question without notice is to the Prime Minister. Is the Prime Minister aware of comments made by Glenn Sergeant, one of our local champions, who is Principal of the Plumpton High School in my electorate, which runs a very successful program aimed at pregnant teenagers and teenage mothers who want to continue their education? Mr Sergeant has said:

Is the Prime Minister also aware that Mr Sergeant has described the staggered payment of Labor's baby care payment as a `more sensible' policy? Prime Minister, will the government now implement Labor's policy?

The SPEAKER —Before I recognise the Prime Minister, let me point out to the member for Chifley that, if he wishes to come to my office, I will rewrite the question for him so it complies with the standing orders.

Mr Howard —Please don't rule it out of order, Mr Speaker.

The SPEAKER —The Prime Minister is not assisting but I will allow the question to stand.

Mr HOWARD (Prime Minister) —I thank the member for Chifley for his question. It is an issue that I am very happy to address. Could I say first of all to the member for Chifley that his question appears to be based in part on a bit of misbelief as to the reality about teenage pregnancies in this country. Nobody welcomes a high incidence of teenage pregnancy—nobody. Everybody hopes that children are born into an environment where they have two parents available, a mother and a father, to bring them up in a stable, loving environment. The reality is that fewer than two per cent of Australian teenagers have a child in any year, and the long-term trend is downwards not upwards. This compares with about five per cent in the United States and three per cent in the United Kingdom. And teenage birthrates in Australia are low despite our relatively generous welfare and family assistance systems.

There is not as much empirical evidence as is popularly believed that a substantial number of teenagers will choose to have children when they would not have done so previously. The common view held by, I think, too many Australians that single mothers are typified by teenagers who go out and get pregnant in order to get social security benefits is just plain wrong. The overwhelming majority of single mothers in this country were previously married or in stable relationships. I have not met many single mothers who are single mothers by design; most of them are single mothers because of the break-up of marriages.

Having said that and, I think, explained the background of this issue, it stands to reason that many of the concerns that are implicit in the member's question are ill-founded. What the Labor Party has done, if I may say so, with respect to the member for Chifley, is to try and design a baby care payment or a maternity payment that looks as much as possible like paid maternity leave without in reality being paid maternity leave. I think in reality what you have to do with these things is be up-front about what sort of payment you want. I know there is a strong body of opinion in the Labor Party in favour of paid maternity leave, and there are some people in my party who are more supportive of it than others.

I was always relatively agnostic about the value of paid maternity leave as such. I have felt for a long time that the better thing was to have a lump sum payment that went to every mother, irrespective of their income, and that is essentially what we have done. The Treasurer has indicated that in extreme cases such as drug addiction you might have to take some care about the payments, but I think staggering the payments is a rather inadequate, weak attempt to mimic paid maternity leave. You either believe in paid maternity leave or you do not. The reality is that the Labor Party do believe in paid maternity leave but they do not want the world to know it, so they try and dress up their baby payment or maternity payment in the way they have. I think ours is better, and what is more I think the great majority of Australians think it is better too.