Tony Abbott 'consulted Rupert Murdoch over paid parental leave'

Tony Abbott gave Rupert Murdoch a “full rundown” on his planned paid parental leave scheme before announcing the policy in 2010, in a marked contrast with his decision not to consult the party room, a new book reveals.

The then-opposition leader’s discussions with the News Corp boss are outlined in a book published on Wednesday about the treasurer, Joe Hockey, by the former News Corp columnist Madonna King.

The release of the authorised biography came a day after the Productivity Commission issued a report that suggested some of the $5.5bn earmarked for the paid parental leave policy should be diverted to childcare to make a bigger impact on workforce participation.

The plan to provide six months of paid parental leave at the full replacement wage is opposed by large parts of the Coalition party room and is yet to be legislated.

In the book, King reveals Murdoch was consulted before Abbott announced the policy – including a levy on big business – on International Women’s Day in March 2010.

“Big business rumbled but didn’t erupt at the scheme, but the party room was in uproar,” King writes.

“The hardheads knew that it would open the Coalition up to an accusation of raising taxes even though the extra tax would only apply to big businesses. But, more importantly, neither the party room nor the businesses who would pay had been consulted.

“Abbott, however, had conferred with one leading business figure, the media proprietor Rupert Murdoch, who had been in Australia the month before for his mother’s 101st birthday …

“The new leader, like many before him, had dinner with Murdoch, where he gave the media mogul a full rundown on the scheme – supplying enough detail for Murdoch to later have his Australian-based editors briefed on Abbott’s plan, which he considered a visionary approach to dealing with a real problem in his workforce. They were encouraged to support it, notwithstanding that it represented a tax impost and was skewed to be of most benefit to parents outside their middle-Australian readership.

“This fact was unknown to members in the party room, who condemned Abbott’s solo policy-making on such a fundamental issue.”

The book says Abbott had alerted Hockey to the parental leave plan “but Joe recalls the subject as a brief add-on in a telephone conversation, with no specific date or details attached”.

Abbott told King that Hockey was “one of the very few colleagues whom I discussed the paid parental leave proposal with”. Abbott said Hockey saw merit in it, even if he did not “enthusiastically” support it. Abbott subsequently told the party room he had made the decision as leader.

Hockey told King he and Abbott subsequently “had a heart to heart” about the process, leading them to pledge to work more closely with each other.

The Coalition has repeatedly been forced to defend its paid parental leave scheme, which it argues should be considered a workplace entitlement rather than a welfare payment. Numerous Coalition backbenchers have spoken out against it in light of the budget position.

Hockey told the ABC on Tuesday: “I'm very mindful again that we have in fact gone to two elections with a commitment to a paid parental leave scheme and, again, I say we are asking everyone to respect the mandate that we got from the Australian people to deliver our policies. It is not one election, it is two, so there is a pretty compelling argument for us to be very true to our word and deliver a paid parental leave scheme.”

The book, Hockey: Not Your Average Joe, provides details of Hockey’s early life, his rise to the role of treasurer, and his first budget.

It says the budget – key measures of which are unpopular and are unlikely to pass through the Senate – was “much softer” than Hockey would have liked but Abbott “was taking a much more cautious approach”.

The shadow treasurer, Chris Bowen, seized on this account on Wednesday, saying the “revelation in this book that Joe Hockey actually wanted to go further in the cuts in the budget is a stark reminder of just how out of touch Australia’s treasurer is”.

Bowen also said it was “extraordinary” for the prime minister’s chief of staff, Peta Credlin, to name potential successors to Abbott.

In the book, Credlin says both Abbott and Hockey are keen not to fall into the John Howard-Peter Costello competitive dichotomy.

“Joe’s absolutely a contender and he’s probably got his head above every other contender, but I think we’re a long way away from saying he’s an heir apparent – and he’d say that, too,” Credlin says.

The book also tells of a curious incident during Hockey’s time at university that prompted his decision to enter student politics, beginning a chain of events that led to his federal political career.

It says that Hockey as a young child told “everyone who would listen that he wanted to be prime minister one day”, but by his third year at university he had not mentioned those political ambitions for some time.

That all changed when Hockey visited the University of Sydney’s students’ representative council front counter seeking a movie pass. The woman at the desk “had dismissed his query”. The book says Hockey thought the woman was rude; he felt that his fees went to paying her salary and that meant she was in his service.

“I would have liked her to be nice to me,” Hockey says in the book, “so I thought I should give politics a go.”