Julie Collins, please explain …

I KNOW what you’re going to say.

Someone who earns a salary of more than $150,000 a year doesn’t need the Federal Government’s $9000 paid parental leave. And maybe you’re right.

But put aside the merits of the middle-class welfare that exists to consider this.

Labor’s paid parental leave discriminates against women and men when it applies to families with a mum and a dad – unless they adopt.

If a woman earns more than $150,000, as my wife does, and she gives birth, she does not qualify for the paid parental leave payment. And because she doesn’t qualify on this basis, she can’t transfer the benefit to me, who earns less than $150,000, so I could spend up to 18 weeks at home caring for our baby at any time in his first year.

But if I earned more than $150,000 and she earned less, she could get the payment and either take it herself or transfer it to me, benefiting our family.

However, if we adopted, then I could be elevated from being a ”secondary” carer under the scheme and have equal claim to being the ”primary” carer and because I earn less than
the threshold, I could get the payment and our family would benefit.

The Coalition’s proposed paid maternity scheme seems fairer, at least to high-salaried women who want to take some time off work to have a baby.

It pays the mother up to $75,000, regardless of how much she earns.

Could the Franklin MP Julie Collins, in her role as minister for the status of women, please explain why a family with a father who earns more than $150,000 get the paid parental leave benefit if the mother earns less than $150,000. But if the mother earns more than $150,000 the same family does not qualify?