• is government funded
• is for eligible working parents of children born or adopted on or after 1 January 2011
• can be transferred to the other parent
• is paid at the National Minimum Wage - currently $570 a week before tax*
• is for up to 18 weeks
• can be taken any time within the first year after birth.

*The 2010 national minimum wage order has been set at $569.90 per week, calculated on the basis of a week of 38 ordinary hours, or $15 per hour. The PPL scheme payment is calculated at the hourly rate of $15.

LIBERAL

• provide primary carers (in the vast majority of families, mothers) with 26 weeks paid parental leave, at full replacement pay (up to a maximum salary of $150,000 per annum) or the Federal minimum wage, whichever is greater;
• be available to all employees, including contractors and the self-employed; and
• include superannuation contributions at the mandatory rate of nine per cent.

Carers will not have to be working full-time to access the Coalition’s Paid Parental Leave scheme because it uses the same

• ‘work-test’ as Labor’s proposal which requires:
• an average of at least one conventional day of paid work a week;
• over a ‘continuous qualifying period’ of paid work which amounts to a least 10 months of the 13 months prior to the expected date of birth.

Importantly, a carer who earns less than the Federal Minimum Wage (mostly working part-time) will have their Paid Parental Leave payment lifted to the minimum wage – currently $543.78 per week – so that they would receive $14,138 (gross) in support. The Coalition’s Paid Parental Leave scheme will be funded with a levy of up to 1.7 per cent on companies that have a taxable income in excess of $5 million. This levy will affect a tiny fraction of Australian companies: only about 3,200 companies out of more than 750,000, or less than one per cent.