It sounds good: six extra weeks and at replacement salary, not the minimum wage. But it’s not as good as it sounds. For a start, it entrenches sex discrimination as it doesn’t replace the carer’s pay unless they are the mother. This means it is not a real workplace payment and will do nothing to shift the current gender imbalance of parenting by  encouraging more sharing of roles.

So the father gets two weeks on his pay but if he wants more, will usually drop to a lower pay rate. Legislating for this presumably would breach the Sex Discrimination Act and suggests the Coalition makes no commitment to closing the gaps between male and female wages. A lot of guff about mother child bonding as an excuse for saving money adds insult to injury.

There are other questions about it being a workplace entitlement is reinforced because the money will be administered by the government’s Family Assistant Office to reduce pressure on employers. This exacerbates the problem with the ALP scheme because it is, and will be seen as, a government payment and if the  Coalition’s payment will not even be administered by employers it will not be seen by them as a workplace entitlement. It will also, presumably, replace existing workplace entitlements for up to six months’ paid leave and may reduce the connections.

One of the basic arguments for paid parental leave was to normalise the relationship between parenting and paid work. If the payment is not integrated into the normal workplace processes, it is still a “welfare” payment, even if it replaces pay. It is also not a leave payment in either scheme because eligibility for the payment carries no actual leave entitlement. If the worker has not had 12 months continuous service with the same employer, they will not have any parental leave entitlement, and would therefore be dependent on the goodwill of their employer. This workplace mobility is predicted to mean that one in five new mothers will not be eligible for leave to match the payment.

And then there are questions on whether it will even happen. By delaying the start until 2012, there is time to find reasons for not introducing it. The costs are high and it is big business that doesn’t like the extras levy. It also offends many within the Liberal and National Parties who want more for “traditional families”. The other scheme will be there, so delay would be easy.

Parental leave is a flagship for the message that Tony Abbott really has changed his views on women but there is little other evidence for a serious shift in his policies. Stating his credentials through daughters and wife, without any serious political commitments to areas such as equal pay or other gender gap changes is a fairly fragile basis for attracting  women voters and not really very credible.