My wife and I thought that it was best if she stayed at home in our three children's early years, although this caused significant financial hardship - we had little capital after years of travelling and doing unpaid charity work, and got hit by the Keating-driven 18% interest rates on our mortgage. But that was our choice, we didn't ask anyone else to fund it, and I have higher priorities than funding such a choice by others.

Nanny states are for goats.

I’m not an economist, so I have to trust that the number crunchers and community advisors will find the best combined solution. I basically favour a two- or three-tiered approach, in which those on low incomes would receive a payment provided mainly by the government and those on the highest tier would use a mainly user-pays self-funding/employer-assisted arrangement. Those in-between would be subject to a combination of approaches. In financial terms, I imagine that this is not all that far removed from the current Family Tax Benefits A and B - and much better than the former Child Endowment, which was non-means tested.

The non-economic issues that most concern me are:

1. It should be paid ‘parental’ leave, not paid maternity leave – and open to both genders. A 14-week ‘maternity’ leave paid to women – with only 2 weeks allowed to men – will both compromise women’s employability and entrench traditional social attitudes that distance men from their children.

2. There is very little debate about how the scheme is to affect self-employed, part-time and casual employees – who make up the bulk of female employment.

As for those who claim that their tax money should not be used to support other people’s children … well, I for one would greatly prefer not to have my tax money go into weapons purchasing for the military or many of our ‘war on terror’ involvements – which run into the tens of billions annually ($22 billion at last count). If the CIS could come up with a user-pays War Savings Scheme for those who believe in military solutions to conflict, while allowing the rest of us to have our taxes spent on non-military enterprises, I’d be all for it.

Col, I like your comment re pollution of the gene pool, however it ignores the fact that the lowest common denominator will continue to breed regardless of means. I believe that we now have a better society in general than we did 100 years ago, where such children were basically left to survive or starve. Do we go too far in government support now? Perhaps, perhaps not. I could be a little biased given that I am on the receiving end. I do believe that it is in the overall interest of a society to have children (although the number of children is a different kettle of fish). I also believe that we start constructing a very shakey society if we insist on only the well-off having children. So I guess I think that there should be some support. I certainly support the idea of the tax churn rate being too high, and would be all for a change to the tax system to address this. Perhaps rather than cap assistance for those who earn $40k and below, we should be setting an income goal for families (including 1 person families - I know), and using the tax system to top up those that fall short, rather than taper-off those that earn increasing amounts. It oculd take into account all of the current payments that are made, and turn them into one. Oh, but I guess that would do some public servants out of a job!

Churn is vital to the functioning of this country. How on earth could the government buy elections when they cant over-tax for 2 years, then spend the surplus in carefully calculated bribes to demographics in marginal seats.

I actually don't think the majority of the populace want to reduce churn either. For some reason nobody notices the tax coming out each month, and then they get all warm and fuzzy when they get money back in their tax return, as if the government has given them something other than a negative return investment for 12 months.

Too much 'gimme gimme gimme, horay', and not enough 'piss off what are you taking my money for to waste it and play santa before the election' attitudes I'm afraid.

I'm afraid you are right about that refund US. We had the chance to get rid of personal tax returns in the past, but too many liked the refund, or wanted to be certain they were not being cheated out of anything (that last sentiment I can perhaps understand, but does no-one value the time that must be put into doing these returns?). Why not scrap the refund and return, and get a small tax cut in exchange? Too easy methinks.

In the UK they just adjust your tax free threshold from year to year to balance out any variations in PAYE tax taken. So instead of a refund or payment, you just get taxed slightly differently each year using the tax free threshold. A lot of people don't actually fill out a tax return. Seems to run pretty smoothly.