Although I am no fan of any PPS, I do think if we have to have one, there is nothing wrong with the current labor model, min wage for six months is more than fair.

Affordable child care would be a much better option and, the child care workers who would be needed in their droves would all pay taxes.

Dear Poirot,

When I read the article about Jacqui Lambie I thought 'you go you good thing' but not quite your response it seems.

In a way she is right, there is some social engineering going on under the guise of a parental leave entitlement scheme. She has done is gone for the jugular and got some airtime which is normally limited for minor party senators and in doing so referenced the oft made lament of the middle and upper classes that it is the poor people who are having all the babies because they are 'being paid to do so'. Further that 'we can never progress as a species if the least intelligent of us are the ones procreating'.

One can certainly make the case Abbott's scheme enables those on higher incomes to consider having children younger than they might have otherwise considered possible, and in a manner which facilitates access by the mother to first 6 months of a child's life, a period regarded as really important for the parent and the child providing as they do for bonding, breast-feeding, and combating post-natal depression. This is not an illegitimate position to take. In a way this is not completely dissimilar to the previous baby bonus version which atomises the mother's tax paid in the previous year over the next 5 years.

But the main stated reason for boosting the government spending for those in the higher income brackets seems to be that the mothers at higher income brackets by definition have a higher mortgage to service therefore need more of an incentive to take that first 6 months off work to be with their newborn. It is a little less clear whether the vast majority of taxpayers who do not earn these amounts should be supporting the life style choices of those who do.

Jacqui Lambie's point is obviously a touch facetious but not completely invalid and one certainly worth making even if we don't agree with it.