Questions for Tony Abbott: when the Government brings its parental leave legislation into Parliament, will you support it? Will coalition senators, after the usual senate amendments and argy bargy, allow the legislation through, so women can plan their next year’s birth possibilities?

If his opposition means the Bill fails to pass in the next few weeks, what will Abbot say to those potential mothers who may now be planning to get pregnant so they can take paid leave when the government plan cuts in next January?  Hang on to the contraceptives?

Today’s Herald Sun quotes a spokeswoman for Abbott saying the coalition would put forward amendments when the government introduced its legislation. If the changes are not accepted, Abbott is keeping open the option to vote against the government’s plan

It’s a tricky question. If Abbott uses his numbers against the government Bill, and it fails to get up, then it will be hard for him to claim he really supports parental leave. Claiming his proposal is better, longer and more like real leave is not an excuse for sinking the one proposal that has been developed, costed and widely supported.  His lack of support for it as an interim measure until he wins an election would reinforce views that his attempt to grab the high ground on parental leave was a typical media grab, rather than serious policy making.

Given his track record in this area, he has to be particularly careful that he is not seen as flashy opportunist rather than genuinely a convert to the needs of new mothers (and fathers?). So his failing to support the current proposals will seriously undermine his wobbly credibility in this area.

The responses to his proposal have some strange undertones. Starting with his apology to his party for making “a leader’s call” i.e. using his position to promote a non-conservative policy on paid maternity leave, without talking to his colleagues. Are there echoes of the problems of Malcolm Turnbull’s conviction that he knew best? Not only is big business screaming about being targeted with a new BIG tax to pay for babies (not their core business) but he may offend the beloved symbol of conservative values — the “traditional mother who has no paid job. After all, it was the possible plight of the not employed mother that in 2002 sank the Prue Goward push for maternity leave during her tenure as s-x discrimination commissioner. Abbott was then very anti and supported the baby bonus instead!

Can Abbott’s apparently generous offer of 26 weeks of real leave at replacement salary survive the combined opposition of self-interested big business and the conservative fears of  not employed mother? If it does, it will be part of other high cost policy as his Battlelines manifesto shows. He has already said there will tax relief for business and more expensive goodies for the “single income family” in the as-yet-undeveloped family policy.  How he would manage the contradiction of more payments and less tax is very worrying.

So what has he achieved? He has topped every news bulletin, dominated question time, been interviews by all and sundry, and had odd support from some female coalition members. Sharman Stone claims it’s not a tax but a levy for human capital and Sophie Mirabella has attacked the ALP for supporting big business over working families in a very odd reversal of roles.  In a fairly dull news day, he made a big splash on an unexpected front. A political leader who supports the needs of mothers in paid work is still a rarity and a conservative one is even more so.

He trumped the government by turning attention away from health and ran a big wedge through those supporting the government scheme by offering what most had originally asked for. The government scheme is limited and has many flaws so it is hard to deny that the Abbott plan is attractive, particularly striking as Australia has lagged so far behind the rest of our OECD peers. The fact that the Greens have supported it is a sign of its basic appeal.

The coverage today is interesting in its solidly macho attention to the tax effects on big business. The government, bizarrely, is defending the big companies that rarely support them and often undermine their attempts to make changes. The journos spend most of their time looking at the funding and blathering on about undermining our international competitiveness. The merits or otherwise of the scheme tend to be limited to criticising the very few high-paid women who might use the scheme, most of whom are probably already covered by an employer.

Only one tabloid raised the problem of sudden uncertainty about the government’s plan leaving Australia with no compulsory scheme, affecting women who are thinking about becoming pregnant now. This is where the debate needs to be pursued: will another bout of political machismo change the availability of parental leave in January 2011? For the many lower-income mothers and babies, who currently have no paid leave,  this would be a very sad outcome.