Q. The Liberal Government plans to introduce a new parental leave policy which gives new parents up to 26 weeks leave at their current full rate of pay (up to $150,000) to be partly paid for by a 1.5 per cent levy on large companies. The current policy introduced by the previous Labor Government gives new parents 18 weeks leave at the minimum wage rate paid for by the Government. Which scheme do you support most?

36% support the previous Labor Government’s paid parental leave policy and 23% support the Coalition Government’s policy more. 32% support neither scheme.

The current scheme is supported by both men (38% to 24%) and women (34% to 22%).

By age group, those aged 18-34 support the Coalition Government’s scheme 36% to 35% while aged 35-54 support the current scheme 36% to 20% and those aged 55+ support the current scheme 38% to 11%.

The change of Government has had little impact on opinions on this issue – results are almost exactly the same as when this question was asked in August.