Redistributing wealth from big business to the community through welfare payments is not what one would expect from opposition leader Tony Abbott.
His track record as a minister in John Howard's conservative government certainly suggested a preference for redistributing wealth in the other direction: towards big business.
When he toppled previous opposition leader Malcolm Turnbull on December 1, and changed Liberal Party policy to oppose Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS), it seemed clear he opposed taxing big business.
In fact, the burden placed on big business by the CPRS, which would be offset by the profits to be made from trading emissions, would be far from onerous — certainly not onerous enough to actually reduce carbon pollution.
But for Abbott, there was a principal at stake: big business should never have to pay its share.
Or so it seemed.
However, on March 8, at an International Women's Day function in Sydney, Abbott proposed a parental leave scheme under which the parent taking leave would receive their full wage for 26 weeks (six months). There would be a $70,000 cap on total payments per new-born child, meaning parents who earn more than $150,000 a year would receive less than their normal income.
The Labor government's scheme currently before parliament proposes paying the minimum wage ($544 per week) for 18 weeks.
More surprisingly, while the government's scheme will be funded from general taxes, Abbott proposed making big business pay through a 1.7% levy on taxable annual income above $5 million a year.
The proposal was instantly condemned by big business organisations normally close to the Liberals: the Business Council of Australia, the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the Australian Industry Group.
The March 9 Sydney Morning Herald said many in the Coalition party room opposed the scheme, which Abbott had announced unilaterally.
Australian Council of Trade Unions president Sharan Burrow was probably correct when she said: "After years of entrenched views antagonistic to the interests of women, Tony Abbott is now trying to con the electorate."
Abbott's religious fundamentalist views on social issues — and his off-colour remarks on female virginity — have alienated women voters, yet he is as much an electoral opportunist as he is a religious extremist.
Furthermore, while in 2002 Abbott had said that paid maternity leave would only happen "over [his] dead body", payments for producing children would be less incompatible with Abbott's conservative philosophy than other welfare payments.
But it is almost inconceivable that Abbott will maintain a policy that has aroused such widespread opposition from business.
Greens Senator Bob Brown quipped on March 10 that Abbott had "outgreened the Greens". In fact, the position is not that far from the Socialist Alliance policy: "Twelve months' parenting leave fully paid by employer contributions to a publicly managed scheme; the right to return to the same job; and generous paid leave to allow parents to take time off work to care for sick children and attend school activities."
Labor politicians have not confined their criticisms to Abbott's hypocrisy, or the unlikeliness of his parental leave statement becoming actual policy. Instead they have jumped to the defense of big business.
"How will business respond … particularly as they're just recovering from the global financial crisis?", minister for the status of women Tanya Plibersek (apparently from Labor's left wing) asked on Sky News on March 8.