JULIA Gillard has announced a two-week paid paternity leave plan for new dads today as she predicted a "cliffhanger" election result.

The Prime Minister said the scheme would start from July 2012, if she was re-elected, with eligible new fathers who met a work test to be granted a fortnight's pay at the minimum wage of $570 a week.

“We will make sure you can spend more quality time with mum ... with some money still coming in,” she said.

“I announce today the government will provide further paid parental leave for fathers.”

Unlike the Coalition's paid parental leave plan to be paid for by big business, she said the scheme would not increase cost-of-living pressures for families.

Some companies already allow fathers to take paid leave at the birth of a child under carer's leave provisions.


In her final election address at the National Press Club, the Prime Minister has stressed her values of “hard work” and education, including her plans for new tax rebates to help with school costs.

“With only two days to go it is abundantly clear that the election is a cliffhanger,” she said.

“That's why I am fighting right up to the closing of the polls. I am fighting for my positive plan for the future.”

Ms Gillard told voters worried about cost of living pressures that the best choice was to re-elect the government.

“The election is about these people,” she said.

Ms Gillard also made light of claims she was mispronouncing her opponent Tony Abbott's name as “Mr Rabbit.”

“What a cunning, cunning plan that must have been,” she joked.

Defending the stimulus spending, Ms Gillard said it was a judgment she was proud of saving the nation from recession and it was a judgment she would make again.

“I know what broadband will mean for our economy, our health system and our way of life,” she said.

Ms Gillard then joked she could only imagine Mr Abbott's excitement when he discovered “YouTube”.

The Prime Minister said the Coalition's plans to slap a new levy on big business, including retailers like Woolworths, to deliver a paid parental leave scheme would only increase cost-of-living pressures on families.

And she said the release of the Coalition's costings policies had only confirmed that some savings would also be delivered by cuts to the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme.

Ms Gillard pledged to keep the fair work laws she created because she believed people needed a fair go at work.

But she predicted Mr Abbott would once again “fall in love with Work Choices” after pleading it had been cremated.

She told the NPC she believed in climate change and accused Mr Abbott of believing the sceptics were right and the scientists were wrong.

On Mr Abbott's pledge to personally decide which asylum-seeker boats were turned back by the Australian Navy, the Prime Minister said she trusted officers at the scene to make the right call.

“By contrast, Mr Abbott will bark orders from HMAS Parliament House,” she said.

“I ask you is interfering with the chain of command really something the Prime Minister should do.”

Ooooh 2 weeks minimum wage.  All my christmases have come at once!

another election bribe????

It should be more. If women are going to get a few months maternity leave, dads should get the same.

Quote:


The Prime Minister has no right to tell the Commander of a ship what to do he is not the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces. The Governor- General is the Commander in Chief is.