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May 6th, 2013 
Peter Nolan Updated: 19:12, Monday May 6, 2013
Opposition leader Tony Abbott has found some unexpected support for his generous parental leave scheme.
Longtime women’s advocate Eva Cox says the coalition scheme is much better than Labor’s and would be good for the economy.
Ms Cox said Mr Abbott’s scheme ran for longer and paid people their wages, reinforcing its status as a work-related benefit, not a welfare payment.
‘We want want to change the culture of workplaces as well as give women something to live on when they are actually out of the workforce,’ she told Sky News.
Ms Cox dismissed business concerns about a proposed 1.5 per cent levy on large companies to pay it.
‘It’s about time they actually realised this sort of stuff is actually good for them, that there’ll be money to spend in their shops, that there’ll be workers who can go back to work,’ she said.
Mr Abbott has come under increasing pressure over his ‘signature policy’, which would give mothers six months’ paid leave at their full working wage up to $150,000 per annum.
But his call to fund the scheme with a 1.5 per cent levy on more than 3000 big companies in the first term of a coalition government has raised the ire of business groups and some within his own ranks.
Ms Cox said she didn’t care about Mr Abbott’s motivations for delivering the scheme, if he wins government in September.
‘If he’s got a guilty conscience about the fact that he was really conservative about the role of women and this is compensation, fine,’ she said.
‘I am not worried about his motives. I am much more worried that this might disappear.’
Source Article from http://rss.skynews.com.au/c/34485/f/628636/s/2b8bd544/l/0L0Sskynews0N0Bau0Ctopstories0Carticle0Baspx0Did0F8696330GvId0F3948667/story01.htm
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