This would be great! Maybe more women would consider going back to work with their employer if this was legislation. Go girls!

It's about bloody time. We are so far behind the rest of the world on this and, Mr Howard, it is NOT 1950 anymore.

hungrypoet1963 - you OBVIOUSLY have NO IDEA on "the rest of the world" in regards to the cost of having a baby! I've lived in the USA, and they pay an average of $5000 just to give birth - $10,000 if they have a slight complication and need to stay in hospital for more than a couple of days. Here in Australia, with the baby bonus and centre link, we are SO LUCKY it's not funny. Paid maternity leave would be awesome, but what we have already is fantastic. I can't get over how much the baby bo

Why are you comparing with the US? There are countries which have more available to its citizens than the US....consider Europe, especially France and even Canada. I don't think $4000 is all that much when you consider the things that need to be bought when you have a child. We think we have it great but the reality is, in comparison to other parts of the developed world we are still at the bottom!

Terry--september16

hello to all the woman out there any where and every where in the world, I would like to know WHY should the government's and or employee's pay women to have baby's??.
Having a baby is something you do for a reason "LOVE" not for money,if you can't afford the "TIME" or "MONEY" to bring a child into this world then don't , leave it to the people who can.

Every body complains about taxes this is one of the reasons we have to pay high taxes, everybody wants more and more f

I agree with exa10 all the way. Plus what they dont get is in the US they have to pay for unemployment benefits, diability insurance through our wage packet as do alot of other countries UK etc. So really us in Australia should be thankful for what we do receive and expect that oneday we will not get it and we will probably follow suit as the tax payers can only pay so much,

When are Goverments going to crasp the nettle on this. There are too many people in the world as it is, we don't need more babies. Too many people = Global waming, not enough water, droughts, not enough gas, not enough petrol, overcrowding etc etc. People should be discourabged from having babies not given money to fund it.

Agree with Exa10, Bek_C and others that are like minded. Why cant we show appreciation for what we have today. Each & everyone of us is paying for the baby bonus that is available today. I am sure that next time we would be requesting neighbors to put in a mandatory 2 hours a week baby sitting... If you believe in God, he gives us babies, and he will provide, not the Government, who is already doing its bit, in addition to assisting to provide some housing benefits like the FHBG among others

it is your god given right to bare children but why should tax payers pay more money when you already receive a baby bonus and yes i do have 2 children which i am happy to look and pay for out of my own pocket

Everyone's bagging the government over the lack of paid maternity leave, but a lot of government jobs offer paid maternity leave. They're ahead of private enterprise because private enterprise is more focussed on the dollar. Another very important point is that this initiative will cost LESS than the existing baby bonus structure. This is concrete proof that women will in fact get paid less with this new proposal than they do now with the current scheme. If it costs less, then less is being