The Greens have announced their new paid parental leave policy on Tuesday, July 23, 2013.

According to the new paid parental policy, primary carers on salaries of up to $100,000 can get 26 weeks of paid leave at their full wage - this will cost $7 billion within the next four years.

Admittedly, Greens' party leader Christine Miller said that the new policy resembles that of the Coalition's in the extent that most of the funding for the paid parental policy will come from a 1.5 per cent levy on big business and additional funding will come from general government.

The only difference between Greens' and Coalition's policy was that Greens' policy was capped at salaries of $100,000 while Coalition's policy was capped at $150,000.

Ms Milne said, "Essentially the Parliamentary Budget Office has said this scheme would cost taxpayers $1.9 billion over the forward estimates on top of the levy. This is really a transition away from that notional view of a welfare payment, through to a workplace right, but it's capped in a way that is fair and is affordable."

It looked like that if Tony Abbott wins the election, the Greens will be on his side on this for the Senate legislation.

In a report from The Australian Financial Review, Senator Sarah Hanson-Young said, "We are not supporting Tony Abbott's scheme bu we'd be open to negotiation."

According to the parental leave policy document from the Greens, the Coalition's policy needed more than a 1.5 percentage point levy on profits to make its policy add up.

The document read, The coalition have yet to release updated costings on their proposal and it remains unclear how they will pay for it, given the levy will not cover the whole cost. Their scheme also overreaches with a cap on replacement income of $150,000 when we know that 50 per cent of paid parental leave applicants earn less than $43,000. A person with an income of $105,461 is earning more than 90 per cent of taxpayers, demonstrating that the Green's scheme captures the broad majority of incomes without going to the rolled-gold extent of the Coalition's unachievable scheme."

Better than Labor's Parental Leave Policy

The Greens' policy will pay a woman her full wage for six months, plus superannuation contributions just like the Coalition's.

This sounded better than that of Labor's policy which does not pay superannuation.

Ms Milne explained, "We need to do more to support families and keep women in the workforce. One way to do that is to offer paid parental leave that's both affordable and fair. We need to recognise that paid parental leave should be a workplace right and not a welfare payment."

Ms Milne further explained that Labor's policy which only offers 18 weeks of leave at the minimum wage, without superannuation, was inadequate and Mr Abbott's policy with a higher cap was inequitable.