Robbing stay-at-home mums to pay for the child-care rich Janet Albrechtsen, a critic of the baby bonus, concedes what we discussed on Sunday - that removing it, but boosting paid parental leave, privileges working women above stay-at-home mothers: Howard's policy had one great virtue. It was an equitable way to acknowledge the social value of women bearing and caring for children. As Howard explains in his biography, he was opposed to taxpayer-funded paid parental leave because he wanted fair treatment of both stay-at-home and workforce-bound parents. This led to the Baby Bonus, set at $3000 in 2004, rising to $5000 in 2008 - the rough equivalent of 12 or 13 weeks of paid leave at the then federal minimum wage level... It put an end to the mummy wars. However, with the abolition of the Baby Bonus and the introduction of paid parental leave, equity is gone. Now, even more middle-class welfare is skewed towards working parents. Even before the Baby Bonus was axed, the Gillard government boasted that working women will be $2000 better off receiving PPL than if they opt for the baby bonus. The opposition's even more generous PPL policy is even more objectionable now that the Baby Bonus has been axed. Working women on incomes up to $150,000 can extract $75,000 from taxpayers to fund their maternity leave.