He chose International Women's Day yesterday to propose firms earning more than $5 million a year be charged a 1.7 per cent levy on their earnings to pay new parents the equivalent of their salary up to $150,000.

Can this be the same Tony Abbott who recently made comments that housework and ironing are the role of women?

Is this the same former workplace relations minister, who in 2002, publicly declared the introduction of paid maternity leave would be "over his government's dead body"?

Unsurprisingly, the Business Council of Australia, which represents the chief executives of Australia's top 100 companies, was less than enthusiastic, afterall it burdens Australian businesses emerging from the global financial crisis with a new $2.7 billion a year tax.

Mr Abbott hasn't a snowflake's chance in hell of selling his proposition in its existing form to his Coalition colleagues.

Yet, if Mr Abbott is serious, he should accept the challenge from ACTU President Sharan Burrow for him to declare his support for the Government's planned 18-week paid parental leave scheme costed at $260 million a year, without a business levy.