Do you prioritise contact time and have one of the parents stay home with the offspring, or do you tread the hard road of childcare straight away in order to boost family income?

It is a finely balanced judgment, and a wretched curse of the battlers. Expensive childcare or paid parental leave?

The government wants to boost childcare payments while pegging back its share of paid parental leave, leaving the onus largely on employers. The changes will affect 80,000 families.

It is a humiliation for Prime Minister Tony Abbott because paid parental leave has been a signature plank of his philosophy even though it gnawed at the notion of a self sustainable market place.

The government has sided with childcare simply because it encourages productivity.

It accelerates greater workforce participation, for women determined to enhance the family's prosperity. It rewards productivity in the short term. Paid parental leave has a longer productive time lag.

The measure is expected to save the budget $1 billion over four years while the childcare boost, and $30 is not a family windfall, will cost the budget $3.5 billion a year, paid for by changes to family tax benefits savings and are said to be worth more than $3 billion a year. They were rejected by the Senate last year.

You could assume that the changes are aimed at maximising workplace productivity, while tightening up on family welfare handouts. Overall, family assistance alone currently costs taxpayers $36 billion a year.

In fact the entire social security and welfare budget costs $150 billion a year or 35 per cent of all expenses. Health and education expenses come a distant second at 23 per cent.

The problem with childcare is yes, it gets the parents back to work, but as long as there are jobs available, especially in Tasmania.