The federal government has announced a plan to gradually increase paid parental leave entitlements to give parents six months of paid leave by 2026.  

Currently, parents are eligible for 18 weeks of paid parental leave and two weeks of secondary carer leave, both paid at the same rate as the minimum wage. 

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese will officially announce the policy at the New South Wales state Labor conference on Saturday. 

"This was one of the strongest points of consensus and one of the clearest calls for action from our Jobs and Skills Summit," Mr Albanese said. 

"Businesses, unions, experts and economists all understand that providing more choice, more support and more flexibility for families and more opportunity for women boosts participation and productivity across the economy." 

Single parents will be eligible to take the full six months of paid leave and two-parent households will be able to decide how they split the leave. 

The government says it will incentivise fathers and secondary carers to use their entitlements and divide the responsibility of childcare more evenly, and the women's economic and equality task force will be tasked with outlining the optimal model for sharing leave between two parents.

"Our plan will mean more families take up this leave, share in that precious time — and share the caring responsibilities more equally," Mr Albanese said. 

"This plan will support dads who want to take time off work to be more involved in those early months. It's a modern policy, for modern families."

Extra leave still years away 

The government intends to introduce reforms to modernise the system from July next year.

However. additional weeks of leave will not start to become available for almost two years. 

Two weeks of additional leave will be on offer from July 2024 and entitlements will increase by two weeks each year until July 2026, when the full paid six months of leave will be available.

Social Services Minister Amanda Rishworth says the scheme will deliver on both economic reform and gender equality.

"This will benefit mums, it will benefit dads, it's good for children and it will be a huge boost to the economy," Ms Rishworth said.

"We know that treating parenting as an equal partnership helps to improve gender equality.

"It is important that we have a paid parental leave scheme that supports modern Australian families and that complements other parental leave schemes offered by a growing number of employers."

The government will announce further details on the scheme when it delivers the budget at the end of October.