The Abbott government paid parental leave cuts will hit the lowest paid female workers in the Australian Public Service hardest, according to union research.
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Public servants have been a key target of government rhetoric in support of the cuts with Treasurer Joe Hockey saying in May that the changes were aimed at women earning more than $90,000 a year.
On Monday, Social Services Minister Scott Morrison dismissed concerns about lost entitlements as "first world problems" for households with incomes of more than $150,000.
But in a submission to the Senate Inquiry into the Fairer Paid Parental Leave Bill, the CPSU argues that that more than 44 per cent of new mothers in the public sector who take parental leave are earning less than the average weekly wage.
According to the union's research, 41.2 per cent of public sector women taking paid parental leave earned between $61,000, the equivalent of an APS3 workplace classification and $69,000, an APS4.
A further 33.2 per cent earn between $74,000, an APS5 wage and $87,000, an APS6.
"This is well short of the Federal Treasurer's claim that 'in many cases it's mostly people who go on parental leave that earn more than $90,000 a year'," the submission reads.
"The language used around this 'savings' measure in Budget Paper No.1 is extraordinary and as many have noted, highly offensive to those who take time away from their careers to care for a new baby."
The issue returned to centre stage on Monday after Sex Discrimination Commissioner Elizabeth Broderick described the cuts as retrogressive and inconsistent with international human right laws as she warned the proposal would "exacerbate the current gender pay gap" and may "prove detrimental to women's workforce participation rates".
In its submission to the committee the union also attacks the idea that public servants get more parental leave than private sector workers.
"APS average entitlement of 14 weeks is not out of step with entitlements negotiated in enterprise agreements more broadly, with the average entitlement across the 661 enterprise agreements covering 306,858 employees that were approved in the last two quarters of 2014 being 14.6 weeks and 13.9 weeks respectively," the submission reads.
CPSU national secretary Nadine Flood said on Monday that her union and others were lobbying the Senate cross-bench to block the cuts when they came to the upper house.
"What the Abbott government is proposing for the nation's universal paid parental leave scheme would be a retrograde step that would leave thousands of women and their families financially worse off," the union leader said.
"The average woman working in the public sector that has been the subject of this unfair and vicious attack by the Abbott government is young, starting out on their career and earning around $69,000 a year – exactly the type of person paid parental leave with an employer "top-up" is designed to assist."
