Never plan for double dip, says Cormann

Finance Minister Mathias Cormann says there was never any intention to allow double-dipping of paid parental leave schemes, even under the coalition's original pre-election plan.

The government is under fire from Labor, the Greens and crossbenchers over its scaled-back parental leave scheme due to start in July 2016, which will prevent new mums from accessing both the government scheme and their employer-provided leave.

"Our proposal was to have one integrated national scheme of 26 weeks," Senator Cormann told a Senate estimates hearing on Tuesday.