Palmer vetoes paid parental leave

Clive Palmer has given the thumbs-down to the federal government's paid parental leave scheme.

"All of our senators in the Palmer United Party have decided to vote against paid parental leave, so there will be no paid parental leave," Mr Palmer told reporters in Canberra on Monday.

Enabling women to get into the workforce is important for families and the economy, but the government's focus should be on improving child care, he said.

"We strongly support the government using the money it had available for paid parental leave to go to child care," Mr Palmer said.

The government was to spend $22 billion on the scheme funded by a levy on big companies.

But Mr Palmer declined to say whether the levy should go ahead to fund child care.

"We need to bring taxes down in Australia because they are too high," he said.

The PUP leader said a means-test should apply to ensure wealthy people did not receive child care subsidies, with the threshold set at $1 million.