The government will scrap a controversial parenting welfare program and immediately suspend compulsory obligations it says are punitive, counterproductive and causes harm.

The ParentsNext program sent new parents to an employment provider and required parents to do training, education and parenting courses to maintain welfare.

It covers parents of children aged nine months to six years who are under the age of 55 and have not worked in the previous six months.

It also covered parents who hadn’t completed high school and had been on income support for a certain amount of time.

The scheme will be scrapped from July 1 next year.

Finance and Women’s Minister Katy Gallagher said the government was committed to listening to women and making their lives better and fairer.

But Opposition Leader Peter Dutton said the government needed to make sure it didn’t cut productivity.

“There’s an expectation that if there’s work available, and you’re offered a job, that you take that job,” he told ABC Radio on Friday.

“There are instances at the moment where you go around the country talking to businesses where they just cannot get staff.

“So the country loses that productivity, the economy loses it and people lose the opportunity to have that job.

“There needs to be incentive, not disincentive, in the system to take that employment up.”

-AAP