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Treasurer Joe Hockey has conceded new mothers who access two paid parental leave schemes are not committing fraud.
Mr Hockey has spent a week denying he ever agreed that women who legally access the paid parental leave schemes of their employer and the government were committing fraud but on Monday staged a retreat from his tough language.
"If you comply with the law it is not fraud," Mr Hockey told Nine's Today program.
But he dismissed repeated questioning about whether so called 'double-dipping' was fraud as "Canberra word games" and "semantics."
"We're playing word games, don't get caught into the Canberra trap," Mr Hockey urged interviewer Karl Stefanovic.
But Stefanovic pressed the Treasurer during the interview about whether 'double-dipping' constituted fraud.
"No, it's not fraud," Mr Hockey agreed after being asked the same question four times.
Labor's taxpayer-funded 18 week scheme, introduced in 2011, was designed to act as a basic safety net while still allowing employers to top up parental leave entitlements to attract employees.
But the Coalition, which once promised women full paid parental leave for six months, wants to restrict women from accessing the government's scheme if they receive parental leave through their employer. Business has claimed the move will lead to employers restructuring or potentially even dumping their own schemes.
Mr Hockey has been on the back foot since agreeing with press gallery journalist Laurie Oakes last Sunday that 'double-dipping was fraud.
"This is basically fraud, isn't it, taking an allowance twice effectively, who is doing it?" Oakes asked.
"Well, it is," Mr Hockey agreed. He added that "in many cases it's mostly people who go on parental leave that earn more than $90,000 a year."
Social Services Minister Scott Morrison has also called it a "rort" to the dismay of influential government backbencher Arthur Sinodinos, who last week called on the government to soften its rhetoric.
Nearly 80,000 new mothers would be prevented from taking the $11,500 available under the federal government's scheme should the changes pass the Senate.
