When Perth GP Sarah Bailey started making plans for a family she looked into the government's parental leave scheme and was stunned to discover she wouldn't be entitled to a cent.

While Dr Bailey earns slightly more than the $150,000 cut off for the government's 18-week Parental Leave Pay, her partner is currently studying and on a very low income.

But because eligibility for the scheme is tied only to the mother's income, with the father's making no difference at all, neither Dr Bailey nor her husband are entitled to Parental Leave Pay.

It's a situation which has been criticised for unfairly penalising female breadwinners and stay-at-home dads.

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Under the current rules, mothers are only able to transfer Parental Leave Pay entitlements – which equate to about $13,800 – to the father if they both earn under $150,000.

"I was quite shocked to find out this was the case," Dr Bailey said.

"I think it is discrimination. If my husband was a female our family would be able to get the income. If I was a male, I would be able to get the parental leave."

Unlike doctors in the hospital system, GPs work as contractors, meaning Dr Bailey does not get any workplace benefits as part of her job, including maternity leave.

Dr Bailey said she calculated she would need to save up $40,000 in order to take time off when she and her husband start their family.

The amount of study, exams and work pressure meant it was already hard for female doctors to take time out to have children, Dr Bailey said.

"It's already quite a difficult profession to be in, there are a lot of barriers to female doctors having kids already, then to put this on top of that, is really hard."

Dr Bailey has started a parliamentary petition calling on the government to change the legislation for Paid Parental Leave to make it more equitable, which has already attracted close to 1300 signatures.

Dr Bailey said her objections were not just about the money, but the unfairness of the situation.

"It is ludicrous … although I see discrimination on a daily basis in my work based on my gender, I am stunned and appalled that there exists legislation that underscores this discrimination," she writes in the petition.

"How can we expect the same working conditions as our male counterparts when our own government will not support our legitimacy?" 

A spokesperson for the Department of Social Services told nine.com.au in a statement the government's Paid Parental Leave Scheme was designed to compliment employer-based schemes and allow parents to spend quality time with their child after birth or adoption.

"The scheme's income test recognises that women who are on a higher income and are primary carers are in a stronger position to obtain paid parental leave and other family-friendly benefits as part of their conditions of employment," the statement said.

The government's parental leave scheme became law more than a decade ago in 2010.

In an effort to make the legislation more flexible, several proposed amendments to the act were debated in the Senate in June last year.

Changes were passed which meant the main carer can now take the full 18 weeks as a block or in parts shared between both parents, and anytime within two years of the birth.

However, a proposed amendment from Centre Alliance senator Stirling Griff – which would have helped fixed the anomaly of the income test only applying to the mother – was voted down by the government and One Nation.

Under Senator Griff's suggestion, partners would be able to apply for Parental Leave Pay if the mother does not meet the income test.

Estimates provided to Senator Griff by the Parliamentary Budget Office at the time indicated such a change would only cost $3 million a year.

Contact reporter Emily McPherson at em********@******om.au.

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India's daily COVID-19 death toll surpassed 4,000 for the first time on Saturday, with Tamil Nadu becoming the latest state to announce a complete lockdown to curb surging infections.

The country's health ministry reported a record 4,187 fatalities for the previous 24 hours, as well as more than 400,000 new infections for the third day in a row. India has now reported more than 21 million cases and 238,000 related deaths since the pandemic began.

The spiralling crisis is stretching India's health care system beyond breaking point. Beds, oxygen and medical workers are in short supply. Some Covid patients are dying in waiting rooms or outside overwhelmed clinics, before they have even been seen by a doctor.

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In Tamil Nadu, officials announced a two-week lockdown — a day after the southern state saw its biggest daily spike in infections, with 26,465 cases reported on Friday.

Starting Monday, all non-essential shops in the state — including state-owned liquor stores — will be closed. Restaurants can only provide takeout, while grocery stores will open from 8am to 12pm. Food delivery services will also be limited.

A number of Indian states have imposed complete lockdowns this week, from the northwestern state of Rajasthan to Karnataka in the south, despite Prime Minister Narendra Modi's earlier warning the measure should only be considered as a last resort.

"In today's situation, we have to save the country from lockdown. I would request states to use a lockdown as their last option. We have to try hard to avoid lockdowns and focus only on micro containment zones," Modi said in late April.

India imposed one of the world's largest and harshest lockdowns in March last year, when the country of 1.36 billion people had reported little more than 500 coronavirus cases and 10 related deaths.

The nationwide measure was announced with less than four hours' notice and little planning, triggering a migrant crisis. It also brought the country's economic activity to a virtual standstill, and with businesses, factories and construction sites ground to a halt, its economy contracted by 24 per cent from April to June — India's worst slump since records began in 1996.

The EU plans to provide additional support to India, the European Council President Charles Michel tweeted on Saturday.

The statement came as part of an announcement made by Michel on an alliance with Modi, which will start "a new chapter in the European Union and India strategic partnership."

Additional oxygen cylinders, ventilators, and vials of the antiviral drug Remdesivir arrived in India from around the globe on Saturday, according to India's Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Arindam Bagchi.

Bagchi praised the "international cooperation" after Austria sent 1,900 oxygen cannulas and 396 oxygen cylinders and the Czech Republic sent 500 oxygen cylinders.

Canada also sent a shipment of 50 ventilators and 25,000 vials of Remdesivir. Additionally, Japan sent 100 oxygen concentrators.

A large Chinese rocket that is out of control is set to re-enter Earth's atmosphere this weekend, bringing a final wave of concern before its debris makes impact somewhere on Earth.

The Long March 5B rocket, which is around 100 feet tall and weighs 22 tons, is expected to enter Earth's atmosphere "around May 8", according to a statement from Defence Department spokesperson Mike Howard, who said the US Space Command is tracking the rocket's trajectory.

The rocket's "exact entry point into the Earth's atmosphere" can't be pinpointed until within hours of re-entry, Howard said, but the 18th Space Control Squadron is providing daily updates on the rocket's location through the Space Track website.

READ MORE: Should Australia worry about the 21-tonne rocket falling back to Earth?

The good news is that debris plunging toward Earth — while unnerving — generally poses very little threat to personal safety.

"The risk that there will be some damage or that it would hit someone is pretty small — not negligible, it could happen — but the risk that it will hit you is incredibly tiny. And so I would not lose one second of sleep over this on a personal threat basis," Jonathan McDowell, an astrophysicist at the Astrophysics Centre at Harvard University, told CNN this week.

The European Space Agency has predicted a "risk zone" that encompasses "any portion of Earth's surface between about 41.5N and 41.5S latitude" — which includes virtually all of the Americas south of New York, all of Africa and Australia, parts of Asia south of Japan and Europe's Spain, Portugal, Italy and Greece.

That enormous range is, in part, a result of the rocket's blistering speed — even slight changes in circumstance can drastically change its trajectory.

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"We expect it to re-enter sometime between the 8th and 10th of May. And in that two-day period, it goes around the world 30 times," McDowell said.

"The thing is travelling at like 18,000 miles (28,968km) an hour. And so if you're an hour out at guessing when it comes down, you're 18,000 miles out in saying where."

Still, the ocean remains the safest bet for where the debris will land, he said, just because it takes up most of the Earth's surface.

"If you want to bet on where on Earth something's going to land, you bet on the Pacific, because Pacific is most of the Earth. It's that simple," McDowell explained.

The rocket launched a piece of the new Chinese space station into orbit on April 29 but then was left to hurtle through space uncontrolled until Earth's gravity began pulling it back to the ground.

That approach is a break with what McDowell calls "best practice" compared with what other space agencies do.

"Norms have been established," he said. "There's no international law or rule — nothing specific — but the practice of countries around the world has been: 'Yeah, for the bigger rockets, let's not leave our trash in orbit in this way.' "

Despite recent efforts to better regulate and mitigate space debris, Earth's orbit is littered with hundreds of thousands of pieces of uncontrolled junk, most of which are smaller than 10 centimetres.

Objects are constantly falling out of orbit, though most of them burn up in the Earth's atmosphere before they have a chance to make an impact on the surface.

A 17-year-old boy who died after an incident at a Victorian basketball stadium has been identified as Bless Mulukwat Akoch.

Family and friends have paid tribute to the teenager, after he was fatally injured after a fight broke out at the venue in the Melbourne suburb of Werribee on Friday night.

Bless' friend Jonathan Bonsang said he "couldn't believe" the news.

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"This can't be," Mr Bonsang said.

As children competed inside the stadium, Bless clung to life outside of the venue. He was rushed to hospital but later died.

Another friend, Pulamedi Rigo, said he saw Bless on a stretcher as he was put into an ambulance.

"When we were walking home, we were crying and we were sad," he said.

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Another friend, David Mureal, said Bless was "a great kid".

"He was there for me, he was there for all of us," he said.

Not only was Bless a passionate basketball player but his friends said he was also very smart.

"He did a lot of science subjects in his school like psychology, biology, and physics," Mr Mureal said.

Bless' heartbroken mother is struggling to comprehend just how her only child died last night.

His family told 9News they want people to know he was "just a lovely, normal boy".

Parents arrived at a closed basketball stadium today and for some, the grim news was overwhelming.

"We as parents are feeling scared," one mother told 9News.

"It's a terrible thing. It's a shock to the core and I hope that they're okay, I hope the whole family finds the strength to get through this," a father said.

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Another mother said she wanted to take her children to another venue to play netball.

A 15-year-old Wyndham Vale boy assisted Victoria Police with their enquiries today and was released without charge pending further investigations.

Police are working to determine the circumstances surrounding the death.

Call Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000 or visit www.crimestoppersvic.com.au if you have any information about this incident.

Once strangers, three Queensland women now share a lifelong bond.

Crystal White, Sheena Hewlett and Alix Russo were brought together by what they said was a common enemy: embattled federal MP Andrew Laming.

Ms White claimed Mr Laming took a photo of her without her permission, while Ms Hewlett and Ms Russo said they were subjected to online abuse.

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"I didn't want to live anymore after the online deplorable abuse," Ms Russo said.

Today, the women walked side-by-side, with Senator Penny Wong along for support, as they declared "enough is enough".

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A crowd of about 150 people marched the streets of the Redland City suburb of Cleveland, past the office of Mr Laming.

From there, the crowd converged at a common area and it was there that Ms Russo addressed her supporters.

"We have been oppressed by this man for too long," she claimed.

Senator Penny Wong also had a message for Scott Morrison.

"If you let Mr Laming back into the parliament and accept his vote as a member of your government, you will be demonstrated to be a hypocrite," Ms Wong said.

Protestors want the Prime Minister to expel Mr Laming to the crossbench or call for his resignation immediately.

Parliament will resume Monday for the budget, Mr Laming's first parliamentary duty since announcing he would not contest the next election.

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His resignation comes off the back of a series of 9News investigations, which exposed the allegations put before him.

Mr Laming denies all the allegations.

"There are no accusations of cyber bullying before any authority I'm aware of, after a decade of social media, where I diligently serve locals with around 50,000 comments a year," he said in a statement today.

Protesters saw Mr Laming watching this morning's march from a nearby cafe.

9News offered him the opportunity to speak on camera, however he declined an interview.