Lisa Wilkinson has slammed Opposition Leader Bill Shorten for remarks he made about women and childcare.

Shorten described women as having a “second job in the family” and claimed most men rely on them to take responsibility for childcare.

“Let’s face it, men in Australia rely on the women in Australia to do the childcare and to organise childcare,” Mr Shorten said during the announcment of Labor’s $3 billion childcare package on Sunday.

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Bill Shorten said his childcare packages would positively affect mums. Photo: AAP

“Where you’ve got mums working part-time or full-time, it’s the second job in the family, and frankly they’re doing a lot of the unpaid work – they’ve got to try to work out the childcare bills.”

The Today host fired back at the Labor leader on Monday morning, criticising his statement as “outdated” and strengthening perceptions of women as “second class citizens”.

“Bill Shorten once described former PM Tony Abbott as a ‘dinosaur’ with his views on women of the Mr Shorten, I would suggest it might be time to take a look in the mirror,” Wilkinson said.

“Isn’t parenting about sharing responsibilities? And isn’t it confirming the outdated belief that women should always be in charge of the unpaid work and therefore giving any men who still do, permission to keep thinking that way … isn’t that like so last century?”

Wilkinson asked viewers to consider whether the “would-be PM” was a sexist or a realist.

In his speech on Sunday, Shorten repeatedly referred to mothers but not once suggested that some men do or should organise childcare.

“I understand how difficult it is for a working woman with the kids trying to work out how on earth does she go to work if 80 per cent of what she’s earning gets eaten up in childcare fees?”