Budget Measures (Financial Support for Newborn Children) Bill

I move, That the Budget Measures (Financial Support for Newborn Children) Bill be now read a first time. The Government is committed to doing its part to give children the best possible start in life, and this bill represents part of a considered and responsible package of measures that will help to reduce some of the stress placed on families when a new child arrives. The measures are intended to provide increased, targeted support, within current economic conditions, for working parents with newborns. In the first year of a child’s life—particularly the first 6 months—it is important for newborn development to get full-time personal care. It is also important for parents and caregivers to get support to manage budgetary and other pressures. Monetary support can greatly assist with allowing the time and space for mothers or caregivers and children to develop close bonds and to reduce parental and family stress. All of these things combined support children’s health and development and improve short- and long-term outcomes for the child and society.

Encouraging mothers’ and caregivers’ ongoing attachment to the labour market has broad economic and social benefits and can support a stable family environment for children to grow up in. There are issues, however, with the way financial support is currently provided to families with newborns. These issues can contribute to poor outcomes for children and make it difficult for some working parents to stay connected to the workforce after taking time out to care for their children. The Government is introducing this bill as part of a suite and a range of measures to enhance the paid parental leave provisions and the parental tax credit to ensure families with a newborn are supported to give that child the best possible start in life.

Before discussing the proposals in the bill, I would like to take the opportunity to talk about the other measures this Government will be consulting on in the near future that are related. These measures are aimed at broadening the number of people who will be eligible for paid parental leave and making the system more flexible for families. It is important to ensure New Zealand’s parental leave framework better reflects modern working arrangements and today’s diverse family structures. The measures proposed will be consulted on with stakeholders later this year, with the intention of being implemented on 1 April 2016. For example, people with permanent guardianship arrangements that are not formal adoptions under the Adoption Act are ineligible for parental leave. Similarly, seasonal or casual workers, who also tend to be amongst the lowest-paid in our society, are currently ineligible for paid parental leave, despite often having had a long work history. We will be looking to amend the law so that it better reflects the arrangements in the modern workplace and the home. However, I want to make sure we have all of the details of this right. We will be talking to people far and wide over the coming months to make sure that we have a fit-for-purpose piece of legislation to introduce to this House.

The bill before the House today makes changes that we can put in place now to help parents with newborns. The bill increases the number of weeks of paid parental leave from the current 14 weeks to 16 weeks from 1 April 2015 and to 18 weeks from 1 April 2016. The new time frames will apply when the actual or expected date of delivery of the baby—or, in the case of adoption, the date on which care for the child is assumed—is on or after the date of the change. The bill also increases the maximum amount of parental tax credit payable on the birth of a newborn to $220 a week, up from $150 a week currently, for the first 10 weeks following birth—again, up from 8 weeks. So from 1 April next year parents of newborns will be able to claim a total maximum payment of $2,200 per newborn.

The bill also changes the abatement formula for the parental tax credit so that it is abated against each dollar of family income earned over an entire year rather than for the period the parental tax credit is paid. This change means the parental tax credit amount will reduce faster as income increases. It brings the effective abatement rate for the parental tax credit in line with the abatement of the family tax credit and the in-work tax credit. This will better target parental tax credit payments to lower and middle income families, ensuring that they receive a greater slice of funding over time. The total fiscal cost of both the extension of paid parental leave and the changes to the parental tax credit is more than $183 million over 4 years. Additionally, we will be spending a further $30 million to increase eligibility. These changes, alongside other measures in Budget 2014, will help to improve the lives of families and children, while also being fiscally responsible and recognising current economic conditions. I commend this bill to the House.

The New Zealand Herald said in respect of this National policy that it was the “Great Brain Robbery”—stealing ideas off the Labour Party, but in reality, a pale shadow of them. The credit for this policy, in respect of children and paid parental leave, should go to Jacinda Ardern and Sue Moroney. They are the ones who got this up on the political agenda, so much so that the National Government was scared and decided that it would implement a shadow of it. This bill, the Budget Measures (Financial Support for Newborn Children) Bill, which has just been presented under urgency—and I have not had time to read it in detail yet because it really has only just been tabled minutes ago in the House—is the first piece of legislation considered under the Budget, the Budget in which the Government has had to fudge it in order to get back to Budget surplus and fund this. The National Government does not like that truth, but it is the truth.

What are the clearest fudges that we have found so far? Well, we know that compared with last year’s Budget the Government has got $560 million less as the Crown’s share of Canterbury’s share of local infrastructure costs. It has gone down in terms of the Government’s Budget by $560 million. That is a week after the Christchurch City Council produced a report—

💬 Hon Clayton Cosgrove: KordaMentha.

—an independent report from KordaMentha to say that its share of those same costs were going up, so it is just not credible for the Government to say that those costs are going down. Further than that, we have also uncovered a document that shows that the Minister for Canterbury Earthquake Recovery, Gerry Brownlee, had a deal with the prior chief executive of the Christchurch City Council and the Mayor of Christchurch that they would not review the numbers until after this Budget and until after the election. That is really cynical—really cynical.

The second thing that we have uncovered is that we now know from the dodgy announcement by Judith Collins in this Budget, reflecting her personal conduct as a Minister, that the Government has overcharged ACC levies by $120 million this year, which overstates the surplus this year by $120 million. So it says that it is going to reverse that out next year, but it has kept it for this year. It did a similar thing last year.

The other area that is a bit dodgy is that the Government is putting $375 million into transport spending in Auckland in addition, as a loan, robbing the future National Land Transport Fund and funding it out of a notional interest-free loan. If the Government really wanted to do that this year, it should have booked that as an additional capital expenditure this year, rather than having this pretence at an interest-free loan.

Health spending has gone down in real terms. I have crunched the numbers, with the help of some of our staff, since this announcement was read out. We know, using Treasury’s own model, that health spending is going backwards by 2.3 percent in real terms. It is going up in nominal terms from $14.4 billion to $14.7 billion, and that is total Crown spending on health, or core spending. Using Treasury’s own model, and taking into account inflation and demographic changes, in real terms, according to Treasury’s own model, that is a 2.3 percent cut—a 2.3 percent cut. So this Budget surplus—yes, it is real, and it is good. Governments have to be prudent and get back to surplus. But it is a fiddle. The Government has fudged it. It has fudged it.

In respect of this particular measure, it is half of a best start. Half of a best start is what I would call it. The Best Start package from the Labour Party is better than this. In fact, there is no one person, I am told by our spokesperson—and I am sure this is correct—who would be better off under this package compared with Labour’s Best Start package. In other words, the Best Start package is better for everyone who is better off under this package.

There are a couple of things that stand out as being wrong with this package, and I should not be surprised by this. The most vulnerable in New Zealand do not get anything out of the measure that we are passing today. That is despite the fact that those New Zealanders who are most vulnerable have faced increasing power prices, increasing rents—in some parts of Auckland rents have gone up by 40 percent—and despite those very real increases in their costs, which for those people, have actually gone up more than the cost of living. The cost of living is an average across the country, but the costs for these vulnerable New Zealanders have gone up by more than the cost of living, and yet this package does nothing for them. Despite the fact that we have got 285,000 children living below the poverty line, the only really significant policy in respect of child poverty in New Zealand in this Budget, this year, after all those rising housing costs, rising rents, rising electricity bills, and increasing numbers of children living in poverty, is that the most vulnerable children in New Zealand do not get anything—anything—not 1c. They do not get one dollar—not in this year, not in the year after, and not in the year after that. They get nothing.

In a country where we have got rising inequality, the Government denies it. We heard the Prime Minister misrepresenting those statistics again today in the House in his Budget debate speech. He stood up and said that the Bryan Perry measure of income inequality, which is the ratio of low incomes to high incomes, has not got worse, according to him. Well, actually it has got a bit worse under the Government. It has not got as bad as it did in earlier times, but it has still got worse. He says that because of that, we have not got rising inequality. That is just such a facile argument. It shames me that we have in New Zealand, this country that used to have low levels of child poverty, a Prime Minister who stands up and pretends that we have not got rising inequality in New Zealand.

New Zealand used to be in the best quarter of the OECD advanced nations in the world when it came to income inequality. We are now in the worst 40 percent. So we have moved from being in the best quarter in the world to the worst 40 percent at a time when the OECD as a whole has been getting worse. There was a bad trend internationally and New Zealand beat that bad trend by being even worse than the bad trend. The only push against that trend of income inequality rising in New Zealand in recent decades, in a material sense, was the last Labour Government, through Working for Families, which, of course, at the time the Prime Minister called communism by stealth.

Even the Bryan Perry measure, which shows a disgraceful increase in income inequality, under-measures income inequality because it excludes capital gains and other irregular income, which are concentrated amongst the wealthy. That is absolutely clear from the data series. We have proven that in the House. We have actually even forced Bill English to admit it, but the Prime Minister pretends it is not the case. That is income inequality as measured by the Bryan Perry figures, which are credible, but they are only a subset of income and therefore they under-measure income inequality, and yet we know it is still getting worse.

The next thing to say in respect of that is that when you have income inequality that is at the level it is in New Zealand, even if it does not get worse from year to year, overall inequality does get worse because every year the consequences of that inequality stack up. You see that so clearly in New Zealand. Seventy-five percent of New Zealanders think that those gaps are widening in New Zealand under this Government. They are absolutely right and the statistics prove it. The number of children living in poverty, whatever measure you use, is going up. The number of people who own their own house is going down. It is the lowest it has been in 50 years. We should not be surprised, because this Government runs New Zealand in the interests of the wealthy, who do well out of those settings of rising inequality because they get to own an ever-higher proportion of the assets in New Zealand, including a higher proportion of our houses.

As for this bill, we will be supporting it. It makes things a little better than they were. It is only half of a best start. It is a pale imitation of it. It does not improve the lot of the most vulnerable and it does not deal with the terrible imbalance that we have in our economy. That is all I have got time for at this first reading.

It is not the matter that that was all the previous speaker, David Parker, had time for; that is all that that speaker knew. Where is Sue Moroney at this point in time? The leader of the Labour Party’s push on paid parental leave does not even get to speak for the Labour Party. The Labour Party does not care about paid parental leave. It comes into this House and says that it is doing it, but that is not the case. Paid parental leave is something that this Parliament and parliaments across the world have been looking at for a number of years. It is something that the Australian Parliament looked at and passed last year, and it is something that has taken on a very big emphasis in this Budget and what has been done in that $500 million for families, which is the heart of the Budget. That is what New Zealand families have been wanting to see.

We have delivered a strong economic message and we have built a surplus for New Zealand going forward of $372 million in the most of difficult of times. That is a great achievement. At the same time, investing in the young people, the families, and the communities of our country going forward is incredible from a Government in the most difficult of times. I would like to thank Minister Simon Bridges for leading that off. He has done a fantastic job in bringing this legislation forward today. It is something that we will look forward to in the future as something that will deliver for our young people going forward. When that is coupled with free doctors visits for under-13s, it is something that many families in New Zealand will see as a complete package. It is a package and a plan that delivers real and constructive benefits for New Zealand families. It is a package that looks at what is important to those young families who are building the future of our country and building those young people who will be the future to build this country even stronger.

It is not a “Great Brain Robbery”, as there is nothing to nick from the Labour Party. This is a Government that is delivering for families at a time when it is needed. We look forward to seeing this legislation pass through this House. New Zealand families will welcome this Budget. They will welcome the prudence of the Budget and, at the same time, the huge investment in our families going forward. The Budget Measures (Financial Support for Newborn Children) Bill is a good bill and is for the benefit of all New Zealanders. Thank you.

That speech from David Bennett was an absolutely pathetic contribution to this debate, and it proves that National started working on this policy based on some of the analysis provided by the Inland Revenue Department in April. April, at best, is when National decided that perhaps public pressure had finally come to bear on it and that it was time that it started having a little look over at this side for the policies that would benefit families.

Budgets should be about people. That is absolutely what Budgets should be about. They should be focused—if we are, indeed, moving into surplus—on how we can ensure that hard-working New Zealanders are enjoying the spoils of any of the prosperity that we are supposedly moving into. Our disappointment on this side of the House is that New Zealanders, by and large, are not benefiting from any recovery. They are not. Even this Budget is a “fudge-it Budget”. It is an attempt to make it feel like some families are going to get some small scraps from this Budget. The Government could have done so much more. It could have done so much more.

I am happy to point out where there are elements of this Budget that would have been a vast improvement, particularly for families and particularly for newborn children. In particular, when it comes to a little bit of the papering over that has happened, it has especially happened for our most vulnerable children—the 285,000 children living in poverty in New Zealand. Out of this Budget they have got a bit of a clear Duraseal cover over the top of that issue, but what we needed was step change. What we needed—and what has been called for, for some time—was an action plan that was focused on the well-being of all children. Paid parental leave and changes to tax credits should have been one part around income of a plan that should be focused on lifting the well-being of all of those children. As Plunket said: “Poverty continues to hamper progress for all children. Plunket would like to see a coordinated plan to genuinely tackle child poverty using measurable child poverty targets.” That is what it said in respect of the Budget. From Unicef: “UNICEF NZ encourages the Government and all political parties to commit to a comprehensive plan to address child poverty, with targets, measurement and clear accountability …”.

That is exactly what this Labour Party will do in Government. We already have a bill that sets out exactly how we would do it, and we would do it with more than just our Best Start policy because we recognise that our Best Start policy is just one part of a much wider plan that is required. But let us do a little bit of policy comparison. If, indeed, it has been talked as “Best Start - lite”, let us see where, in particular—unfortunately—the Government’s plans have not addressed some really key areas. It has done a little, but it is still no cigar. So let us look at paid parental leave. Currently, we have got 14 weeks of paid parental leave. The Government has proposed extending that to 18 weeks. It is good to see an extension. Labour’s policy has always, however, been 26 weeks since we have been in this. We have been pushing hard for 26 weeks. Sue Moroney has done an enormous amount of work—

💬 Grant Robertson: That’s right—26 for Babies.

—in conjunction with 26 for Babies to try to get that Government to move an inch on paid parental leave. It is disappointing that we have not seen it go all the way to 26 weeks, because 26 weeks is what evidence and research says we should be doing. In fact, Labour has said that ideally we would like it to be a year, but we recognise that that would take time, and so 26 weeks is our policy, and, unfortunately, 18 weeks just does not cut it when it comes to what the research clearly tells us benefits children. In fact, Growing Up in New Zealand, a fantastic piece of research currently under way—the biggest update on longitudinal studies since the Dunedin study—has shown us that parents currently try to bring together every bit of leave they are entitled to, scrimping to try to get that little extra bit of time. Having 26 weeks would make a massive difference, and we want to pay tribute to the work Sue Moroney has done to eke 4 weeks out of that Government. So that is part of our Best Start payment.

What about the parental tax credit? We should first acknowledge the origins of the parental tax credit. Jenny Shipley came up with it in the 1990s, when she recognised that there was a large chunk of parents—60 percent—who were not eligible for paid parental leave. Actually, the small tweaks the Government has made, although laudable, actually will not make a big dent in that eligibility. We had 60 percent of parents who were not getting anything, so she stepped in and said that she would create this little tax credit, which still went to a narrow group. Not every parent who does not get paid parental leave gets a parental tax credit, and it does abate—let us be very clear on that. So she introduced that, at a rate of $150 a week for 8 weeks. The change this Government has made in these proposals is to increase the rate to $220 and to increase the length to 10 weeks for the group of parents who are eligible. It has changed the eligibility—it has reduced it. It has reduced it now so that it is more in line with families who might be eligible for the family tax credit or in-work tax credit. So, basically, if a family out there does not get that, it will not get the parental tax credit. That is the message now.

Let us compare that with the Best Start payment. Best Start said: “Look, the parental tax credit is kind of fudging things. It is not covering everyone who is not getting paid parental leave. It is not near-universal. Why don’t we just scrap it and start again?”, and that is what Best Start did. Best Start says: “Actually, for parents who don’t get paid parental leave and who earn under $150,000, we want all of you to receive some support when your baby first arrives.” Ninety-five percent of parents receive the Best Start payment, and they receive it at a rate of $60 a week. The families who do not get paid parental leave get it for 12 months. For families who do get paid parental leave, it kicks in after their paid parental leave ends. On every count, the Best Start payment helps more families, it helps them for longer, and it is more generous.

And here is the kicker. Here is the thing that makes the biggest difference between Best Start and what the Government has proposed. The Government’s proposals exclude our most vulnerable, low-income families. They get absolutely nothing from the package that the Government has introduced. Roughly 14,000 parents who we know are living below the poverty line are still excluded from this Government’s plans. Best Start left none of those children behind. In fact, it said to those children that we will support those kids until they are 3—not just for their first year, but for 3 years. So the 50,000 children living in poverty would benefit from the Best Start package for 3 years.

That is a big difference between what Labour proposed and what this Government is proposing, and that is what distinguishes what Labour is about and what National is about. We wanted to lift the well-being of all children, but with a special focus on the most vulnerable. The National Government has said: “We want to do a little bit of a lift for some.”—for some. For us, it was about extending on both ends. Where this Government has narrowed the parental tax credit and actually left out some of those income earners who very rarely get anything, those are the ones who have also been cut out today as well as those at the end.

Yes, John Armstrong, I think, said it best when he said that this is the “Great Brain Robbery”—the Labour Party brain, that is. He said: “If ever an explanation was needed as to why Opposition parties like to stay mum on their policies for as long as possible then look no further than the contents of this Budget.” Absolutely! But you know what? We stand by announcing our policy in January, because we know that what we announced set out a clear difference that this Government still has not been able to keep pace with. It still reverted to type on the people whom it has decided to lift. It still could have done so much better. We will continue to promote helping the most vulnerable families with no shame on this side of the House. We will make sure that we promote policies that are for the many, not for the few, and are ultimately focused on children, not blame, not reverting to type, and not focused on stereotypes on who should get assistance and who should not. Instead, we are just saying that if we lift children, we lift everyone. That is what Labour policy is about. That is what a Labour Budget would have been about, and that is how we will hold this Government to account.

It is with pleasure that I rise to take a call in this urgent debate on this bill, the name of which is beyond me right at the moment. Basically, the Government is bringing in under urgency—oh, it is the Budget Measures (Financial Support for Newborn Children) Bill—tax credits for parents and an extension to paid parental leave. Excuse me for not being over the title of the bill when it has just been put on the Table a few minutes ago and when there has been no real prior warning for this House to debate an issue that is deeply important for this country.

When we have 285,000 children living in poverty in this country, we need to be talking about this, and we need to be taking time and considering the best options for getting our children out of poverty. The Green Party believes in good lives and a fair future for every New Zealander. We believe in the vision of having every single child in this country thriving, not just surviving—as all too many of them are at the moment, when we put aside those who, sadly, are still dying of diseases of poverty in this country, to our great collective shame.

We know that in this country with so much wealth—so much wealth—around us, we can do better for our children. This debate is part of the opportunity to consider our options to deliver that wealth. I would like to now address, in what I think is quite a divided bill from what I can tell—not having read the detail in the 10 minutes we have had—one bad thing and one good thing. I will speak to the bad thing first so that I can end on a positive note. I do recognise that people I have been following on social media do not want to hear us in the Opposition just attacking the Government. They do want us to recognise what is good in here and we are up for that. We will recognise and acknowledge the things we agree with that are good for our children and we will strongly critique those things that we believe are causing harm or are not up to what our children deserve.

So on that point, I will first address the extension of the parental tax credit. It is a little bit hard to get our heads around what exactly this is. We have been told that it is an extension to the parental tax credit from $150 a week to $220 a week for those who are entitled, but there has been a tightening up of the eligibility. That is where my quite deep concern lies at this stage, because it seems to me that what the Government is doing here is actually extending the discrimination that applies to the in-work tax credit, which is something that the Child Poverty Action Group has been challenging so strongly through our courts. My concern is that that same point of discrimination is possibly being extended into this parental tax credit. So although the Government is saying that this is a measure to alleviate poverty, children from beneficiary families, those who are in the most poverty, are being excluded from that benefit on the basis that their parents are not in work.

I spoke briefly after we had had notice of this provision with the academic Susan St John, to ask her opinion of whether my reading of this was correct, and she was saying that it is actually a little bit difficult to tell from looking on the website, but it does look as if that is true. It does look, from the way that the website is reading, as if the bill requires people to be not receiving a benefit and to be meeting hours of work criteria that apply to the in-work tax credit. That is of deep concern for anybody who opposes discrimination, for anybody who—

💬 Hon Members: Oh, ha, ha!

The members on the Government side of the House are laughing uproariously at the idea of opposing discrimination. I really fail to understand what is so funny about the idea of opposing discrimination. I guess their idea is that people who are not in work need to be discriminated against so that they will get into work. I am not really sure that that bears out, in fact. In the Green Party we believe that parenting is a job worth valuing, and that we should be doing everything we can as a country to support our families—those who have two parents, those who are in work, and those who have only one parent who is actively parenting and might not be in work. That is why there should not be discrimination between those who are in work and those who are not in work, but this bill does seem to be building discrimination in and extending it.

I notice that the court ruling from the Child Poverty Action Group case—which was not successful—established that a ground for discrimination for the court to consider is: “First, is there differential treatment or effects of persons in comparable or analogous circumstances on a prohibited ground of discrimination?”. That is the basis of being in employment. So on the surface of it, it looks as if this provision meets that criteria for consideration by the courts. And if so—and this is the next ground for the court to consider—whether that “differential treatment results in material disadvantage” in that context. It looks to me like $70 a week or more, actually. No, it is probably not that, but there is a significant difference here for those who are not in work, so we are not happy with this as it reads to us at the moment, and we will be looking at introducing a Supplementary Order Paper, which I hope we can get support for in this House, to extend this provision to those who are out of work.

Government members will be pleased that I am now moving on to a more positive note, to congratulate them on following the lead of the 26 for Babies campaign and the almost 4,000 New Zealanders who submitted in support of Labour member Sue Moroney’s bill to extend paid parental leave to 26 weeks. I would like to congratulate the members on that committee from National, who listened to those submissions and were convinced by them. I do not see how anybody could have gone through that process and not been convinced. The arguments were deeply compelling that extending paid parental leave facilitates a bonding and attachment between parents and babies. It supports families and ensures stability of incomes. It closes the shortfall between New Zealand’s paid parental leave provisions and those in other OECD countries. It improves health outcomes for mothers, babies, and children, and 26 weeks would have met the World Health Organization’s recommendation for exclusive breastfeeding. It allows choice for women and it creates job opportunities. There are positive implications in this bill in terms of society, our economy, and women’s workforce participation. How could you not embrace that? So thank you, National, for listening to New Zealand.

I would also like to thank National for the extension of the criteria and accessibility in the bill, because that was my one concern with the member’s bill. I understand that when you have got a member’s bill, you have to go for a narrow scope, and that is why that was not in there. But it is incredibly important. The Human Rights Commission was very clear that for it, extending paid parental leave to those who are in casual employment or are changing jobs is the priority for reducing discrimination. So it is fantastic to see that provision, and our children and women all around the country will be thanking you for this significant step on the journey towards the Green Party policy of 13 months’ paid parental leave—13 months.

💬 Hon Members: Ha, ha!

Again, you might laugh, because in the context of your world and the discourse promoted by the National Party, that seems extreme. But, in fact, that was the Families Commission’s recommendation back in 2007. It actually puts it at only a mid-point in comparison with other countries in the world. It is not actually an extreme concept at all, because it benefits our children and benefits our society. It is about recognising that if we start in the early years and provide a really strong foundation for our children and our families, then we are all going to be better off. [Interruption]

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Order! I am sorry to interrupt the member.

Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker; I appreciate that after the unruliness on that side of the House. Those members do not understand the importance of children to our society and the importance of the first year of life. That is why the Green Party is happy to support this bill as a significant step towards our policy of 13 months’ paid parental leave.

I just want to commend Jan Logie in particular and the Green Party for another outstanding contribution. Does it not do fantastic things to votes for the National Party when people like Jan Logie and her friends in the Green Party stand up in this House and say that supporting working families is discriminating? That says a lot about what those people are about—that says a lot about what those people are about. If we support hard work and enterprise, we are discriminating. What an absolute load of tripe.

💬 Sue Moroney: They’re just babies. They can’t do hard work—they’re only babies.

Sorry? I wonder whether Sue Moroney will be getting a call in this debate. Was she not doing some work on this? I seem to recall—let me channel that. Let me channel that. I cannot channel it over there because all the brains have been stolen, apparently. There has been a bit of brain stealing. I would suggest they would have had to scramble—

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: By the zombies.

Speaking of brain drain, there is someone who had a brain drain about 30-something years ago, before he came to this place.

💬 Hon Member: He tried to have a lobotomy.

That is right. Yes, he could not find one—could not find one. However, let us return to this very, very sensible piece of legislation.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Good idea.

I am entitled to rebut interjections. The New Zealand workplace is a modern and diverse place, and this Government accepts and acknowledges that. This Budget actually reflects the hard work—[Interruption] Sorry, what is Sue Moroney saying? I cannot quite pick that up.

💬 Sue Moroney: You only support hard-working babies. The chimney sweep babies.

Well, that is interesting. That is interesting, Sue Moroney, because what the Budget Measures (Miscellaneous Fiscal Matters) Bill is about is supporting those who need the support. So if we talk about what Sue Moroney was proposing, any household earning under $150,000—like Trevor Mallard, if he were to spring forth and have a child—would get this baby bonus. I know it is a horrifying thought. They would get this baby thing going on. Is that fair? Is that fair? Is that what Kiwis really expect? Actually, I think that New Zealanders have woken up to the idea that this sort of non-targeted approach from the Labour Party of throwing money at a problem and believing that makes it go away is actually dead and gone, which is probably why the Labour Party polling is now suggesting it is doing even worse than what the polling across many different forums has shown. I think the polling has got the Labour Party at well below 30 percent.

This bill is about rewarding the hard work of New Zealand families and about supporting young New Zealand families and the children that they are bringing up, in a targeted, prudent, responsible, and sensible manner. What we know—and this is what this Government has done for a number of years now, through some very, very difficult times—is that if we carefully manage the Government’s finances, if we take care, on behalf of taxpayers, of the challenges of fiscal responsibility in tough times, and if we do that well, and if we invest for outcomes, we get good results. That is why this Budget shows us in surplus. And if we support families that need support to do the same thing, we can expect good outcomes from them. It is a targeted bill. It is a good piece of legislation. I commend the Minister of Labour for it.

Kia ora, Mr Assistant Speaker. Thank you very much. Can I thank Mike Sabin for resuming his seat. Can I thank him for his contribution, because every time Mike Sabin makes a speech in this House, the women of New Zealand—52 percent of voters in New Zealand—recommit to not voting for that party. They recommit every time they see that man rise to his feet in his bombastic way, and the way that he minimises those things that women do inside this workforce, and the way that he minimises the value of women at home and the importance of what women put into this society. We thank you, Mr Sabin. New Zealand First is rising well past 10 percent based on the speeches of Mr Sabin alone, so thank you so much for your contribution. We look forward to more—we look forward to more. I will go back to the Budget Measures (Financial Support for Newborn Children) Bill. Mr Sabin, unfortunately, does not normally read bills, and he has had very little time to concentrate on this one.

Just quickly, though, with regard to the criticism of Ms Logie’s contribution, the title of the bill is the Budget Measures (Financial Support for Newborn Children) Bill, which means that it actually is supposed to support newborn children, no matter where they are. That is what the title would suggest to you. I cannot say what New Zealand First is going to do with regard to any Supplementary Order Papers at this stage because I need to consult with my colleagues, but the bill may have been misnamed by the National Government if it is very, very against supporting every newborn child. It possibly needs to make that clear in the title before we go forward.

I do want to say that it has been a very lucky year for parents in New Zealand. It has been a very lucky year, and that luck has been because Sue Moroney’s bill was pulled out of the ballot. That is what forced this bill forward. There was no way on this planet or on John Key’s planet that this was going to happen without that pressure. You can see it in the regulatory impact statement. You can see inside that that the officials have said they have not actually been able to do any research on this bill but that thankfully—thankfully—there was already a bill there. Thankfully, most of the work had been done. So I want to acknowledge on behalf of New Zealand First that this bill is here in the Budget not because the National Government has suddenly seen the value of mothers being at home—oh no. The National Government has been forced into it. So there are two reasons why it is a lucky year: one, the bill was pulled out; and, two, it is an election year.

I want to say thank you very much, Sue Moroney, for the work that you did on this, for bringing this to the attention of the country, and for making it incredibly difficult for this Government to back away from this issue. It was so difficult. The Government tried. By crikey, it tried, but the bill for 26 weeks of paid parental leave, the campaign you ran, and the women who stood up around this country and said they believe it is important that parents—not just women but parents—are able to bond with their children and that we as a country are better for it, forced the hand of this Government.

I am interested to see whether the ACT Party will be supporting this bill. Only recently on television we had the new leader of the ACT Party—his name escapes me; he is not well-known—stand up and say: “Don’t have children if you can’t afford it.” Do not have children if you cannot afford it. Only the rich people should breed is, basically, another way of putting that—only the rich should breed. So is this party—

💬 Mike Sabin: Very sensible.

Mr Mike Sabin is shouting out: “How sensible!”. Ladies of New Zealand, Mike Sabin just shouted out: “How sensible!”. Please mark that down. Put it in the Hansard in italics. Thank you. That is another 2 percent on the New Zealand First poll. Woo! Go for it, Mr Sabin. Keep it coming, Mr Sabin. Keep it coming. It is excellent work you are doing on behalf of New Zealand First.

Can we just return to the regulatory impact statement for a moment. Let us point out the fact that the regulatory impact statement actually says that for financial reasons, the return to work often occurs before a baby is 6 months old. That is why 26 weeks was important. That is why 26 weeks was the goal. But it has never been the goal. It is not the goal in this bill. It is not the goal anywhere else. Eighteen weeks is all that whoever over there actually truly believes that having a parent at home is good for a baby could eke out of this tight-fisted Government. That is all it could eke out for newborn babies, because that is what the bill’s title is. It is not about parents. It is not about people working or not working; it is about newborn babies. The Government does not want to make it about that. Even when Simon Bridges stood up, he made sure that he emphasised the amounts of the dollars. This was a conversation about money, not about babies.

If you extrapolate the figures out from this investment at the front end of life to the other end of life, we will see that in those numbers an upfront investment in this part gives downstream return in multiple ways. For example, it has been proven again and again and again that when women are actually given an opportunity to stay at home and look after their children, and I say “women” because—actually, we would have liked to have seen some sort of parity here, perhaps like the Danish model, where there is a requirement for men to take part in this parental leave. We are not going to push the point now. That is a conversation that the country should have, and maybe that would go some way to actually minimising the pay gap. Maybe if we actually saw all these roles as equitable, then we would not have this conversation that we have in business all the time, because we would truly be equal when it came to the way we cared in our homes. I know that fathers are absolutely equal in the way they love and care for their children, and I am sure they would like to have the opportunity to bond on some occasions with their children—to have the burden of that, in most cases. So there you go. That would have been a nice conversation to have.

But what we do know is that when women are well-supported when they are at home with their babies, and when they feel that they have truly had an opportunity to make sure their baby is well and settled and that all is right with the world, and their relationship is strong, then they are better employees. Employers tell us that. Employers tell us that when women know that their children are well looked after and everything is going well and they have been given an environment of support, then they are better employees. They are more loyal. They work longer hours. They stay through greater trauma. They are just more loyal. That is what businesses tell us is important, especially when times get tough and you need to have conversations with your employees around needing to do some give and take.

So it is a shame that the Government could not see its way clear to doing the 26 weeks’ paid parental leave, to actually meet the World Health Organization’s targets, to meet what has actually been designated by the World Health Organisation, which says that this is the best start for newborn babies. What is this about if it is not about that? Is it about giving parents a little bit so they are grateful and letting National ride into the election? There is an awful lot of that.

💬 Simon O’Connor: That’s cynical.

💬 David Bennett: Very cynical.

Yes, I may have a cynical view, and it is because I have seen it. I saw it in the 1990s and I have seen it from this Government for the last 6 years. Drop $10 million over here into a pot and tell those people they are fine. We have seen it with the provisions on grandparents raising grandchildren and we are seeing it again here.

We are obviously going to speak on all parts of the bill as we go through this evening, so I would like to just highlight—

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: Through to Saturday.

—through to Saturday—for the families out there who think that this is a win-win for them—all those families out there who have actually been getting Working for Families—that I think you need to tune in as this conversation goes on because there are amendments to Working for Families. The families who came to see me in 2008 and said: “We’re going to vote against the Labour Government.”, which they did in 2008, also said: “Crikey, we really, really, really hope that the National Government doesn’t touch Working for Families.” Well, here we go, New Zealand. Listen up, because this bill starts to cut into your Working for Families. It starts to lower that support that you have had. Nothing is ever, ever, ever without hooks with the National Government. Nothing is ever without hooks with the National Government, and as we go on to talk about this bill, I believe that you will see more and more hooks come out.

It is with pleasure that I stand to speak in support of the Budget Measures (Financial Support for Newborn Children) Bill. Nothing, I guess, is more important to the nation than the well-being of families, especially young families. I know from my own experience and from conversations with others that the time when you are raising a young family is probably the greatest period of happiness and the greatest period of stress that one can go through. I can remember doing the same thing with colossal mortgage rates to consider and a lot of pressures, and suddenly the children needed to go to the doctor, which was an added cost. National has addressed that in this Budget for children up to—what age?

💬 Hon Chester Borrows: 13.

Up to 13 years old, and that is going to be a wonderful thing for parents. But it is not only that. We could look at the various component parts of this bill, and we come to the inevitable conclusion—

💬 Tracey Martin: You can’t come up with your own policies. What a shame.

It is no wonder Opposition members are squeaking about it—it is a hard thing to argue against. National is taking a very wide and committed approach to doing its part to give children the best possible start in life. This is really going right back to the New Zealand I remember when I was very young. It is going right back to the key values—

💬 Simon O’Connor: That was last year.

Thanks, Simon. No, it was a little bit longer ago than that. This measure is going right back to the key values that Andrew Little will remember. They used to be part of his movement’s ambitions. This bill does allow for an ambitious New Zealand for people with aspirations, and they will be able to meet them because the Government is providing an economic platform from which they can grow. I fully support this bill.

If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, can I say that I am only a little flattered—only a little flattered—by the Budget Measures (Financial Support for Newborn Children) Bill. What should have been 26 weeks of paid parental leave is a miserable 18 weeks. But that is not now—not any time soon. It is not until a 2-week extension next year, 2015, and a further 2 weeks in 2016. But there is good news. There is good news for New Zealanders because before then New Zealanders get to vote in an election where they can actually vote for a Government that actually gets this, that actually believes it, and that fights in a principled way for extending paid parental leave, supporting families, prioritising them, and actually putting them at the front of the queue, not like the National Government’s johnny-come-latelys trying to pick up Labour’s ideas and water them down, thinking that that is going to do it. Well, I do not think that will do it.

However, I do want to say at the outset that Labour will be supporting this bill because it is a little progress. It is a little progress, but I will at this stage remind the members opposite that there is a superior bill in front of this Parliament, which still remains in this Parliament, and that they still get to do the right thing despite this poor measure that the Government is bringing in. They can actually vote for 26 weeks of paid parental leave because that bill is still coming before this Parliament, and I look forward to that. I am surprised to be speaking on this bill in urgency because, after all, nothing in this bill comes in until 2015. So I am quite surprised. I am not sure what the urgency is over passing this bill through all stages tonight. I can only think that the Government is embarrassed by my bill, which is still on the Order Paper, and it wants to try to get in front of it.

Well, here is another issue that I want to raise. I have got to say that although I will get on and talk about children’s things because I think that is important—because that is what this is all about; this is all about the children—what I have learnt through this exercise is to never trust a Tory. I have learnt to never trust a Tory. It is a disgrace that Chris Auchinvole was on his feet and even speaking on a bill about this issue, I have got to say, because Chris Auchinvole was the MP who made the agreement with me, on behalf of his caucus, that if there was to be any extension to paid parental leave, it would be done in my bill in my name.

💬 Chris Auchinvole: Oh!

Yes, you did, Mr Auchinvole—yes, you did. That is why I will never trust a Tory. It is why I will never trust a Tory. There he is, pretending that he never made that agreement on behalf of his caucus, but he did. National came to me and asked for an extension because it was going to reconsider its position. National said it was going to make amendments to my bill and discuss that with me.

💬 Chris Auchinvole: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Although it is a reasonable debate and it is an important one, I really do object to being called a Tory.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): That is not a point of order.

I am not going to continue to talk about that particular issue any more, except just to note that Mr Auchinvole did not object to being called untrustworthy. To continue, speaking about what Tories have had to say about this issue, I do want to talk about one more Tory before I talk about children, and that is Judith Collins, who in 2004 said about paid parental leave: “It is another example of the Government using taxpayers’ money to try to win some votes.” That is what Judith Collins said in 2004. If she were here now, if she was not on leave, as she is—

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: No, no. She’s here. She’s hiding in the Beehive.

Oh, she is here. Well, look, come down, Judith. Come and take a call on the debate—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Order! Do not refer to the absence of a member.

Judith Collins? OK. Actually, I am also quite interested that the National Party has put male after male after male up to speak on this bill, but, in fact, when it comes to my bill on paid parental leave, National will not let the men anywhere near it, strangely enough. National will only let the women in the party talk.

What I really want to say is that this bill is a really good bill because it puts the issue right in front of the public. They can now see which Government it is that would actually prioritise families. They can see it, absolutely, because they know that a Labour-led Government will have 26 weeks of paid parental leave and will have it in place a long way before the Government even gets to its 18 weeks—even before it gets to its 18 weeks. The public also know that it is the Labour Party that will ensure that all children reap the benefit of policy making under a Labour-led Government.

One of the big gaps in this bill—surprise, surprise—from National is that it is the most vulnerable children who will miss out on any form of support from this bill. The parental tax credit that National has chosen to put more money into and to extend for a short period of time longer does not get to the people who most need it. It does not get to the families who most need it. Students, people on ACC, and people who are beneficiaries do not get to use the parental tax credit. Is it any wonder that child poverty is growing under that Government? Is it any wonder, with those sorts of attitudes? What the Government is using this bill to do is to bring in all of its judgments—

💬 David Bennett: Prove it.

I will prove it, Mr Bennett, if you would just actually listen to my speech. I did hear Mr Bennett before doing a tiny 2-minute speech. He could not even talk about children and families for longer than 2 minutes. I heard him speaking and asking: “Where is Sue Moroney?”. Well, Sue Moroney was doing lots and lots of media interviews because the media understands where this bill comes from. It understands what the driving force has been, even if David Bennett does not want to admit it.

It is a great shame that the National Government again has taken its Cabinet club approach to this bill, has made all the sorts of judgments that it does, and has said that there are only some families that are worthy of this support—only some. Mike Sabin called them hard-working families. He said that this bill is just there to support the hard-working ones. The hard-working babies—really? These are babies. How do they get to be hard-working babies, when they are not even 18 weeks old? They are not even 18 weeks old. But Mike Sabin says that this bill is for only the hard-working babies. That is not the view of the Labour Party. We believe that all children deserve the support of New Zealanders. All children do—particularly the children who are in vulnerable situations. That is why Labour’s Best Start package is considerably better than what this Government is prepared to do.

Why is that? I think it is clear. Everyone in New Zealand knows that this Government has been dragged, kicking and screaming—kicking and screaming—towards supporting extended paid parental leave. It has tried every trick in the book. From 2002 the Government has consistently voted against any form of paid parental leave. It threatened a financial veto—the extreme tool of a financial veto—against extending paid parental leave. The Government has filibustered my bill to try to stop paid parental leave from being extended to 26 weeks. It has used every trick in the book to try to stop this from happening.

In the end, the Government knew that it was on the wrong side of the New Zealand public. National knew that it was losing votes through these popular policies, but still could not bring itself to do it properly. The Government still could not bring itself to do it properly because it fundamentally does not believe in paid parental leave. The Government will never put children at the heart of its policy making because it fundamentally does not get it. Only the hard-working ones—the hard-working babies—are going to get this, according to Mike Sabin. Well, that says just about all you need to know about the National Government. It has been dragged, kicking and screaming, towards this. I am proud of my part in bringing this about, and I applaud the Government for doing the smallest amount it thinks it can get away with in an election year.

I am very proud today to be a member of the National Government, and I am proud of a Budget that has delivered for Kiwi families. This side of the House believes in the support that we are providing today in Budget 2014 for families. One of the things that is really important to me, as a mother of three, is that mothers and families get to choose what happens to and what works for their family and their children. I have to say that one of the things I am really pleased about, with what we are introducing in this legislation today, the Budget Measures (Financial Support for Newborn Children) Bill, is not only extending paid parental leave in terms of length but making it available to more families. We are making it available to more families.

💬 Sue Moroney: You wouldn’t have got it.

I did not get paid parental leave for any of my children. What we have now is a system where paid parental leave is available for more parents. We also have, unlike the other side, made extensions to the parental tax credit. We have increased it and made sure that more of the very vulnerable families will get support that they have never got before. So it is absolute rot for that side of the House to say that the National Government is not committed to families. We are committed to families. In this Budget, $500 million supports the most vulnerable children—the most vulnerable children—in New Zealand. I am proud as a mother, and I am proud as a member of the National Government, that this is a Government that is backing families, providing more flexibility for parents, and supporting those most vulnerable children.

I understand the next call is a split call—5 minutes, Carol Beaumont.

We are rising on the Labour side to speak in favour of this bill, the Budget Measures (Financial Support for Newborn Children) Bill. We are acknowledging that there is a small improvement being made here for paid parental leave—something that Labour has long championed and something that, as we have already heard tonight, we see needs to be significantly lifted, to 26 weeks. My colleague Sue Moroney has worked tirelessly on this matter, as has 26 for Babies. This is a small step, a very small step, but it is a deeply, deeply cynical one, I have to say.

This is coming from the party that voted against paid parental leave every single time. It voted against it every single time. Its members have been filibustering for weeks now to stop Sue Moroney’s bill, the Parental Leave and Employment Protection (Six Months’ Paid Leave) Amendment Bill, from actually getting in front of this House because they know that it has the support of the majority of MPs in this House. And it has threatened to veto that bill once it is passed. That is that party over there. So this bill is deeply cynical. It is because it is an election year and it is because National knows that it is on the wrong side of this in terms of the public, because the public support paid parental leave.

Of the submitters on Sue Moroney’s bill, 99.6 percent were submitting in favour of it. The public support it because we all know that paid parental leave is vital for our families. It is vital for ensuring that children get the best start, and it is also good for those children’s mothers, who are the primary caregivers, because it enables women to better balance paid work and family and it gives women choices. These are reasons why paid parental leave is so important. It is also important for babies to bond with their mothers, particularly. All of the evidence shows that bonding is about ensuring that a child gets the best possible start—health-wise, emotionally, and developmentally—so that bonding is important. Those are the reasons why paid parental leave is vitally important, except that we are talking here about 2 more weeks next year and 2 more weeks the year after, when what we need is an immediate boost to 26 weeks, which enables women to do 6 months’ exclusive breastfeeding and really facilitates that. Again, all of the evidence shows that breastfeeding is really important. The World Health Organization has long promoted 6 months’ exclusive breastfeeding when that is possible. This bill will not help that. It will be a small step—a very small step.

It is important that we support our children and families, and the Budget supposedly talks about doing that. This is where this part has come from. Supporting children and families is a vital investment in our future, but our Best Start package is a much more significant step to doing that. It is a much more significant start for our families, because under what the Government is proposing, the most vulnerable will not actually benefit. The most vulnerable will not be getting that extra tax credit—14,000 are excluded, we understand. I noticed that widened eligibility was referred to in the speech, which I have to say I think is really important, but casual workers—some of the most low-paid workers, potentially—do not even get on the horizon until 2016. I have just heard Minister Simon Bridges say this in his speech. Again, the things that potentially would have helped the most vulnerable are being excluded from the bill we are debating here tonight.

While we are talking about supporting children and families, nothing in today’s Budget does anything to help the 285,000 children living in poverty, because there are no plans. There are no plans to increase jobs so that people can get ahead. There are no plans to lift wages. There is nothing in the Budget that deals with those things, which are really about supporting families and children, because children live in families. As an alternative, Labour has very clear plans in these areas—a target around increasing jobs and a target of unemployment dropping to 4 percent by 2017 and lifting wages immediately. We have economic development plans around lifting value and productivity in our economy to ensure that we can provide quality jobs. We will be moving amendments in the Committee stage to try to improve this bill, which is a small improvement.

It is my pleasure to take the second Green Party call on the Budget Measures (Financial Support for Newborn Children) Bill, which I note, having now had 10 minutes to read some of it, is an omnibus bill that amends both the Parental Leave and Employment Protection Act and the Income Tax Act.

I note that in the general policy statement that is with the preamble to the bill, one of the things it says is that it is targeted to lower and middle income working families, particularly the extension, or the increase, in the tax credit. With this legislation, the tax credit will rise from $150 per week for 8 weeks to $220 per week for the first 10 weeks following the birth of a child, but the eligibility has been tightened, and that does give us some concern.

The other concern we have with this is that although it says that it is for lower and middle income working families, it does nothing for the lowest-income families. Our policy has always been to extend that tax credit to those who need it most. We will be putting forward an amendment to amend this bill, to ensure that we can have that happen for those most vulnerable families, the ones that are most in need.

What families need is enough to live on, and although we support the principle of extending the tax credit, essentially what would lift them out of poverty is increased wages. This Budget, I have to note, has done very little to ensure that working families and those who are living below the poverty line and are in paid employment are able to get ahead. These tax credit measures are basically the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff, and we really do need to be starting to think in preventative terms about raising the standard of living so that we can address those poverty issues, because the costs are socialised—we all pay for them in the end.

When looking at this legislation you can tell that this is election year. I know that there are people on this side of the House who have said it, but, for the record, I will state it again. This is an attempt by the Government to take the benefit of Sue Moroney’s member’s bill, which would have put in place 26 weeks’ paid parental leave, take the credit away from her, and basically introduce some small measures in the interim because it is election year. I do believe and I do agree with this side of the House that it is cynical.

We do support the bill—we would be mad not to—because it takes some small steps towards improving conditions and provisions for, particularly, women who are bearing children while they are in the workforce. But our policy is for 13 months’ paid parental leave. Though this bill is a step in the right direction, to some extent it does feel like lip-service. Others have outlined the benefits of paid parental leave, but I will go through why 13 months is actually what we should be aiming for. We are at the lowest scale in ranked OECD countries for paid parental leave. Thirteen months would mean that there is a longer-term approach to child and maternal health.

It is interesting, actually, to hear the arguments that are being presented by the National Government around the parental leave provisions that it is putting forward, because they are quite oppositional to what it said some weeks ago when Sue Moroney’s bill was first introduced. But I take heart from the fact that the Government has started to recognise the benefits of paid parental leave. The Greens would seek to extend it well beyond 16 weeks, to 18 weeks, and then to 13 months.

I am very pleased to rise in support of the Budget Measures (Financial Support for Newborn Children) Bill. As my colleague Louise Upston noted not only politically but from her experience, as did members on this side of the House, National recognises the real importance of children. We have heard Opposition members talk about paid parental leave in this first reading debate. We have heard some who want 26 weeks, some who want a full year, and some who want even more than a year. I wait for the call that we make it 3 years because that is the most important cycle. What is really important here is that National is responding in a prudent fashion to a need that we have seen for many years.

💬 Hon Members: Ha, ha!

Again, all we hear from the other side is laughing. We have not heard any interest in children from members on the other side of the House. They would rather talk about themselves. National is proud to support children, and I commend this bill to the House.

Bill read a first time.

Second Reading