Budget Measures (Financial Support for Newborn Children) Bill

I move, That the Budget Measures (Financial Support for Newborn Children) Bill be now read a second time. As I set out in the first reading of the bill, it is fundamentally about providing increased—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): I am sorry to interrupt the honourable Minister. [Interruption] Order! Sorry to interrupt the honourable Minister. The time has come for me to leave the Chair.

Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.

As I set out in my the first reading speech on this bill, this is fundamentally about providing increased and targeted support within current economic conditions for working parents with newborns. This bill provides more targeted assistance for working mothers and caregivers of newborn children to ensure families with a newborn are supported to give that child the best possible start in life.

I would like to take this opportunity to outline in more detail some of the broader work we will be doing around the paid parental leave system. It is the combined impact of the changes made by this bill and the broader changes that will start to see significant benefits for modern working families. As I mentioned earlier, I am developing further changes to ensure New Zealand’s parental leave framework better reflects modern working arrangements in today’s diverse family structures.

The proposals will be consulted on with employees and employers and other New Zealanders later this year. Specifically, I intend to consult on proposals that would see parental leave payments extended to people in less regular jobs, such as seasonal and casual workers, those with more than one employer, and people who have recently changed jobs.

The proposals would see primary carers providing permanent foster care akin to adoption, such as Home for Life parents, people who have permanent guardianship, biological fathers, and grandparents caring for grandchildren, eligible for the leave providing they meet the work test criterion. The proposals would allow employees to work limited hours or days and keep up skills development during their paid and unpaid leave period. Also, they would allow workers who have been with their employer for more than 6 months but less than a year to be entitled to some form of unpaid leave.

I am aiming to have these changes in place by 1 April 2016. By that time this legislation will be fully implemented and better supporting families. The paid parental leave entitlement will be at 18 weeks, and the changes to the parental tax credit will also have been in operation for a year by that point. The Government believes that these amendments will benefit New Zealand through providing working families with newborn children the financial certainty and confidence needed to take the time off work to care for, and bond with, their children. Further, these changes will produce positive social and economic benefits in a fiscally responsible way. I commend this bill to the House.

I note that the Minister of Labour in his address said that the Budget Measures (Financial Support for Newborn Children) Bill was aimed at giving families the financial certainty that would be beneficial to them and their newborn babies at that really crucial stage of development. But let us be honest. It does not do that for everyone. In fact, as Labour members have pointed out through the early stages of this debate, the most vulnerable families and children remain untouched by this Government’s proposal tonight and that, amongst other things, will be the most significant defining feature, apart from the fact that our package runs for longer, reaches more people, and is more generous.

Aside from all of those fundamental features, one of the most significant is the fact that the National Government’s policy leaves vulnerable families absolutely untouched. If, as National members have purported in their general statements to this House, their Budget is targeted—targeted—at vulnerable families and children, how is it that the poorest families in New Zealand are excluded from this bill? How can that be? That demonstrates to me that this Budget has been more about rhetoric than it has been about practice.

I also want to point out that in comparison to Labour’s Best Start package, which fundamentally aimed to treat as many children as possible equally in terms of the assistance it gave families, the only children in families excluded from the Best Start package were those families who earned over $150,000—and even then, those ones might have been eligible for paid parental leave and could have received paid parental leave. The only ones outside paid parental leave who were excluded were families who earned a combined income of $150,000 in the year that they were taking leave—so not a large number of families; roughly about 5 percent. Under National, the families who are excluded are basically the ones who are earning roughly less than $20,000 per annum. What a telling story that is, so I will let that speak for itself.

I wanted to see then, in that context, what kinds of issues were raised in the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act analysis of the bill that we are debating tonight. It said under the departmental disclosure statement, which we received late this afternoon, that advice had been provided to the Attorney-General on whether any provisions of the bill appeared to limit any of the rights and freedoms affirmed in the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990. It said, yes, that information had been provided and we could find that advice on the website.

I would like to just raise with the Minister and the officials that, despite my searches, I have been unable to find that analysis on the Ministry of Justice website and I would implore the Government that if it is indeed available it would be very beneficial to members on this side of the House if that were tabled in the House. All of the regulatory impact statements have been tabled at the same time as the bill, but the last time I checked I had not seen the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act assessment. I will check again for that New Zealand Bill of Rights Act assessment, but it would be very useful if members on this side of the House had that available to us.

But, as I said, I have had the opportunity to look at the regulatory impact statements, and, particularly, I found very useful the statement that was provided by, I believe, the Department of Labour. These statements are very useful. If I were to assess what they were doing, they basically give the kind of analysis that is often provided in a Cabinet paper. They tend to look at the problem definition and will often then provide some analysis of the pros and cons of different options that may or may not have been presented to a Minister. The giveaway often that it is not exactly the same as probably those early briefing papers is that often the analysis in the regulatory impact statement will home in on one option and it will be the one the Government has gone for. That is a little clue that sometimes they have been written after the fact.

But I find it interesting that the Department of Labour has included the following statements under what it calls “problem definition” when looking at the issue of extra support for new families. It states: “Currently, some families experience poor outcomes due to financial pressure on working mothers to return to the workforce earlier than is desirable for health and social reasons.” It then goes on to say that some of the examples of this are, for instance, “suboptimal bonding between parents and their children, leading to poorer outcomes for children and therefore society. Secure attachment is an important predictor of resilience in later life and a large body of evidence suggests that many adolescent difficulties, including crime, substance abuse, and mental health, have their beginnings in early childhood.” I want to point out that the footnote for this piece of research and evidence comes directly from Sir Peter Gluckman, his piece in May 2011, Improving the Transition: Reducing Social and Psychological Morbidity During Adolescence. All of the statements made in the problem definition by the department of labour this side of the House would absolutely agree with. They were the founding principles for the Best Start payment.

I want to, though, just ask this question: does suboptimal bonding between parents and their children, leading to poorer outcomes, and secure attachment as an important predicator of resilience in later life stop becoming an issue at 18 weeks? That is surely the fundamental question we should be asking, because the Government has said: “Yes, we accept maybe 14 weeks might be contributing to the problem. An extra 4 weeks should do it.” Is it enough?

If we look at the rest of the evidence that the department of labour has pulled out, it goes on to say that there are reduced health and development benefits of not achieving the World Health Organization’s recommendation of exclusive breastfeeding for the first 6 months—for example, improved outcomes to mother and specific benefits to babies, such as “improved cognitive development and visual acuity, reduced risks of types 1 and 2 diabetes, reduced childhood obesity and coeliac disease, reduced mortality during the first year of life, and long-term benefits for cardiovascular health.” That comes from the American Academy of Paediatrics. That is a reference to 6 months of paid parental leave, not 18 weeks. And wait, there is more, from the Australian Productivity Commission, on paid parental leave. I want to point out to members who have just arrived that I am actually reading from advice provided to the Government by a Government department.

💬 Mike Sabin: Thank you.

No problem, Mr Sabin. It then goes on to say: “not achieving child and maternal health and welfare benefits from the primary caregiver having a minimum of 6 months’ leave”—again, 6 months’ leave. “The benefits include better health outcomes for mothers and infants, and better developmental outcomes for children, including cognitive benefits and reduced rates of infant mortality.” The Australian Productivity Commission reports that there is compelling evidence of these benefits from a period of absence from work for the primary caregiver of around 6 months—of around 6 months—and a reasonable prospect that longer periods, of 9 to 12 months, are beneficial.

The advice that was provided to the Government pointed strongly to 26 weeks, which is the very amount of paid parental leave that Labour has strongly advocated for. Yet what options were put to the Government? Not 6 months—no, not 26 weeks. Instead, it was always the extension of just 4 weeks. And why? What was the rationale in the paper? It said that the Parental Leave and Employment Protection (Six Months’ Paid Leave) Amendment Bill currently before Parliament, which seeks to extend paid parental leave from 14 to 26 weeks in three stages, basically was not something they would be putting forward as an option, because of the prioritisation of Budget allocations.

Let me say this: Peter Gluckman has pointed out in this report that poor attachment, poor health outcomes through lack of breastfeeding, all of the resilience issues and psychological issues that come about from poor early development—those things cost more than 6 months of paid parental leave will ever cost. It was about investing to save, and that is where this bill has failed.

Contrary to what that last speaker, Jacinda Ardern, said, I say that the Budget Measures (Financial Support for Newborn Children) Bill is about investing in the future of New Zealand. It is investing in our young people, it is investing in our families, and it is making sure that in the most difficult of times, when we have now reached a Budget surplus, we use that money for the benefit of our younger citizens and our families. It is a prudent Budget that brings a surplus of $372 million. Compare that with our Australian brothers and sisters, and you will see that they are cutting things, whereas in New Zealand we are enhancing things. We are sending out programmes for families. These are important programmes that will benefit the future of our country going forward. They will raise stronger families, with young children who will have their opportunities to be successful members of the New Zealand and world communities.

This bill is important because we are increasing the length of paid parental leave up to 18 weeks from the current 14 weeks. That will be staggered, increasing to 16 weeks on 1 April 2015 and to 18 weeks on 1 April 2016. There is a member opposite from somewhere down in Dunedin—

💬 Dr David Clark: Sue Moroney would take it further.

“Sue Moroney would take it further.”—that is the comment from the Labour Party. Let us have a look. We have delivered for parents. Did the Labour Party deliver for parents? No, it did not. It talked, talked, and talked. It has not delivered. We have delivered. We have brought home what parents wanted. This is the difference: Labour talks; we deliver. We have delivered at the right time.

When we look at it, there is also the extension of paid parental leave to people who are in similar permanent care arrangements, such as those with parenting orders. So it is broader than just increasing the weeks. We are actually looking at a broader-based policy that actually takes into account the different circumstances that many family relationships have these days. The Minister of Labour needs to be applauded for that—for taking a very positive and open approach and looking beyond the normal family arrangement that was considered the norm. We have also extended parental leave payments to more workers—in particular, those who may recently have changed jobs, seasonal or casual workers, and workers with more than one employer. Again, that is showing the flexibility of this legislation. We are looking at carrying it through into the variations that may be portrayed in the working environment that our younger families face in this modern world.

Things are not as simple as people once expected. There are different arrangements, there are different measures, and there are different ways that people earn their income, and paid parental leave needs to take into account those differences. This legislation gives us the mechanism to do exactly that, and that is something that many parents would have been looking for.

💬 Hon Simon Bridges: Did Sue Moroney’s bill make any difference?

Sue Moroney’s bill, the Parental Leave and Employment Protection (Six Months’ Paid Leave) Amendment Bill, did not do that. Sue Moroney’s bill was just all talk. This is delivery—delivery—of the things that are needed for people. We are making paid parental leave more flexible. There will be some more work to be done on this with public consultation around how that can be done, but, basically, we are making it more flexible to take into account those variations and to make sure that the parents who are entitled to it get that chance to get that paid parental leave. Paid parental leave will be good for our families. It is part of a $500 million package for our families. Labour Party members will say that this is their idea. I never once saw the Labour Party go out there and talk about under-13s getting free medical treatment. I did not see Labour Party members go out there and say that that is what they wanted to do.

💬 Tracey Martin: New Zealand First policy.

We have got some squealing from New Zealand First. Maybe that party’s members said it, but you cannot really rely on what they actually say. The reality is that this is a good, strong Budget. It delivers for families. It delivers for working families—the people whom the Labour Party should have been delivering for, and the people whom National is delivering for. We are delivering in many ways. One of them is through paid parental leave. Another way is through the free doctors visits and prescriptions for under-13s. That is good governance. It is prudent, successful governance, and it is something that many parents and families will congratulate this Government on doing. Thank you.

It is a pleasure to rise and speak to the second reading of the Budget Measures (Financial Support for Newborn Children) Bill. But is the National Party ever scraping the barrel when it puts David Bennett up to speak on this bill? He does not even seem to know that it was the Labour Party that brought in paid parental leave in 2002. He is standing up there and saying that the Labour Party has never delivered to parents. At the time, Judith Collins said that having paid parental leave was vote buying. Well, David Bennett ought to go back and look at history, and then he may be a bit better informed. I think he is probably feeling quite sad that he has had to rely on an Opposition member of Parliament from Hamilton to have some influence over his Government, given that he cannot have any influence over it himself. But never mind, he got to speak.

💬 David Bennett: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Since when has Sue Moroney been a member from Hamilton?

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: I did not hear the context.

Well, I rest my case, I have to say, with that point of order. There is another thing I would have to say about the speakers National has put up to speak on its own bill, and I think it is quite sad. If I was a woman of the National Government, I would feel quite affronted that the one time they get to vote for extending paid parental leave, they have their men speaking. When National was voting against my bill to extend it to 26 weeks, National put all of its women up to take the heat over voting against it, opposing it. I think that is a very cynical use of the women in National, and I feel very sad for them on that.

The people whom I do want to congratulate are the 26 for Babies coalition; organisations like Plunket, the New Zealand Educational Institute, and Barnados, a whole range of unions that are standing up for working people, and a whole lot of organisations that have relentlessly campaigned on this issue. They are the victors today. They are the people who have won this victory for families, and there is no doubt about that. I also want to congratulate the 3,800 people who made submissions supporting my bill on paid parental leave, because I think they have made a big difference here. I think they have put the pressure on the Government to take this measure.

I also want to thank the thousands of people who sent this e-postcard to the Prime Minister, because I think they have made a real difference for families on Budget day. John Key has probably just about had his email inbox crash with the number of these e-postcards that have been sent to him. I am sure every single person who went on and pushed this e-postcard through to John Key has made a big difference. They have made a big difference to families, and they have certainly had a lot more impact than anyone on those benches opposite has made on this issue, so I congratulate them. I congratulate them on that.

This is a bill that the Labour Party will support because it is better than doing nothing. It is better than doing nothing, but, look, there is not much more than nothing that the Government could have done without doing nothing, to be quite honest.

💬 Mike Sabin: That makes good sense!

Well, it does, because the Government had pressure on it, and it still has pressure on it, because my bill is still coming up before this Parliament.

💬 Chris Auchinvole: It’s all about Sue Moroney.

It is still coming up before this Parliament. Mr Auchinvole, I look forward to you speaking on that bill, because you did promise, after all, that any extensions to paid parental leave would come through that bill. So I look forward to that. But what we have got to do is actually get a consensus about getting to 26 weeks, because this mucking around the edges with 18 weeks—and not even 18 weeks now but 18 weeks over the course of the next 2 years, for goodness’ sake! I have a bill before this House that actually gets us to 18 weeks on 1 July this year—1 July this year—which is, in fact, what the Government should be supporting.

If the Government had really listened to the 3,800 people, 99.6 percent of whom supported my bill, for 26 weeks, then it would, in fact, not be in urgency. Let us face it: the measures in the Government’s bill do not come into force until 2015. They do not even start until 2015, so what is the need for urgency? What is the urgent matter that we are here under urgency debating? It is about getting a bill in front of my member’s bill. That is what it is about; that is why we are in urgency.

Let us focus. Let us stop talking about the politics, because I know it is all about the politics for the National Party, but for the Labour Party it is about people. What—

💬 Hon Member: Yeah, right! Tell us another one.

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I am finding it harder and harder to actually—it is always the case when we are debating children, somehow.

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: I actually think that is a fair call. There has been a spirited period of members interjecting, and I just think we need a little bit more decorum now, please.

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I am not sure what it is about paid parental leave that gets the National Party members yelling and screaming, but it always does.

💬 Mike Sabin: No, just when you talk about yourself.

Well, I will talk about Mr Sabin, who thought that the only people who deserved to get extended paid parental leave were babies who were hard-working! I cannot really understand that, because at 6 months I am not sure how you can work out which is a hard-working baby and which is not. But I digress.

When submitters came before the Government Administration Committee, they said that 26 weeks was important. Plunket referred to that today. It has put out a press statement saying “Yeah, well, 18 weeks is OK, but really what New Zealand families and babies need is 26 weeks.” Plunket has said that because all the research and evidence tells us that if we can get exclusive breastfeeding to 26 weeks, to 6 months, that will make a huge difference to the outcomes for those children. It will mean not only that they have a great opportunity to get some really good secure bonding and attachment with their parent but also that they are set up for a very healthy future.

That is great news not only for that baby and that family but also for the rest of New Zealand, because we all get to save precious taxpayer money on not funding more and more health services. That child gets a healthier life, and we get to save money. That is a win-win. That is the win-win that comes from properly developed policy—26 weeks paid parental leave—not policy on the hoof, not the politics of just trying to get away with as little as possible, like this Government has done.

Everyone in New Zealand knows that this Government has been dragged kicking and screaming towards extending paid parental leave. It has done everything in its power to try to stop this from taking place. It has consistently voted against paid parental leave. It has threatened to use its financial veto. It has filibustered my bill. It even asked me—and I in good faith responded—to extend the report back date of the bill. It has used every trick in the book.

As recently as the end of March this year National members were voting at the select committee against extending paid parental leave. So no one is fooled about this; no one is fooled. The real shame about this is the fact that New Zealand families need a Government that will absolutely commit to this and fully understand the importance of investing properly in families. They need a Government that actually knows that investing in those early years reaps us benefits not just for those families, as I said, but for whole country benefits—if we do it properly.

This half-hearted attempt will not deliver those benefits, and that is what we need. It is becoming more and more obvious that what we need is a Labour-led Government that will take the support of families seriously and will not take half measures, a Government that absolutely fully understands how important it is to invest early, get it right from the beginning, and save ourselves a lot of heartache, a lot of problems, and, yes, a lot of taxpayer money in the future.

I rise to speak again in this process of urgency on the Budget Measures (Financial Support for Newborn Children) Bill. I would like to just pick up on a couple of points made by the Minister of Labour—or one, primarily, about the fiscal responsibility that has enabled the Government to support this initiative at this time. I really do want to remind New Zealand that this bill, we are being told, is going to cost about $172 million a year. That is while the tax cuts that this Government introduced have cost this country $5 billion over the last term of Parliament. The $61 billion of debt that this Government has got the country into—up from $14 billion—has now meant that we are paying $1 billion a year in interest off that debt. That is so much lost opportunity for the children and the families of this country that it really puts this $172 million bill in perspective for me—although I celebrate it because it is a step on the journey and at least it is going in the right direction, unlike those tax cuts and unlike the profligate spending on American-style motorways.

But to get to some of the specific points of the bill again, the Green Party, as I have said, believes passionately in an economy that serves the people and the environment, because, basically, that is what the economy is there for. It is a tool to serve people and the environment. This is a chance to use our shared resources to look after our children. The Green Party wants to see every single child in this country thriving. We want to use our economy in the best way that we can to deliver that for our children. Paid parental leave is a key part of that mix, and we are very pleased to support it.

We are also pleased to be supporting, with a caveat—and I am hoping that others in the House will support my amendments—the extension or increase in payment of the parental tax credit. This tax credit recognises the need for extra financial support for lower-income parents, so that they can spend time with their newborn babies, and helps with the cost of things like nappies, clothes, and other essentials in those first few weeks of life. That is a worthy thing to do. That is going to help take some of the pressure off some of the families who are struggling so much at the moment. It will increase the payment from $150 to $220. Seventy dollars a week for lower and middle-income families is a huge amount and it will make a really big difference. The tragedy of this provision, though, is that it is not being extended to the families who are in the most need and who could really, really make the most out of that $70 a week, and for whom it would make a substantial difference to their quality of life and their ability to care for their newborn baby.

The regulatory impact statement tells us that the intent of this policy provision is to increase the amount of financial support available, and that is the primary objective. Secondly, the intent is to target this additional support to the period around the birth of a new child. Thirdly, the intent is to target this additional support to lower and middle-income families. Fourthly, and sadly, part of the policy intent of this measure for the Government is to minimise any impacts on work incentives, as if parenting is not a job that we should be valuing above all other jobs, and as if parents who are out of the paid workforce should be thinking about being in the paid workforce while their baby is a newborn. Surely—surely—that is not something that we want to be encouraging.

I really would remind the House of some of the submissions—for those on the Government Administration Committee who sat through the submissions—on Sue Moroney’s Parental Leave and Employment Protection (Six Months’ Paid Leave) Amendment Bill on paid parental leave, and some of the stories that we heard about the importance of it, the difference that it made, not having it, and the heartbreak that was wrought. We heard from a nurse working in the intensive care unit who was shocked to discover that so many parents had to leave their babies during the day to go to work because they could not take leave. That has been the reality for families in this country. The extension of paid parental leave to casual and seasonal workers will mean that that is not the reality for some women now, and that is incredibly important. The same concept of need applies in this situation for the parental tax credit.

We heard of one woman who could not afford to take leave as her partner was unable to be in paid work at the time, so she had to return to work 24 hours after giving birth. She told us how she now has to look at photos of her babies to remember those early years, and of the deep sadness of missing all of those key milestones of her baby. It is heartbreaking to think that that is how our society has been operating for so long and that we are now, in 2014, where families can be torn apart in that way when we make policy choices that could prevent that. This paid parental leave provision is a step towards that. It should be 6 months, because that is the breastfeeding milestone and it is the point at which, the research tells us, so much can be done. We actually support 13 months because that is about the establishment of the full family at that time. The parental tax credit is also a way of indicating how we want to support our families and those in the most need. When 285,000 children in this country are living in poverty, and when the families in most need of this financial support at the time of a newborn baby in the family are excluded, it is hard not to see cruelty in that, as well as a level of discrimination, which the courts have recognised, as others have.

💬 Mike Sabin: That’s right—discriminating against people who work.

Yes—Mike Sabin says cynically: “Discriminating against people who work.” Some people are not in a position to work, and I would like to let the member know that in America there has been research done to look at women on the DPB and the reasons they are on the DPB. Over 50 percent of those women overseas were there because they were leaving violent relationships. I would like to ask the member whether he wants those women to get to a place of safety, to be able to support their children, and to stay out of that relationship. If the answer is yes, then you should not be discriminating against those families. We should be nurturing and supporting those families. If you support ending family violence, then you should support universal provision for families.

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order!

He should. I am sorry, Mr Speaker—he should be supporting those. Of course Mr Speaker would support that. I am sorry for bringing you into the debate. I would like to finish, finally, by telling another story that came through in the select committee when it considered Sue Moroney’s bill around the importance of this issue, about a woman with twins who had to go back to work when her twins were 5 months old. She had to leave work every 2½ hours to breastfeed, all while her babies were both still waking at different times of the night to be breastfed. Not surprisingly, this was not sustainable for her, so she resigned after 5 weeks back at work. Three years on, she is still working part-time, outside the industry that she is trained in. She has estimated that that has cost her family about $70,000 because we did not have the policies in place to be able to support her to stay in work at that time. Sadly, the 18 weeks is not quite getting us there either. We can do better as a country. Imagine, if we had not had those tax cuts, how much more we could be offering to our children and our families right now.

It is a great day for New Zealanders today, and New Zealand families in particular, with Budget 2014. One of the speakers before me actually asked what New Zealand families need. Well, it is quite simple. If you ask most New Zealand families what they need and what they want, they want certainty, they want job security, they want to know that they will have the opportunity for their wages to increase over time, and they want to have a Government they know is looking after them. That is exactly what this side of the House is doing.

This is not actually a philosophical argument about paid parental leave—although if people have been listening to this debate, they may have thought that—because this side of the House has supported paid parental leave—[Interruption] No, no—we have supported paid parental leave, and we have supported increases when they are affordable. The key word is “affordable”. So we now have our books balanced. We have surpluses after 5 years of struggles because of what we inherited from that side of the House.

This Government’s economic management has finally got us back to a position where we have surpluses. So what is the first thing we do? The first thing we do is to put half a billion dollars into supporting families, which is absolutely fantastic. More important, we support families and support giving them options and choices. I do want to just remind the House that it was a National Government that introduced the parental tax credit, and it is a National Government that is now looking at extending it and increasing the value of it. As the Minister of Labour said before, we are consulting to find out what are the other opportunities and best ways to reach the most vulnerable parents—the most vulnerable—who are currently not supported. But that side of the House forget about that, because they actually want to scrap it. They want to scrap the parental tax credit, but they are very quiet about that.

So this side of the House is supporting families. We are supporting them in the things that matter most and making sure that we have an economy that is growing, that they have job security, that they are going to get higher wages. At the end of the day, New Zealand families also know that it is really important to balance the books. First and foremost, that is what we have achieved, despite unbelievable challenges. The Minister of Finance was today able to say that we are heading into surplus. We are projecting surpluses for many years to come, unlike the decades of deficit that the other side would have taken us into. So who do we look after first? New Zealand families, with this half a billion dollars. Thank you.

Kia ora, Mr Deputy Speaker. Just to quote for a moment from the New Zealand Herald from way back in March 2014: “A study just published by the Journal of the American Medical Association … found obesity rates among 2- to 5-year-olds in America had dropped an impressive 43 per cent over the last decade.”, partly attributable to mothers breastfeeding for longer. We are talking about front-ending the investment. We are talking about front-ending the investment, and certainly every party in the House is supporting the Budget Measures (Financial Support for Newborn Children) Bill, because we all believe in parents. Like Mrs Upston, I am also a mother of three children. Unlike Mrs Upston, I was able to make a choice to stay at home for 15 years as a parent, and—

💬 Louise Upston: I made a choice.

Exactly. We both made—

💬 Louise Upston: Mothers should have a choice.

Mrs Upston is now actually choosing to create an argument about who was better than what, and there is no argument here. I merely was saying to Mrs Upston that I was drawing a parallel in the fact that we are both mothers of three and we both had an opportunity to make a choice. Mrs Upston seems to have got upset about that fact, but that is the reality. We both had an opportunity to make a choice, and where I am going to is—

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. It used to be a tradition in this place that people did not speak, or screech, as they walked around the Chamber, taking advantage of their role as whips. Mrs Upston just did that, continuously screeching as she went from her seat and out the door. I think that you should have pulled her up.

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Well, it has been a reasonably spirited debate. The member is quite right. Members should not be walking around the Chamber and—I have probably neglected that, but in the course of the debate I have probably neglected a few things. I apologise. Let us have a bit more decorum.

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. So the point I was trying to make is that both Mrs Upston and I had choice. Part of that choice, in my case, was about the fact that my husband earned over $65,000 a year, as a winemaker, so we were able to actually have one parent at home—one of us at home. There was no paid parental leave for me looking after my children at that time, in the same way that Mrs Upston talked about the fact that there was no paid parental opportunity for her, and those were the times that we were in.

But times have changed quite substantially for families where we are today, and where I am coming to is to the regulatory impact statement, at point 7 on page 3: “The [family tax credit] and the [in-work tax credit] are currently abated at 21.25 cents in the dollar when annual family income exceeds $36,350.”—$36,350. “The [parental tax credit] is also abated at 21.25 cents in the dollar; however the amount of the abatement is calculated against 56 days of annualised income, rather than a full year’s worth of income; this creates an effective [parental tax credit] abatement rate of 3.26 cents [in the dollar].”, and this means that this will happen “dollar for dollar until a family’s income reaches $21,216 after tax.”

Why do I raise those figures? Why are they in the regulatory impact statement? Because there are changes in the family tax credit and the in-work tax credit ratios and abatement rates that are going to kick in at the same time as this bill goes through. The reason I raise those figures is that that is actually what the National Government believes are low to middle income earner rates. But let us give the Government a little bit more benefit of the doubt, shall we? Let us give it the benefit of the doubt that it actually believes that $50,000 gross annual middle income—and what it has done, quite carefully and quite interestingly, is made a large announcement about the fact that the payment rate rises from $110 a week to $200 and something - odd a week. I am sure that one of the National Party members will be so completely au fait with the numbers in here that they will be able to stand up when they take a call and make sure that what I am saying is correct.

For lower and middle income working families, the parental tax credit increase is $220 per week for the first 10 weeks following birth, and currently it is $150 a week for 8 weeks. But this change starts to pay it back faster, on a dollar for dollar basis, from the moment that that income starts to get towards $21,216 after tax. I think that we have not had enough time to study these numbers. We have not had enough time to study these numbers because this bill has been dropped on us. But that is a really interesting change, and I would suggest that somebody out there needs to really crunch some numbers while we are down here in the House until midnight, talking about the bills that this Government is going to push through under urgency.

So although an extension to 18 weeks is good news, it is crumbs. It is crumbs, once again, about which this Government is saying: “Be grateful to us, New Zealand. Be grateful to us.” Let us not forget, as, quite rightly, it has been pointed out before, that this Government is the Government that in its first year increased, by millions of dollars, the funding to private schools. And in one of its first Budgets, it did a tax swap, by cutting the tax rate for the highest income earners and shifting that—yes, it was fiscally neutral, according to the Minister of Finance—tax loss on to those low and middle income earners, who are the same low and middle income earners who will be affected by this clause.

So that is why it is important for everybody to realise what is middle income according to the National Government, because that is not being altered—that is not being altered. As times have got harder, that threshold has not been moved upward. So middle-income New Zealand needs to have a very good look at this overnight and tomorrow, and then come back and make sure that it understands what is going on in this bill.

Can I also say that one of the other reasons why—and we are trying to get across to the National Government that, actually, everything is about money in this House at the end of the day. It is not our money, and we all understand that—it belongs to the taxpayers of New Zealand. But it is about making sure that what you spend in one place is a good investment, so that you end up actually saving money in the long term. Just like a $359 million, top-down - driven Budget item for education, instead of front-ending the spend so that children of 5 and 6 are actually supported in their schools, once again the Government has been tight-fisted at the front end of life, at the beginning of life. We already see—and the reason why I started with the quote—that the savings at the other end are so great. So it is disappointing that there is, again, this short-sighted vision.

If you have a look at some of the Budget documents—and there are people trying to do that right now, trying to catch up on what has gone on, because we have only just received it—you can look at some of the very interesting spend there. It comes out of two different pools agreeably, but there are millions of dollars being set aside for a PaCT tool in the education budget that could very easily have been shifted over to actually support the parental tax credit going to 26 weeks. There are some very interesting spend decisions in this Budget that have not been in the Minister of Finance’s speech that New Zealanders need to have a strong, hard look at to see whether what is being offered to them, this small piece that the National Government actually wants you to be grateful for, is truly the ability that it has to give to you, of your own money—of your own money.

The National Government likes to talk about its largesse. It likes to talk about its spend of $10 million here and its spend of $10 million there. The Government has no money but that which belongs to the taxpayer, and the taxpayer has made it perfectly clear—

💬 Mike Sabin: Or, in some cases, the ratepayer.

—perfectly clear—through the very hard lobbying, the incredible lobbying, that was done by families and mothers and people without children who said: “We actually want to stand up for newborn babies in this country. We believe that truly to provide an option, we need to support increasing this to 26 weeks.”

Mr Sabin, of course, has given us his wisdom over there, from the other side of the House, ranting on, saying: “Goodness me! We would not possibly want to support babies and children for a year.” Of course Mr Sabin is completely uninformed with regard to the Nordic nations and the amazing job that they do of supporting their children, and the support that they put into their education systems and the high success that they have. But Mr Sabin is not interested in that. Mr Sabin will follow the party line. Like he did for Kaipara, he will follow the party line. He will not fight for the people of New Zealand; he will follow the line that the National Party tells him to follow.

I am not sure where the member Tracey Martin was going with my Nordic knowledge. I am quite happy to stand here in this House and say that I have a really limited knowledge of the Nordic approach to supporting children, but I have a very good knowledge of what the National Party does to support children, to support families in this country, and this bill, the Budget Measures (Financial Support for Newborn Children) Bill, is actually a very good example of it. I am actually feeling very privileged to be able to speak on this bill, because according to Sue Moroney this is not a bill that men can speak on, apparently. No—no; heaven forbid that the National Party might have a few fathers who stand up to speak on a bill that deals with parent—

💬 Sue Moroney: That’s not what I said and you know it.

Well, it is, Ms Moroney. It is, actually. You were chastising the National Party because of the men who were speaking on this bill. Heaven forbid that men might have something to do with procreation of children. There you go. Call me old-fashioned, but I think we do. I have got three lovely children, none of whom—

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: One of them is a hell of a lot brighter than his father.

What is that, sorry?

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: One of them is a hell of a lot brighter than his father.

Well, that is probably true. What happens is an evolutionary process where the offspring become more intelligent.

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: He’s obviously got a brighter mother.

I am happy to accept that—I am happy to accept that. He has certainly tripped that member up a few times, so there you go. You must be right on song.

If we look at this package, there has been some discussion about the fact that this is a narrow focus on a small set of people, but, actually, this is part of a $500 million package, much of which actually goes far broader than people are acknowledging here. It has some $90 million - odd that will go towards supporting children up to the age of 13 getting free doctors visits. That will be something. That will be very good in Northland. There is $155 million to help our early childhood education centres, and has this Government not done a very good job in that space? There is $33 million to enhance the work that we are doing with vulnerable children around the vulnerable children’s teams.

Tracey Martin mentioned the $359 million, which she pooh-poohs, but, actually, ensuring that we have good leadership and excellent teachers in our classrooms to enhance young people’s opportunities to be good contributors to New Zealand is a very positive thing. That is front-loading. People can cherry-pick one piece or another, but the reality is that this Government is doing a lot across a lot of areas, but it is doing it in a prudent, responsible, and careful manner. That is why we are back in surplus. That is why we will grow at 4 percent next year, and that is why we will continue to be the Government beyond the election—plain and simple.

It is pretty unusual for a member of the Opposition to contribute in the Budget debate in support of legislation, but I have to say that I am very pleased that I am able to do that. The Budget Measures (Financial Support for Newborn Children) Bill is a good bill. It has not got the snappiest title. It could have been called the “Paid Parental Leave Extension and Parental Tax Credit Extension Bill”, which probably would have been less snappy, but the content of it is something that should be supported.

The bill does not go nearly as far as we would like. It does not go nearly as far as the bill that Sue Moroney has had before this Parliament for a long time, which has been to a select committee, been through an extensive consultation process, and, in fact, had 3,809 submissions. There were 3,809 submissions on Sue Moroney’s extension to paid parental leave bill, which was drawn out of the members’ bill ballot. Of those 3,809 submissions, 99.6 percent agreed in total with Sue Moroney’s bill. That is not a bad record, and that is why I cannot work out why we are getting this half-hearted, “Labour-lite”, “we’d better do something because we’re clearly in bother”, “fudge-it Budget” bill. Why did National not just support a decent bill, when 99.6 percent of 3,809 submitters supported it?

I was very interested in the contribution, not actually from Mr Sabin particularly—although it was a robust contribution and I am sure that he believes everything that he said—but from his colleague Louise Upston, who stood in this House and said: “This is not an ideological debate. There’s nothing ideological about paid parental leave. We’ve always supported paid parental leave.” I am a bit concerned about the member’s memory. It is quite early on a Thursday night and she has totally forgotten the voting history of her party since 2002, when we were in Budget surplus.

When Labour introduced the first-ever paid parental leave provisions into legislation in New Zealand, National voted against it—100 percent of National members voted against it; 100 percent of Labour members voted for it—and National members said some very unusual things during that debate. So for the senior whip of the National Party to come into this House and go, shock, horror: “This is not an ideological debate. We’ve always supported paid parental leave.”, beggars belief, because it is just not true. It is not credible.

In fact, I think the most credible thing that could be added to the debate is to revisit some of the quotes that were made during that original 2002 debate and consider them and the fact that here on 15 May we are only a few months away from the 2014 election. One of the interesting contributors to that debate was Judith Collins, who said during the paid parental leave debate: “It is another example of the Government using taxpayers’ money to try to win some votes. Who would have thought that a Government, that Government, would try to use taxpayers’ money to win some votes?”.

I have not heard Minister Collins—I think she is still a Minister. I have not heard the Hon Judith Collins take a call yet in this debate, but I would like to hear her and see whether we can measure her contribution during the earlier paid parental leave debate, which was introduced by a Labour-led Government with a surplus in our Budget, when it was opposed by the National Party for all sorts of strange reasons.

I would much prefer the rigorous process that the Government Administration Committee went through, with, actually, some excellent contributions from the National members—I must admit, on the public record now, that I think they have contributed very well—and the rigorous attention to the money, asking how much is it going to cost, what can we afford, when should it come in, and who might be impacted best and worst out of the people who are currently entitled to receive paid parental leave.

And then we looked at the broader social impacts of extending paid parental leave. We looked at the impacts on the education system, on early childhood, and on the health system. There was nowhere that we looked where Sue Moroney’s bill did not stack up to be a smart idea. That bill should have been reported back to this House some time ago, and I think it would have got a majority of the support of this House. In fact, it still might. It is a darned sight better than this bill.

Why was it that the Government did not support us reporting that bill back on time, having gone through a proper process, with 3,809 submissions, a large number of which we heard, and 99.6 percent of which supported Sue Moroney’s extension to paid parental leave? Why did the Government not support us getting the bill back at the right time, yet weeks and weeks and weeks later here we are, under urgency, passing a bill that does half of it? This is like a “Labour-lite” excuse. Not only does it not do the proper job, it does not do it nearly as well as the comprehensive package that Sue Moroney proposed. It introduces—what is it; just 2 weeks—a 2-week extension, on April Fool’s Day next year. Why is this bill being rammed through under urgency? Why is it necessary to do it under urgency when it does not come into effect until April next year and we have already done all the work at the select committee? We would be happy to pick it up and do a decent job of it.

I get really frustrated when there is no need for urgency and the public, who are actually the people who are the beneficiaries of this additional support, are being denied their right to have a say. What is the Government scared of that it will not put this bill through even a truncated select committee process? Some people, Minister Bridges, might come along and say they support it. I think the Minister of Labour should welcome the chance to have one thing that he has initiated during his entire term as a Minister being supported by members of the public. If I were that Minister I would jump at that chance.

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: Other than Christine Rankin.

💬 Hon Simon Bridges: She might be in Parliament later this year.

She might be. Simon’s eyes light up at the prospect that he has just outlined. I do not actually think it is likely.

I do not understand why members of the public are not being given an opportunity to have a say on this bill. There is nothing urgent about it. It is not like the old-fashioned Budget urgency provisions that would come into effect at midnight. Remember, Mr Sabin? You might be too young, but your grandparents may have told you about the olden days when people used to wait for Budget day, and then they would go down to the petrol station and fill their car up with petrol in case the Government put the price of petrol up that night. That was real urgency, not like this measure, which has no need for urgency at all. It is straight cutting the public out, and I think that is a shame.

I just want to quickly quote another couple of National members, because I think it is worthwhile putting on the record what they really think about paid parental leave. Anne Tolley said, when it was first introduced: “Paid parental leave shows how the Labour-Alliance Government is stuck in the radical feminist era of the 1960s and 1970s … and is completely out of touch with women of the 21st century and their diverse involvement in today’s labour force.” Then she said: “This is about paid parental leave that we are extending under the National Government under urgency.” She said: “This is bad legislation. It is a travesty.” Well, Mr Bridges, welcome to the radical feminist era of the 1960s and 1970s, which you are supporting. I do not think Mr Bridges was born then. I do not think he was even born then.

Nick Smith said in 2002, and I would not be surprised if Minister Smith repeated this during this debate: “I say that if a member went out of their way to draft a dumb bill, this would have to be it.” I am sure the Hon Nick Smith would be happy to repeat that allegation in the House today.

I think this bill is a good step forward. It is half-hearted and it is not as good as the bill we proposed, but I am glad the Government has finally come to its senses on at least one issue.

With regard to the last speaker, Ruth Dyson, who has just resumed her seat, I am delighted to think that National has produced a bill, the Budget Measures (Financial Support for Newborn Children) Bill, that Labour agrees should be supported.

I am very pleased and I am conscious of the work that was done on the oft-repeated title of Sue Moroney’s “My Bill”. I thought that once it hit the Government Administration Committee it might have been ours, but it seems not; it seems to have been just hers. But if Labour agrees that this Budget Measures (Financial Support for Newborn Children) Bill is a bill worthy of support, I am very, very pleased, because I think it is worthy of support.

Let us listen to the objections to it and why we did not take Sue’s bill. Let us look at it. This bill that we are speaking about now is part of a considered level of support designed to support families on a wide basis, which is something I would have thought Labour would wish to be associated with. There are five parts to the package, and I really do hope Labour will be true to its roots and will support the other parts of the package. Let us just briefly look at what they are.

There is $172 million to boost the paid parental leave scheme—not too bad. We have heard about that; we will no doubt hear a little bit more. There is $42 million to increase the parental tax credit from $150 a week to $220 a week, and an increase in the entitlement from 8 to 10 weeks from April 2015. There is $90 million—wait for it—to provide free general practitioner visits and free prescriptions for children aged under 13, starting 1 July 2015. It was amazing to me that there were, I think, three Budget speeches from that side of the House during which the leader of each party said “What are you going to tell the parents of children who can’t afford to send their children to the doctor?”. Well, that has been answered.

There is an additional $156 million to help early childhood education centres to remain accessible and affordable, and to meet the demand pressures and increased participation towards the Government’s 98 percent target—98 percent. Surely Labour would support that. There is $33 million to help vulnerable children, including eight new children’s teams around the country to identify and work with at-risk children and their families, to screen people who work with children, and to support children in care.

Which of those elements would the Labour Party like to see cut out to support Sue Moroney’s “My Bill”? I think all those elements are important. I think all those elements are a feature of true Labour Party thinking. I think they should be supported by Labour, and I will congratulate it when it does support them. Thank you.

Dr David Clark—this is a split call.

I rise to my feet to speak in a split call, as you rightly point out, to support the Budget Measures (Financial Support for Newborn Children) Bill, which is an important but tepid step in the right direction from an out-of-touch Government. I think that it is important to recognise that it is following Labour’s lead and it is trying to take some small steps in the right direction. It should at least be congratulated on that effort. The bill sits within a Budget that is a lost opportunity. It is a lost opportunity to present a coherent vision for the future of New Zealand and for New Zealanders. It is scattered, backward-looking, and incoherent overall. It lacks aspiration.

The paid parental leave aspect of the Budget that we are debating right now is a 2-week extension in a year’s time, followed by another 2-week extension a year after that. We know that these small steps forward take place on April Fool’s Day, and I would like to personally shake the hand of the official who put forward 1 April as the day for the paid parental leave extension. They had their own private laugh. They know that this step forward is a tiny one. They know that this Government is making a fool of itself by not adopting the bill forwarded by Sue Moroney, which would actually make sure that New Zealanders got a decent chunk of paid parental leave so that good parental bonding could happen and so that we could begin to look after our young people, our early childhood sector. We know that they receive less funding and that they are less well supported than most in the OECD, and the Labour measures in our Best Start package, which this dimly imitates, really take a step in that direction. These are tepid steps—these are tepid steps.

I guess the bill lacks aspiration in line with a Government that has more unemployed people than it had when it took office at the height of the global financial crisis. This is a Government that has lowered real median wages. It is a Government that has overseen the highest gap between rich and poor that we have ever had since records were first kept in New Zealand. This is a Government that has produced a wafer-thin surplus. We know it has got there through artificially high ACC levies. We know it has got there through dressing up transport spending as a loan in order to fudge that surplus. Well, the public can see through that. They can see right through it.

💬 Mike Sabin: He’s obviously forgotten about the multiple billions’ worth of deficit—

I can assure Mr Sabin and others that there will be more fudges that come to light in coming days. I have spoken about some of them with tax accountants this evening, and I could hear on the other end of the line that these fudges in the accounts were enough to make tax accountants blush. The ones that this Government is putting through in order to maintain that façade of surplus make tax accountants, even the most hardened tax accountants, blush. This is one of those wafer-thin surpluses. No one wants one of those Mr Creosote moments from Monty Python. No one wants that wafer-thin surplus to be blown out of the water, but it will be in coming days as we see more and more of these fudges coming to light.

This wafer-thin surplus and these tepid steps forward contrast with the future Labour Government, which has a vision for a more inclusive, prosperous New Zealand, one that will produce better jobs—

💬 Mike Sabin: Tell us what it looks like.

—higher wages, and affordable housing, Mr Sabin; good question. That is what it looks like. This is the future Labour Government, which produced the Best Start policies that are being dimly mimicked here in this legislation. I use the word “dimly” advisedly. National’s moves here exclude from support 14,000 of the most vulnerable children, whom the Best Start package put forward by Labour would look after. We want a New Zealand where no one is left out and where no one is left behind. Labour has the policies to do it. We will bring out a universal KiwiSaver, pro-growth tax reform, and monetary policy to lower interest rates and to send savings to New Zealanders and not to overseas banks. We have a Best Start package that includes a child allowance, more paid parental leave, more early childhood education, and better antenatal care. This contrasts with the dim copy that we have from the Government opposite, with its shallow rhetoric and with the words of Judith Collins describing earlier the extension of paid parental leave as another example of this Government using taxpayers’ money to try to win some votes. That is the cynicism from opposite. On this side of the House we want to build together with New Zealanders a better New Zealand.

I rise to take the second short call for the Greens on the Budget Measures (Financial Support for Newborn Children) Bill. We support this bill. We believe that it does not go far enough; I will get into a bit more detail on that in a minute. We do not believe it goes far enough. In terms of the tax credit changes, we do support increasing the length of time that the tax credit is extended to—from 8 weeks to 10 weeks after the birth of a child—and increasing the amount from $150 to $220 per week. We do acknowledge and we do note that the application is much tighter than it had been.

Our policy has been to extend that tax credit to all so that it targets not just those in work but those who have the lowest incomes. Those are the people who are existing on the meagre benefits provided by the State. All families face financial burden when a new baby enters the family. Those with less money struggle more. They have less resilience to the financial shock that the entry of a newborn into a family makes, and the costs that they bring with them. This Government, with this Budget, is picking the winners and the losers, and this Budget is firmly directed at the winners—the 1 percent. By restricting the tax credit to just working families, the Government introduces the Dickensian model of the worthy and the unworthy poor. And it fits with the other measures this Government has introduced that demonise those who are not in paid work and that reinforce the punitive approach this Government takes to those who need State support. If we are to address the income levels and the financial strain that families face when they have a newborn baby, then all people need to be able to live on the income they receive.

We need to get past these stopgap measures. In the regulatory impact statement it says that “poverty is one of the greatest risks to children’s health and development”. It says “reducing parental stress especially in the early years is good for children in the short- and longer-term”. These measures are short-term measures.

Why are they being put in place now? Well, I have to say I am a bit cynical about that. These measures have been pushed through under urgency, yet, in terms of the paid parental leave, they will not be introduced until 2015, when the Government will up paid parental leave to 16 weeks. Then in 2016 it will up paid parental leave to 18 weeks. We suspect that this urgency is deliberate to get through this wee scrap of support for families just before the election. Of course, as we saw with the filibustering that occurred from the National members of Parliament during the first reading of Sue Moroney’s Parental Leave and Employment Protection (Six Months’ Paid Leave) Amendment Bill, the National Government is keen to avoid displeasing the 52 percent of voters who are women by directly opposing the measure to extend parental leave. And judging by the flood of submissions that Sue Moroney’s bill received, that bill was incredibly popular.

There was, of course, the small matter that the Hon Peter Dunne had signalled that he would be supporting the member’s bill. So some concessions have to be made now in order to avoid him forcing the Government to threaten a veto once the bill was passed, because, as we have got a surplus with this Budget, there would be no reason for that veto after all. I have more to say and I will be rising during the Committee of the whole House to do that. Thank you.

New Zealanders are very smart. New Zealanders are very understanding. New Zealanders know exactly what is happening here. What is happening here is that the Government is exercising restraint and fiscal responsibility. It is doing the right thing for New Zealand families, but doing it in a measured fashion. When we listen to the speeches from members in other parties in this House, they just want to spend up large. They do not care how much of an impact that would have on the New Zealand Budget. They just want to spend up large, as much as possible, to win an election. This party is all about doing things in a measured fashion, and that has been the approach of John Key and Bill English in the time that this Government has been presenting Budgets for New Zealanders.

I have been rather appalled by some of the speeches we have been listening to in the House. We have had the double-dipper from Rodney, who has been lecturing other mothers in this House on how to raise children. We have had the Green Party, which is suggesting that 13 months’ paid parental leave is appropriate. I do not know why it does not just suggest 5 years, because that is probably where it will get to eventually. And we have had Sue Moroney, who has made this debate all about Sue. It has been all about Sue, and everything that Sue has done for New Zealand families.

Actually, this Government is delivering for New Zealand families. This Government is delivering extra paid parental leave for New Zealanders in a measured fashion. This Government is extending the parental tax credit. This Government is investing half a billion dollars over the next 4 years into the families of this country. We are proud of that. New Zealanders know that that is a good thing for New Zealand families, and the Budget Measures (Financial Support for Newborn Children) will pass very soon.

Bill read a second time.

In Committee

Part 1 Amendments to Parental Leave and Employment Protection Act 1987