Parental Leave and Employment Protection Amendment Bill (No 2), Taxation (Parental Tax Credit) Bill

I move, That the Parental Leave and Employment Protection Amendment Bill (No 2) and the Taxation (Parental Tax Credit) Bill be now read a third time.

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I am just checking whether these are separate bills.

💬 Mr SPEAKER: Yes, the bills are separate bills.

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: And are we having separate debates on them?

💬 Mr SPEAKER: No, we are not having separate debates.

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: Are we going to vote separately on them?

💬 Mr SPEAKER: If the member seeks leave to do so, I guess we can.

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: Do we need leave, or will you put them separately?

💬 Mr SPEAKER: I was proposing not to put them separately. I was proposing to put them together.

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: Well, they are quite separate issues.

💬 Mr SPEAKER: I accept that they are quite separate issues, but I understand they can still be put together.

It gives me great satisfaction to support these bills at their third readings. I would like to thank the whole House for supporting the passage of these bills. These bills help provide financial and employment certainty to working families with newborn children in New Zealand. In the first year of a child’s life, particularly the first 6 months, it is important for the development of newborn children that they receive full-time personal care. Parents and caregivers need support to manage budgetary and other pressures over this time, support that the current paid parental leave and parental tax credit entitlements do not provide as well as they could. Encouraging working mothers and caregivers to remain attached to the labour market has broad economic and social benefits and can support a stable family environment for children to grow up in.

These bills support the aims of allowing working families with newborns the time to bond while maintaining workforce attachment and employment security. They recognise that improved financial support is needed for some of these families. The bills also recognise that we have to manage our purse strings carefully. By supporting working families with newborn children, these bills are in the best interests of New Zealand families and businesses, enhancing economic and social outcomes in a fiscally responsible manner. I commend these bills to the House.

It seems, surprisingly, that the previous speaker, the Minister of Labour, has run out of things to say in the third reading of his Budget legislation arising from the Budget Measures (Financial Support for Newborn Children) Bill. We have still got plenty on this side of the House to add to the discussion on these bills, the Parental Leave and Employment Protection Amendment Bill (No 2) and the Taxation (Parental Tax Credit) Bill. The Labour Party does support the legislation that we are debating now. Of course, it would be crazy if we did not. It in part goes some way to acknowledging what Best Start was trying to do, but, as we have debated at great length, it certainly does not go all the way in some critical areas. Even though there is a stark contrast between the two packages in terms of scale and in terms of length, probably our biggest disappointment is still the exclusions that exist for families. We traversed in quite a lot of detail the fact that those who are our most vulnerable are excluded, but, actually, there is a group of middle New Zealanders, for want of a better word, who are also excluded.

In this Budget the Government used quite a bit of rhetoric around vulnerable children in the speech that Mr English gave yesterday. In particular, the Government announced some extra funding to, basically, implement the Vulnerable Children Bill. That did actually need to happen. We have an agenda by Paula Bennett that was going fairly underfunded in the way that it was being rolled out. Two Children’s Teams are already in existence. Just to give some context, Children’s Teams are collaborative, cross-sectoral teams that are meant to work with our most vulnerable children in areas where there is that extra need. We have two pilot sites, in Rotorua and in Whangarei, and, as of November last year, the teams were working with a total of 32 children—32 children were being assisted by the Government’s Children’s Teams. We always agreed that they are a good idea. What we disagreed with was the fact that they were having to operate out of a department’s baselines. That was just untenable, and so it is good to see that there is some extra funding going in there. It needed to happen if we are going to make some inroads.

But also, the Government did make a bit of a statement around the fact that it was supporting vulnerable children not just through this package we are discussing today but through $349 million going into child protection. That is up from 2008-09. Child protection services then were getting roughly $317 million, but if you inflation-adjust it, actually, what Child, Youth and Family needs to be awarded just to keep pace with inflation is more like $360 million. It is still falling shy, and that is taking into account that over that period of time we have gone from 49,000 notifications where further actions were required by Child, Youth and Family up to 61,800—a big jump in the number of cases that need Child, Youth and Family’s attention and a big jump in the number that are substantiated. So, yes, the Government has put social workers in specific places—in hospitals and in our schools—but on the frontline they still really are an ambulance. It was always intended, actually, that Child, Youth and Family would have a preventative role, but that is long gone—that is long gone.

I want to compare that, then, with what Labour has proposed with Best Start. What was clear in the debate, where there was comparison between the package of what the Government has put forward here in this legislation in income measures and what Labour has put forward, was that Best Start was never just about income. Yes, that was a big part of it. We had, as part of it, 26 weeks’ paid parental leave. We had a Best Start payment that reached 95 percent of families. The only families excluded from our Best Start payment were those earning over $150,000. That was where we were happier to put our exclusion zone. The Government put its on people earning less than roughly $20,000—a stark contrast in the way we address those packages. We have roughly 95 percent of families being covered by our package, so there was a big difference there. But the Government, when it was talking about its payment package, which is in this legislation, did talk about wanting to balance the issue of giving options to families with also maintaining a parent’s attachment to the workplace. We can sit and try to play around with what that might look like using tables, spreadsheets, and options, or we can actually use the evidence.

Some of the best evidence we have is now coming through from the Growing Up in New Zealand study, which uses a diverse cohort of approximately 7,000 families in New Zealand and is covering their experiences in raising their children. The last time we did this was with the Dunedin longitudinal study. Yes, they are expensive studies to do, but they provide us with such rich data and they provide policy makers with a bit of a sense of the choices parents are making, sometimes even when they are up against strong financial pressure. What we do know from the Growing Up in New Zealand study of children who were born in 2009—so we are some way down the track now with those families—is that 11 percent of the children in the study live in households with an income of less than $30,000 per annum—11 percent are in extreme poverty, then—

💬 John Hayes: Rubbish!

—in that regard, or could be considered to be in quite significant deprivation. John Hayes just said “Rubbish!”. I cannot quite tell which element of what I just said was rubbish. Does he maybe think that you are not struggling if you are raising a family on $30,000? Is that the point he is trying to make, or does he not acknowledge that 11 percent are growing up in those circumstances?

💬 Hon Clayton Cosgrove: Oh, he’s silent now.

He has nothing further to add. So that is what we know about those families. There are a significant number who really are in quite significant deprivation. Then, if we continue to look over the study, it also found that 40 percent of families had received paid parental leave over the last year, and a smaller percentage had received family tax credit. That is interesting. That sits with what we talked about today—that a large number of people are not eligible for paid parental leave, which is being extended in this legislation by 4 weeks. People do tend to miss out on things like the parental tax credit, which we have also been debating. Eighteen percent of the families had, at some point during that period, been reliant on a Government benefit—18 percent. Those families get nothing from this legislation. Those 18 percent of families get absolutely nothing from this legislation today, and that is a point we have tried to make very, very strongly.

But here is another interesting fact. All of the families were reliant on a great number of income sources during the first 9 months of their children’s lives. Only—and this is incredible—14 percent received income from only one source. So this traditional idea that one parent goes out and keeps working and the other stays home and cares for the child is not so. That is just a luxury for families now. Only 14 percent received income from only one source. Thirty-eight percent received income from two sources, 31 percent from three sources, 13 percent from four sources or more, and 5 percent were having to try to cobble together an income from five sources. They are families working multiple jobs, trying to bring in enough income to be able to survive with their new children. That is over the first 9 months of a child’s life. Keep that in mind. What kind of situation does that create for those families? The Government said that what it wanted to do with paid parental leave was maintain attachment to the workforce. I am afraid that it simplifies the situation down to say that, actually, a mother’s only choice is whether she holds on to a slightly lesser income for a longer period. Actually, some of these parents are having to make the choice to go back to work in order to keep the income high enough to keep going. We see that from that data.

There is one final point from this study. The type of leave taken during the first 9 months was made up of paid parental leave, unpaid leave, and annual leave. Families are cobbling together what they can to stay home longer, and I think that that is really telling. But, as I said at the beginning, Best Start—and there have been a lot of comparisons between Labour’s package and National’s—was never just about income. It was also about doing things like putting a boost into early childhood education. We want to move from 20 free hours for families to 25 free hours. We want to fund early childhood education centres so that all of their staff can be 100 percent qualified and so that they are funded to do that. We want to put a boost into Plunket so that Plunket nurses can be not only a universal service but a targeted one, where we are putting them into the homes of our most vulnerable families earlier and keeping them there longer. That is what we want to do to create that extra support, which is not just financial support but support in raising a child, for families who sometimes have very little outside support themselves.

In health, we listened to the excellent work that was led by Paul Hutchison and the Health Committee. We want there to be 10-week gestational checks. We want free scans for mums and we want free antenatal classes. All of that is how you give a child the best start in life, and that is what Labour would do.

It is a pleasure to rise to speak to the third readings of these two bills—the Parental Leave and Employment Protection Amendment Bill and the Taxation (Parental Tax Credit) Bill—which were originally the Budget Measures (Financial Support for Newborn Children) Bill but have now been split. It is of deep concern that if National members were truly proud of this package, they would be taking their calls on this legislation, but they appear to have stopped. They appear to have given up doing even that. Maybe they are ashamed. Maybe they are ashamed of how little this package actually does deliver. I am not sure why they have stopped giving their speeches on this legislation. None the less, the Labour Party has got plenty to say about financial support for newborn children. As I said at the outset when we stood not that long ago, actually, and spoke on the first reading of the original bill, which we had put in front of us maybe 5 minutes earlier, if imitation is the most sincere form of flattery, then I feel only a little flattered by the measures that are being debated here today in these third readings.

The Government has missed a huge opportunity. It has missed an opportunity to ensure a good level of financial support for all newborn children—for all newborn children. And it has particularly missed an opportunity to have read and understood all of the brilliant research and evidence that have been put before the Government Administration Committee in its debating and consideration of my bill to extend paid parental leave to 26 weeks, the Parental Leave and Employment Protection (Six Months’ Paid Leave) Amendment Bill. Because if the Government had taken the time to read that information, it would have recognised that, actually, getting to 6 months’ paid parental leave is incredibly important for a number of reasons, such as child development.

Child development experts tell us that because of the way in which a newborn baby’s brain develops, getting that attachment and bonding going well in, particularly, the first 6 months but also the first 12 months of a baby’s life really sets the pattern for how well they will cope with the rest of their lives. It sets the pattern for how well they will be able to adapt to change and how they will be able to work with the challenges in their lives, and for matters like whether they will end up in the youth justice system at all, issues like whether they are going to need remedial education, and problems like whether they are going to need a lot of taxpayer support in our health system. All the evidence said that if we get that first 6 months right—well, 12 months but importantly the first 6 months—we can make a big dent in child development and health issues but also ease the financial stress on families at a time when their income goes down and their expenses go up.

I just remind people about that again because I think that people sometimes just gloss over that. They think that people have babies and live happily ever after. Well, actually, what happens for people who are in need of paid parental leave is that their income goes down at the very time when their expenses go up. All the expenses associated with having a newborn child cannot be glossed over. They are very real. And having access to paid parental leave, and decent access to paid parental leave, is important in taking the financial stress off families so that they can actually focus on the thing we would all want them to focus on, which is nurturing this new, young life—nurturing this new, young life—so that all of us can have the best, well-rounded fellow citizen to live alongside.

I think the thing that really warmed my heart when there was an overwhelmingly positive response to my bill to extend paid parental leave to 26 weeks was that I felt proud of my country, actually. There are moments when I sometimes do not, but on this occasion I really did because people got it.

💬 John Hayes: What about the grandmothers?

People really got it—even the grandmothers, Mr Hayes. Even the grandmothers got it. I know that you think that maybe they might not have a vested interest in this, but most people—not everyone but most people—said “OK. I’m past my childbearing years or I don’t plan to have children”, or whatever it is, “but I can understand the merit in ensuring that all of our children are raised in a stable and decent environment, because we all get to live in a society alongside them.” And would we not all want the best, well-rounded citizens who have had that nurturing and support from those early months to live alongside? Even employers came along to the select committee and said: “Yeah, we get it. We get it as well because we want our employees, when they return after paid parental leave, to have their family well settled so that they can focus and be the most productive at work. We like our employees. We want them to be happy and we want their families to be supported.”

People also understood that extending paid parental leave was a big boost to employers because it meant that they got to retain their valuable staff, whom they had invested in, whom they had spent time training, and whom they want to come back into the workforce so that they can continue reaping the benefits of that skills development. So even employers understood it. Some of them must have been really disheartened to see National continually vote against that measure to extend paid parental leave. They must have been absolutely devastated when they heard National say not only that the Government would use its democratic right to vote against it but that it would stop democracy in its tracks by threatening a financial veto against the bill should it have majority support in Parliament, which it does.

In reflecting on the debate in the last however many hours—12 hours or 24 hours or so—some aspects of it have not been terribly pleasant, but the thing that, again, warms my heart is that I think, looking at the way that party has voted on various amendments that were put forward, there will still likely be majority support for my bill for 26 weeks’ paid parental leave when it gets debated some time in the next few weeks in this House. I welcome that because I think there is still a really important debate to be had on behalf of the New Zealand public, on behalf of the 3,809 people who submitted on the bill—overwhelmingly in favour of it—and that we owe them the right to have the bill they support thoroughly debated in this House. I think it will pass. I think it will pass, and I encourage all of those parties that have supported it to date to continue to do so, because I think what that places on record is the parties that are prepared to prioritise families, that are prepared to prioritise children, and that do understand that this is not a cost to our society but an investment. It is an investment in the future of our society.

That is what I think ignited the public imagination. When the Labour Party came out, even in fiscally challenged times, to say that, actually, families need support—families need support—and the rest of us will benefit from it, the public responded and went: “There’s a party who’s talking about the real interests of the future of this country. There’s a party who really understands and is listening to and knows the pressures that are placed on families.” And the country responded, and that makes me feel so proud of the sort of country that I really do love being a citizen of, the sort of country where people do not necessarily think of their own self-interest but they understand the importance of society and community.

This legislation is a step in the right direction, and I want to acknowledge how much of a big step it is for National because it has never ever before supported extending paid parental leave, despite some of the rewriting of history that has gone on in the debate. I want to acknowledge that, but I also want to say to the National Party: “Don’t sell our families short. Don’t sell our families short.” The National Party and all the parties in this Parliament have another opportunity to actually do the right thing by families. Do the right thing, which the research and evidence tell us will make the big difference in children’s lives, and support my bill when it comes up for debate to extend paid parental leave to 26 weeks—extend it to the families whom the Government says it will make newly eligible for paid parental leave, which Labour also supports.

I do want to say in closing that it is Labour’s view that we want to see that piece of legislation tabled in this House and debated before Parliament rises for the election, because we want to see the detail of it. We think that is the right way to proceed. I commend this legislation to the House.

Perhaps in the debate on the title and commencement clauses of this legislation arising from the Budget Measures (Financial Support for Newborn Children) Bill we should have actually been trying to thread in the words “Sue Moroney”, because that is pretty much all the previous speaker, Sue Moroney, talked about in her contribution. I picked up on the point—and I think it is an insight into Sue Moroney’s mind-set—that she is not always proud of her country.

💬 Grant Robertson: At least she put a bill up.

But when she puts a bill up that she thinks a few people think is OK, suddenly she is proud of her country again. Interesting.

It is not all about Sue Moroney, though. We have heard much about her take on what National should be doing in Government. We have heard that any sort of variation other than her non-targeted bill—which, essentially, goes far too far and actually provides support for people who, I would argue, do not need it. I would not need it. On my income there is no way that that support should be available to me.

That is what this Government has done. It has ensured that the bill that we have been debating is actually targeted at those who need it, is responsible, and actually meets the need. It is not just a blanket mechanism. If we look at the situation out there and the support that members of the New Zealand community are provided with, someone on an income of $50,000 or so with two children is actually tax-neutral. They are actually tax-neutral under this Government. There are actually many people who do not need the sort of support that Sue Moroney’s bill, the Parental Leave and Employment Protection (Six Months’ Paid Leave) Amendment Bill, would have proffered.

When we look at these particular bills, the Parental Leave and Employment Protection Amendment Bill (No 2) and the Taxation (Parental Tax Credit) Bill, they are encompassed in a Budget that actually distributes $500 million across the community to New Zealand families. It is actually a very generous package when looked at in totality. The reality is that although we are debating this legislation, it cannot be looked at in isolation. This is a Government that has continued to support those who are struggling and those who have been vulnerable for a significant period of time. Much has been said about the people who are left out as a consequence of this legislation, the most vulnerable. Well, those most vulnerable will be getting $33 million more in terms of our support. The Children’s Team initiative and the free doctors visits for under 13-year-olds are two very good examples of what this Budget has been about and where this legislation fits in a total package.

I have no problem in supporting this legislation because I think it helps meet the need in a way that is sensible and prudent, and I actually think that the New Zealand public get that. They get that this is not about lolly scrambles. They get that it is about targeted support. That is what it is about.

I rise to take a call in this third reading of the Parental Leave and Employment Protection Amendment Bill (No 2) and the Taxation (Parental Tax Credit) Bill, which the Greens will be supporting.

The Green Party believes passionately in supporting our children. We believe in the value of good lives for everyone and a fair future for everyone. We believe that every single child in this country deserves to thrive, not just survive or have their lives cut short or harmed by illness from diseases of poverty, as is all too often the case in this country at the moment.

This Government has presented us with a Budget where it has told us that it is giving $500 million to families to support families in need. New Zealand needs to know that that $500 million, which sounds so significant, is actually only $125 million a year over the next 4 years and that this Government, the same Government, is spending $1 billion a year in servicing the interest on the debt that it has got this country into by spending on things like American-style expressways. Do those values express an honest desire to support the families of this country? I do not believe they do. This Government has told us that this is a fiscally responsible response to the challenges, yet it does nothing to address child poverty—the 285,000 children in this country who are living in poverty.

I do want to draw members’ attention to the sound of a baby that we heard earlier in the gallery and how that sound cannot but touch our hearts. I would like to ask members to reflect for a minute on one of the provisions in this bill that relates to the parental tax credit and the thought that the family of that baby may be a working family, not receiving ACC, not on a student allowance, not on a benefit, and that family would be getting extra support from this Government. If there was another baby making that same sound, sitting on its parents’ knees right next to it, who was from a beneficiary family struggling on just over $200 a week—and I would like to remind the members in this House that that is not so different from what we get as a nightly accommodation rate when we travel, and that amount is expected to support that family for an entire week—they are getting nothing in this Budget from this Government.

I ask whether that is delivering on what we want for our children in this country. Is that degree of discrimination delivering the best that we have to offer? I cannot believe that it is. When we have a surplus, when we are choosing to spend money on other things, when we are paying off debt that we do not need to be paying off because we could have had a temporary earthquake levy that would not have required us to borrow for that, when we could have not had those tax cuts for the richest New Zealanders, and if we had lived within our means, we could have provided for our most vulnerable children.

I think this House needs to reflect on the values that are being delivered by this Government. We absolutely support the extension to paid parental leave but I note, though—and I think it is part of an important debate—that the Child Poverty Action Group has criticised this as a priority because it is not reaching the most vulnerable families. I think that is an important debate and it is a shame that we have not been able to go through a select committee process to enable that political public discussion.

When we first got paid parental leave, I was the executive director for the national Young Women’s Christian Association of Aotearoa - New Zealand. We were really involved in that campaign to first get the 12 weeks. I have got to say that it was a tough campaign. We had to do a lot of work to convince the then Labour-Alliance Government, the Labour Party in particular, to support introducing paid parental leave. It was a tough campaign and I think it is heartening for the community to see that now the Labour Party is in a position where it is bringing forward 26 weeks and it is right on board with this issue and the recognition that paid parental leave makes a huge difference to every measure in our society. It is also now encouraging to see the National Party coming on board and getting that.

So to all of you thousands of submitters, all of the many people who sent in postcards, know that you are making a difference, that this House is starting to get it—that paid parental leave will deliver. The National Party, admittedly, has gone only part way, and I was so disappointed last night to see the amendment for 26 weeks get voted down, when we had heard from 3,795 submitters, who desperately and so eloquently supported the need for 26 weeks because of the health benefits in terms of breastfeeding and attachment, and the long-term benefits to us as a society from supporting that early time in life.

It is undeniable, the benefit of that time frame. There was such good debate about it. Employers were very clear that 6 months was actually easier for them, because at the moment, with the 14 weeks, they are typically just covering rather than getting somebody in to replace the person for those 6 months. It is too short a time period. It is actually increasing the costs for them and the burden on their staff.

I do ask the National Party members, who supposedly support business and those interests, whether 16 weeks and, then later, 18 weeks, will address the need that has been identified by those businesses. I am not sure that it does. They were quite clear, from my hearing of the submissions, that 6 months was a good starting period for being able to manage that transition, from their perspective, as well as for delivering the social good.

Finally, I do want to just go back to the fundamentals and what we are valuing as a society. This legislation is bringing in 16 weeks’ paid parental leave next year and then 18 weeks the year after. It is an acknowledgment, and I thank the National Party for that acknowledgment. It is an important thing for all the people in New Zealand to understand that you will listen, even if you will not go as far as they would like.

I would like also to just finish on the core point for us. The major disappointment for us, with this legislation, is around the parental tax credit. Although it offers some money to middle-income families, really it is just an adjustment to recognise the decreased value of Working for Families, because the Government has not been adjusting it to the level that it should have been, so it has decreased in value. That $13 million that is going in there is pretty much a token effort, but I am not underestimating the power of $70 in the hand for 10 weeks for those families. It is just gutting that it is not going to the families that absolutely need it, and that it will in effect entrench the inequality and the gap between those who, for reasons of disability or violence or just not being able to be in a job at that time, are locked out of the workforce at this time. The children of those families deserve our best effort.

This legislation offers breadcrumbs, and we are happy to take them for now, but, boy, do we look forward to the time when we are in a position to be able to offer everyone a fair share of the cake.

It is, indeed, a privilege and a pleasure to speak on the Parental Leave and Employment Protection Amendment Bill (No 2) and the Taxation (Parental Tax Credit) Bill. Indeed, it signals a great day of celebration in New Zealand. It is part of a $500 million package directed towards families and children by this excellent National Government. What a shame it was to hear those pious words from Jan Logie. How can she reconcile such pious and sanctimonious words with the awful tweet that she has just sent regarding the finance Minister and his family? It is quite shocking, and I hope the media will, indeed, dissect it further, because it is undermining to this very, very important legislation.

In fact, $171 million towards extending paid parental leave in such a reasonably short time, after a major financial crisis, is absolutely appropriate. National has targeted its spending very carefully and absolutely differently from how the Greens and Labour would have done when they were prepared to splurge $500 million—half a billion dollars—absolutely undirected, on every baby born in New Zealand. That was not going to help. We have got no idea how that money was going to be spent, whereas in this legislation, which has arisen from the Budget Measures (Financial Support for Newborn Children) Bill and has been split into the Parental Leave and Employment Protection Amendment Bill (No 2) and then the Taxation (Parental Tax Credit) Bill, we have a realistic approach, firstly to paid parental leave, and then to helping families who are not receiving paid parental leave but are on lower and medium incomes. So this is very targeted. It is very appropriate. It is, indeed, realistic in terms of the money available that New Zealand has to spend. It is very generous towards families and children.

The legislation extends in two tranches paid parental leave from 14 weeks to 16 weeks, and then from 16 weeks to 18 weeks, which is a total of $172 million, with a further $42 million in the parental tax credit bill. This is a very, very impressive change. The tax credit is going from its current maximum of $150 a week to $220 a week, and is also extended from 8 weeks to 10 weeks. The tax credit is currently being paid to low and middle income working families who are not on a benefit or receiving paid parental leave.

That is exactly as I was saying, Dr Prasad. This is appropriately targeted, and that is the difference between Labour, the Greens, and the National Government. As we heard Jan Logie say, she thought this offered crumbs. That is the sentiment. Labour and the Greens would spend more, they would tax more, and, indeed, they would borrow more, absolutely irrespective of prudential financial management. Here we have a National Government, highly responsible, putting the country back into the black, and at the same time investing a very significant $500 million towards families and children.

Kia ora, Mr Speaker. I rise to speak on behalf of New Zealand First on the Parental Leave and Employment Protection Amendment Bill (No 2) and the Taxation (Parental Tax Credit) Bill. A very wise man whom I highly respect—and in this case it was not the Rt Hon Winston Peters—once said to me that if you truly want to have influence, you need to become a Minister. As I do not usually do with people whom I highly respect, I disagreed at that time and said I believe that as Opposition members we can have influence every single day by taking the argument to the Government.

I think this legislation has shown that that can be true. This Budget has shown that that can be true. Sue Moroney, through the pressure of her member’s bill, the Parental Leave and Employment Protection (Six Months’ Paid Leave) Amendment Bill, has put enough pressure on through the campaigns she has run to show this Government that it must take some steps, particularly in an election year, to move towards supporting newborn children, just as Barbara Stewart’s proposed member’s bill, the Teen Health Check Bill—which would give free medical care to all children under the age of 13—has been picked up by this Government. That has been New Zealand First policy for a long time. Although I appreciate the advice that learned gentleman has given me and I am grateful for it, in this instance I think I have proven my point. We have had influence, and we are grateful that the pressure from the Opposition, and the pressure from the public behind it, has made the National Party move on this issue.

I want to compliment Dr Paul Hutchison on the work that his Health Committee did around this issue of supporting our unborn and our newborn children. I can only imagine that inside caucus he was one of those who lobbied hard for this to take place, because he understands how important it is. I believe that when he leaves this Parliament he will be sorely missed. I believe that Dr Hutchison probably fought hard for this to go to 26 weeks’ paid parental leave. I believe that he would have done that. But because of whatever it is that is inside the National Party psyche, its members could not bring themselves to push that far, and they will justify that on the grounds of finance. They will justify it. We have just heard, unfortunately, Dr Hutchison falling back on that argument. We all know there is not much else on which they can argue against it, unfortunately.

There is so much evidence that has been produced about the savings from 26 weeks’ leave. Dr Hutchison mentioned $172 million. Unfortunately, due to the urgency of this legislation we have not had a select committee process where we could actually have gone through those numbers to make sure that we know what it costs. But we do know what 26 weeks would have saved. We know what 26 weeks would have saved because we have the report from the Government Administration Committee about 26 weeks’ leave. So we know that with 26 weeks’ leave there is a reduction of $13 million in childcare subsidy. There would be an additional $8 million in tax from recipients of paid parental leave and an additional $5 million in tax from temporary employees filling those paid jobs. Benefit payments would reduce by $2.4 million and, as I mentioned in an earlier reading of this legislation, we have not even factored yet what the downstream health savings will be. A study published by the Journal of the American Medical Association found that obesity rates among 2 to 5-year olds in America had dropped by an impressive 43 percent over the last decade, and that was partly contributed to by mothers breastfeeding for longer. We have not factored all those savings in.

Mike Sabin mentioned that if you had an income around $50,000—

💬 Hon Clayton Cosgrove: Who?

I know, he is not well known, but Mike Sabin made the comment that if you had an income of around $50,000 or below—this is the spin that they spin—you do not actually pay tax. I am not sure those people feel like that every day of the week, but National members say those people do not actually pay tax. They use another word for it. They like to spin it. They say it is tax-neutral. In a way, they are saying that those people should not complain because they do not pay tax. But what we know is that there is $50 million worth of savings—$50 million worth of savings with 26 weeks’ paid parental leave, and that is even without the health benefits downstream.

Again, New Zealand First will support this legislation, but it is a bit of Hansel and Gretel legislation. It is spreading crumbs along the way towards 20 September, so it is very much Hansel and Gretel legislation—a trail of crumbs up until 20 September. But there is not even a guarantee at this stage. There is a date for 2015—1 April—and there is a date in 2016. New Zealand First would like to make sure that the New Zealand public understands that although the National Government may steal our policies, it will not steal our commitment to making sure that as soon as we have influence we will put in place these supports for newborn babies and other supports for families and children and for businesses in New Zealand to truly bring us back to the standard of living that we deserve, and that we expect. Although the National Party might have lost its aspiration for this country, New Zealand First has not. Kia ora.

Just in response to the last speaker, Tracey Martin, I say that this legislation arising from the Budget Measures (Financial Support for Newborn Children) Bill is good legislation that the Government has used to boost parental leave provisions. It is all part of the programme of that $500 million that is going to families in this Budget. It is action taken by a political party when there is the opportunity to do so, unlike the Opposition, which is all talk and no action. When we got the chance we have done it and we have delivered the things that the Opposition were not even talking about, like free doctors visits to under-13s. This is good legislation.

Well, it is great to see the depth of David Bennett’s passion for the issue of families. That speech was all of 1 minute. I intend to take my full call on this matter. It is an important question—the question of how we support our newborn children.

I want to start by acknowledging that we have this legislation arising from the Budget Measures (Financial Support for Newborn Children) Bill before the House and that there is a small improvement being made in the areas of both paid parental leave—2 weeks next year; 2 weeks the year after—and parental tax credits for some by lifting the amount and length of time. We should always acknowledge where there is some progress being made. There is the progress, of course, in those two areas and, as I said in the Committee stage, the progress, in fact, in the National Party’s thinking because it has obviously finally got it that paid parental leave is actually important and that we need to do more in this space. But we need to do a great deal better, I would say.

As for the last member who has just resumed his seat—to say that Labour has not taken this question seriously is just absolutely incorrect, and the member well knows it. Labour introduced paid parental leave in 2002. Labour extended paid parental leave in 2004. Labour further extended paid parental leave in 2007. And my colleague Sue Moroney, fully supported by this caucus and others members in this House—the Greens, New Zealand First, the Māori Party, and others—has been seeking to extend paid parental leave to a much more meaningful level, 26 weeks.

I am going to come back to why 26 weeks is a really important next step, but let us get the facts on the record here. Labour is very strongly supportive of measures like paid parental leave that support our families and give our children the best start in life. It is obviously a truism to say that supporting families and children is vital for our future. Sadly, at the moment, too many of our children are not getting supported adequately, too many of our children are living in poverty, and that is wrong on so many levels. There are 285,000 children in poverty, living in poor housing, suffering from Third World diseases, not getting the best start, struggling at school as a consequence, going hungry, and going without basic needs.

This is not what we should have in a rich country, a comparatively rich country like New Zealand. It is shameful. It is shameful that that is still the case, and this Budget does not do enough to support families. Labour’s Best Start package is far more comprehensive and, along with our economic development policies, provides real hope for a better standard of living for all New Zealanders.

I want to talk more about this issue of supporting families when they have babies, because paid parental leave is a very significant part of that support. Again, just to remind people what this legislation does, it extends paid parental leave by 2 weeks next year and by 2 weeks the year after. Unlike what a number of members opposite are saying, whom it goes to is not changing. Dr Hutchison and others have got up and said this is more targeted legislation. Well, actually, the paid parental leave provisions do not change in this legislation. What the Government has flagged up is an extension to who receives them in the future—not in this legislation. But I have to congratulate the Government on that. If we can extend paid parental leave to seasonal workers and casual workers—these are groups often of very low-paid workers—that would be a very positive step forward. But, as I understand it, that will not be until 2016. The Minister of Labour last night tried to imply that it was part of this legislation. For the sake of the record let us be clear: it is not. But it is a good announcement and we welcome it.

The legislation does—in National Party terms, possibly—target the parental tax credit. What that means is that it is effectively excluding the poorest New Zealanders, the poorest New Zealand families. Beneficiary families and families of students will not receive the parental tax credit. I think it is something like 14,000 families who are excluded from that, so when people are listening and they hear about this being targeted, that is what this means—that the people who need it the most do not get it.

Let us talk about why we need to do more and how we actually, thankfully, as a Parliament have an opportunity still to do more. We need to move to get to something like 26 weeks’ paid parental leave. Why is that? Well, it is because that will mean that babies do get the opportunity to have, hopefully, the mother—or it could be the father, but generally at that young age it will be the mother—at home with the baby for a longer period of time, giving the family support to make that decision. We all know that the bonding that happens with a newborn baby in those first months is vitally important to that child’s future. It is vitally important. What could be more important to all of us than making sure we get that right? So we want babies to be looked after by their families and we want to build that bonding in relationships. When the mother is at home with the baby, it enables breastfeeding to be well established before she may well go back into the workforce.

But paid parental leave also has benefits for women. Now, more than ever, women are juggling paid working responsibilities and family responsibilities. For many families, that is a vital contribution to family income. That is what they need to do. It means that women can retain their connection to their work, have that leave, and go back into the job they had. As my colleague Sue Moroney noted, paid parental leave of 6 months, or 26 weeks, is something that employers can see is better, because it is easier to be able to work out alternative arrangements for that longer period of time. This provides the opportunity for women to have that balance to maintain contact with their paid work and move more effectively in and out of the paid workforce.

As I have already said, paid parental leave is important for families for both of those reasons, because it is good for babies and because it is good for their mothers. Also, it helps the family income, when, for many families, things are very tight. It is fair to say that the only reason that the Government has got this as part of the Budget is that there has been a campaign that has really struck a chord. Families are saying that, yes, they need this. They need this support when they have a baby.

It was very cynically announced in this Budget, and it was a relatively small announcement, close to an election. Judith Collins would not be commenting, I guess, as she did when Labour announced it, that this is an election bribe, as she indicated she thought it was when Labour announced it.

💬 Hon Clayton Cosgrove: She’s having a wee lie down.

Oh! It is a very cynical move, but it is in response to what is needed out there, and it is well understood. It is well understood in other countries, and I want to make sure that we understand that we are outliers in this regard. We are outliers among the developed countries in the world. We have the second-lowest level of paid parental leave in the OECD. This legislation is not going to substantially change that. I do not even imagine it will change our position. I think we probably will stay there. We need to move to something larger; 26 weeks is the next step.

As I said, the good news is, for all those listening, do not stop campaigning, because there is still a chance on this. Sue Moroney’s bill, if the National Government would stop filibustering, will get back into this Parliament and it does have the numbers to be supported. That is for 26 weeks’ paid parental leave. The work on that bill has been done very well in the Government Administration Committee—the policy work and the financial work. And it is affordable.

There has been significant work done by the select committee to look at the costs, to look at the savings that offset those costs, and to work out that actually it is not a huge cost for the benefit that is given by moving to 26 weeks. So keep the pressure on. Make sure that the Hon Peter Dunne does the right thing, as he has committed to doing. Last night, of course, he voted against a Supplementary Order Paper that would have moved to 26 weeks. Well, he will still have a chance to do what he said he would do and vote for the bill, if we can get it back on to the floor of this Parliament.

So it is important and it is not too expensive. It is about what you prioritise. Investing in our children and families is the most important thing we can do as politicians.

It is a great pleasure to rise and speak on the third readings of the Parental Leave and Employment Protection Amendment Bill (No 2) and the Taxation (Parental Tax Credit) Bill. This Government is a compassionate Government. We have put strengthening families at the core of our policy ever since we have been on the Treasury benches. We are strengthening families and providing them with the means to be cushioned from the worst effects of the recession—the worst recession, in fact, in the last 70 years.

I am very happy on behalf of the hard-working men and women of Manurewa, the vibrant and diverse community where I have the pleasure of having my office, to know they will be able to take their children to a general practitioner for free visits until they turn 13. There will be even more money, and this Government has spent $1.5 billion—even more money—to engage with our Pasifika and Māori communities, and low socio-economic groups, to help them access early childhood education, which, as we know, is transformational. I commend these bills to the House.

This is a split call. You get the feeling that members of the Government do not really want to debate deeply the Parental Leave and Employment Protection Amendment Bill and the Taxation (Parental Tax Credit) Bill. I really get the impression that they just want to get out of here and not talk about this particular legislation. Of course, there is very good reason why they do not want to, and that is that it is not their idea and they have been forced into this. They know very well that they have been forced into adopting Labour’s policies—not just in this area but in others as well. They know that Labour’s Best Start policy was very popular and is very popular. So, first, they try to ridicule it. Then they had to accept that, no, New Zealanders were interested in this and they wanted change.

Then, of course, the issue came into sharp focus with Sue Moroney’s bill, the Parental Leave and Employment Protection (Six Months’ Paid Leave) Amendment Bill, to move to 26 weeks’ paid parental leave now. It was very popular. When submitters began to say that not just the 26 weeks but the other aspects were part of a well-developed paid parental leave policy, those members opposite began to get the shivers.

💬 Hon Clayton Cosgrove: What?

The shivers. Whatever else they get with the shivers, I do not know, but they certainly got the shivers. They knew there was something wrong. They knew they had to fix this up. So they delayed that particular bill, and they started very quickly to do some thinking around this, but the thinking has been done only to a very small extent.

💬 Hon Clayton Cosgrove: The top half of the brain or the bottom half?

Well, I do not know—the very, very top half, maybe. Look at what they have done. It is not very generous at all. They are extending it by 2 weeks in 2015 and 2 weeks in 2016. I would expect Paul Hutchison, as an obstetrician, to have greater awareness of this particular area, but I do not think he does. He has forgotten that part of his professional life. He has come in here and he is really interested only in Labour Party and National Party ideology. That is all it is. I still have a lot of respect for you, though, Mr Hutchison, as a gentleman in the House, but on this point, I think the member has got it wrong.

Some of the National members’ positioning is unbelievable—absolutely unbelievable. Listen to what the Minister of Labour said. He took only one call in the chair. He did accept Jacinda Ardern’s challenge to match us call for call, but then he went to sleep. He realised that it was unsustainable. The process that National has got with this bill is unsustainable. So here we have it. We know that National members have got it wrong for such a long time. The proof is in the eating. Anne Tolley called this a travesty. Nick Smith said it was a bad model. One Paul Hutchison said this was cementing State dependency. I expect the member to withdraw that. He said that when we introduced paid parental leave, it was State dependency. It is not. Those members have been caught. They have had to come to this party. It is still pretty mean. I hope that before long they will begin to really right the wrongs and go to a fully developed paid parental leave policy. This does not go far enough.

They have engineered a surplus. They are trying to be political about this. They really do not have a well-developed policy around this. They have tried under the brand of vulnerable children to bring a few things in, but there is no developmental approach to this at all. So there is a lot of politics in this, Mr Hutchison, which is what his party is playing at. There is very little policy in this—very little policy in this. If there was a lot of policy, it would have been well-thought-out and well signalled. It would have gone to a select committee and we would not be doing this under urgency. They have been caught—

💬 Hon Clayton Cosgrove: Slapped together.

Well, they have at least thought about it together, I say to my colleague. It is not well-thought-out. It is very mean. It is only a minimalist approach. It is some time into the future. I know they will crow about this in the election campaign, but this does not cut it. I am glad they have agreed to go a little bit further, but they have been forced into this, and they should apologise for some of the statements that they have made in the past about paid parental leave. Thank you.

I rise to take the final call for the Greens on the Budget Measures (Financial Support for Newborn Children) Bill, which, I note, has been divided up into two bills: the Parental Leave and Employment Protection Amendment Bill (No 2) and the Taxation (Parental Tax Credit) Bill. The Greens will be supporting these bills. We have stated very vocally through the course of yesterday and last night and also this morning that we have some concerns about that, and we do. However, these steps forward are steps forward, not back, and we do need to congratulate the Government on actually taking these steps.

However, we do have some concerns as well around the use of urgency, which I would like noted for the record. There is nothing in either of these bills that deems that we should be doing this process under urgency. In terms of the paid parental leave extensions, the extension to 16 weeks does not kick in until 2015, and the extension to 18 weeks, up from the current 14 weeks, does not kick in until 2016. Extending the parental tax credit for some babies—not for all babies but for some babies—applies only for babies who are born after 1 April 2015. So we could have had a process where we had submissions on these items. We could have heard from the Child Poverty Action Group, because some of us went to the post-Budget breakfast this morning and we did hear from the group there. What it is saying is that this Budget is not delivering much at all for vulnerable families and our poorest children. I remind the House that there are 285,000 children living in poverty in Aotearoa New Zealand. This bill does not address anything to do with them.

So although we do support the bills going through—we will be voting in favour—we do have some beef with them. The parental tax credit, for example, discriminates against children of people who are on benefits, and it says that those children can stay in poverty. This Government has directed that tax credit only to those who are working. With paid parental leave, yes, we will support the extension to 16 weeks from next year and 18 weeks the year after. However, we recognise that the National Government is surfing a wave of the popularity that was generated by Sue Moroney’s member’s bill for 26 weeks paid parental leave. The Government has made some tiny steps towards that in order to undermine her bill. We support 26 paid weeks off work in order to spend time with your baby. However, our policy goes further than that. We suggest that it should be 13 months, but we will support the National Government’s bill because it is a miniscule step in the right direction.

I am just going to quote from the Human Rights Commission’s submission on Sue Moroney’s bill, the Parental Leave and Employment Protection (Six Months’ Paid Leave) Amendment Bill, which advocates 26 weeks’ paid parental leave. It said that there were some issues around accessibility to paid parental leave. It is good that this Government has picked up the idea that we should be extending it to seasonal and part-time workers, but, again, I note that is not going to happen with this bill. It is potentially not going to happen until 2016. So these carrots are there, but we have not got there yet. The Human Rights Commission said that “The issue was also picked up by the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women … [where it said we have to] ‘introduce appropriate legal measures to ensure parental leave … as well as paid leave for seasonal or fixed-term workers with multiple employment relationships...’ ”. We will support this bill because it is better than nothing, but you can be sure that nothing is what the poor get from it.

I am delighted to take the final call in the third reading on these very important measures, the Parental Leave and Employment Protection Amendment Bill (No 2) and the Taxation (Parental Tax Credit) Bill, which are such a significant part of a very good Budget. Yesterday it was a real thrill to be able to be in the House hearing that the Government has delivered on its promise of returning the books to surplus and is also focusing on things that matter. The fact that families are absolutely at the heart of this Budget is as it should be. Times have been difficult, and now we are starting to be able to put in place some of the things that members on this side of the House have always wanted to be able to do. But, unlike those on the other side of the House, we have known that you cannot spend money that you do not have. I commend the Minister of Labour for the excellent work that he has done. I am delighted that this support for newborn children is such an integral part of the Budget. I commend all members of the Government for the hard work that has gone on. I am sure that these are measures that will be warmly welcomed around the country.

Bills read a third time.