Parental Leave and Employment Protection (Six Months’ Paid Leave) Amendment Bill

We now come to new clause 7, and Sue Moroney’s amendments to Supplementary Order Paper 472, set out on Supplementary Order Paper 15, and the substantive amendment inserting new clause 7. Can I warn the Committee again that this is a very, very narrow debate, the principle having already been decided, and remembering that it is a clause and not a part.

Thank you for the opportunity to rise and attempt to explain why we have got a new clause 7 in the bill. I will try not to stray too much into the debate that was going on in the Government Administration Committee. It is quite hard to do when debating new clause 7 and others like it because these were debated in quite a lot of detail in the select committee. It was difficult to go through what we thought was a really robust debate and get good discussion across all parties in the select committee only to find that right at the eleventh hour it was the Government MPs who would not support the bill and, therefore, any of the work that we had all done together, including new clause 7.

New clause 7 does actually again describe, I think, the difference between a bill that has been drafted by a member and one that has been drafted by the Government. My double-sided two-page bill attempted to bring in 26 weeks’ paid parental leave for everyone currently eligible for it but fell short in the way that it had been drafted, so we were given advice at the select committee that there were, in fact, a broader number of regulations under the Parental Leave and Employment Protection Act that also needed to be amended to bring them into line with what I was substantively trying to do with the rest of that Act. That Act, of course, is the one that was brought in by a Labour Government, actually, in 2002. At the time, there were big debates about whether we ought to have any paid parental leave at all.

The regulations that are described in new clause 7 come from that period of time when we were bringing in a completely new system that we had not had in New Zealand at all, so it was quite a complex exercise. It involved having the main body of the Act and regulations. Those regulations, of course, have been changed many times over that period of time because, despite what the Government has tried to argue, actually, when Labour was in Government, it actually not only introduced paid parental leave but amended it and improved it on three occasions during the course of its 9 years in Government. The current Government is inclined to say: “You know, if you wanted to improve paid parental leave, why didn’t you do it when Labour was in Government?”. Well, we did on three occasions, and many of these regulations are the ones that actually address that.

New clause 7, on the advice from the officials, would bring all of the other parts of the regulations in the Parental Leave and Employment Protection Regulations in line with having the 16 weeks that the Government—actually, it is a small triumph and victory in the journey of this bill to get the Government to increase paid parental leave to 16 weeks. New clause 7 says that in a whole bunch of regulations where you have done that—and the 16 weeks will be coming in on 1 July 2015, next year—my amendment aims to increase that from the 16 weeks that the Government has agreed to up to 22 weeks in the first instance by 1 July 2015. That would be the first step.

Of course, as we know from the previous debate, that would be for the particular three groups that I have identified in an attempt to get some improvement for a group that I think are particularly needy. In fact, the Multiple Birth Association said it is not a want for the members of its association to have 26 weeks’ paid parental need; it is an absolute need. They were quite upset at the debate that happened in previous clauses when the Government said that it had a whole range of other payments already available to them. Actually, most of those payments are not available to people with multiple births at all, because they would get those payments if they had an older sibling for the twins or the triplets who have just been born, and in many instances that just is not the case.

New clause 7 is amending the various regulations. It is making sure that they would be consistent with the substantive part of the Act that I was aiming to improve. It does it in two tranches. It would bring the regulations in line with having 22 weeks’ paid parental leave for parents who have the joy of a multiple birth—can I say the joy of a multiple birth—for parents who have a baby who is born prematurely, or parents who have a child with a disability.

This is my first call in the Committee stage on this bill. I take the call, actually, largely because of the extreme narrowing of focus. It was interesting to hear in the previous speech Sarah Dowie speak about her experience as a parent of premature babies. I am sure I am not alone in this Committee in speaking as a parent of a child with disabilities. I want to pick up on some of the questions that I believe are unanswered about the scope of the provisions in this new clause 7 in Supplementary Order Paper 15, and, in particular, an issue that was raised by Jacinda Ardern in relation to babies with cardiac conditions.

A cardiac condition in and of itself—I am not sure and I would be interested in the advice of the member in the chair, Sue Moroney, as to whether or not such a condition would qualify the parents of a child with such a condition for this extended parental leave in this new clause 7. Those children may well have other disabilities that are not yet apparent. At the point that a child is born, the medical staff and all of those surrounding that child are focused on keeping the child alive and dealing with the cardiac condition that the child presents with. Many of the other disabilities that frequently accompany such a cardiac condition will not become apparent until later in life. So, very clearly, that is a child with disabilities, but whether that child will qualify under the definition that is in new clause 7 I think is something that is very important for us to tease out.

It is gone now, but the paediatric cardiology ward at Green Lane Hospital was a very, very sad place to be. It was filled with babies in incubators, babies otherwise hooked up to monitors and other machines, babies on very heavy medications, and babies who, in many cases, had experienced or would experience in that first part of their lives open-heart surgery. It was a ward that was populated by parents who were living in a daze. They were completely disconnected from their ordinary lives, from the world outside of that paediatric cardiology ward. Those were parents who were in desperate need—desperate need—of support, of time out to be with their baby, and of time out to adjust to those new circumstances. Those parents are usually sleep-deprived. I understand, of course, that that is a common experience for parents, but for parents of babies who are at risk of dying from the impairment that they have sustained, the particular shock is extraordinary.

And it goes on. Even if those parents are lucky enough to have their baby come home with them, I can assure the Committee that the anxiety continues—the anxiety of your child being asleep and not knowing whether they will wake; the anxiety of not knowing whether your child will survive the rigours of the heavy medication that they are taking. The particular need of this group of parents of babies who have sustained an impairment is extreme. That is why I think it is important the Committee hears from the member in the chair as to whether or not this group of parents, who do have this particular need, are going to receive some extra support that this new clause 7 would provide for. I will be looking forward to that answer.

I have spoken so far about the needs that are associated with, I guess, the shock of diagnosis—the shock of having a baby with such a severe impairment. It does not stop there. I have spoken about the incubators, about the machines, and about the drugs. One of the consequences of that kind of intensive medical intervention that these babies sustain is that a parent’s time to bond with their child is very much obstructed. It is obstructed by the walls of the incubator, by the machines that are keeping their child alive. One of the particular purposes that jurisdictions around the world have recognised for extending parental leave is the particular purpose of giving parents and their children the opportunity to bond. This particular group of parents and this particular group of babies and children, whose opportunity to bond in those early days and weeks is so compromised by the intensity of medical intervention, do have a particular need to be able to take advantage of that opportunity to bond that an extended period of parental leave would provide for. I come back to the question as to whether or not this group will be covered by that provision.

I want to go on to mention some of those other disabilities that can accompany these cardiac conditions that I have been speaking of. They can include learning disabilities, sensory disabilities, and other disabilities that very clearly would be captured by the definition of impairment that applies to this new clause 7 that is proposed. But it is very likely that those conditions would not be diagnosed until such time as perhaps a child is engaging with the formal education system—perhaps in their before-school check. We have a situation where a child clearly does fit any definition of impairment that was adopted, but the fact that they fit does not become clear until some later point. I would be very interested to hear the member in the chair’s account of what advice she has received about that kind of delayed diagnosis of impairment that clearly applies.

I want to respond to a point made by Sarah Dowie earlier. She raised the point of cost in the Chamber, and suggested that of course the extension that is proposed in this new clause 7 would be desirable and that everyone would support it. But, unfortunately, the Government could not afford to do that. I would be pleased to be corrected by the member in the chair if this is the case, but my advice is that the cost of the particular extensions that are proposed in this new clause 7 is minimal in the scale of the total cost of paid parental leave. The figures I have in front of me, and these are rounded estimates for the 2015-16 year, are for an extra $6 million, followed in subsequent years by $4 million, $8 million, and then $9 million in the next 3 years, taking it through to 2021-22 at an extra cost of $10 million.

Having heard that thoughtful contribution from the member Kevin Hague, it compelled me to take a call. I have not taken a call on this bill for the duration of its debate, but I too am concerned about how the Government Administration Committee considered the most vulnerable children and why it would not extend paid parental leave to 22 weeks. But more important, the definition that most compels me to stand is the one related to those whose pregnancy results in a live birth before 37 weeks of gestation. Having had some experience in this area, I can say it is medically possible to keep a child alive from 23 weeks, with medical intervention. The greatest prospect of risk at that point in time is actually the development of the lungs. If you count the fact that it is a reality that it can be possible for children to live at 23 weeks, factoring in 16 weeks of paid parental leave may mean that parents are still in hospital with their child. I just want to get some sense from the member as to what extent the select committee heard submissions around this. There is obvious hardship when parents are in the neonatal intensive care unit with their young children, because of medical intervention.

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): I just remind the member that, as the previous presiding officer said, it is a very narrow debate. The provisions have been voted down already. This is about the consequential amendments as identified in new clause 7. I say to the member that we cannot get into a wide debate on this. It is on the regulations that are amended in new clause 7. That is where we need to focus. I say to future speakers that it is a very narrow debate.

I will bring the debate back to new clause 7 and into alignment with the regulations. It would be, I think, in line with the previous speaker seeking some advice from the member in the chair regarding the issues of cost—whether some factual information and evidence were provided to the member around how many children would be affected by limiting the definition in the way that you have recommended—and how this might better aid and support the real numbers of families that are provided for, because I suspect when you put that into context it is actually a very narrow number of families. It was important to ensure that there was a thorough and robust debate at the select committee level, when you were considering the regulations, on how very real support is required for families who are meeting the challenges, especially as new parents of multiple births and of children who are severely affected and need medical intervention from an early age. They may not have the multiplicity of their disabilities recognised until much later in life. The regulations are somewhat technical and align to the greater proposition of the bill but they really go to the nub of the issue that is trying to be met.

I want to acknowledge that the member has tried to make some practical changes to the bill in light of the political discussions that have preceded them and it still remains not evident, certainly to me and members on this side of the Chamber, why these practical changes would not have been adopted. The scope has been limited. The number of children affected—and therefore parents—would have been limited, but the very real needs and challenges I think are so important to address. There have been a couple of questions put to Sue Moroney as the proposer of the bill. I think she has conceded quite a bit in so far as the regulations are concerned. It would be useful from a technical point of view to see whether there was actually a great deal of debate in this part or whether the substantial debate was preceding this part of the bill.

One last comment I would like to make is that for families who are struggling with children who have required significant medical intervention and require staying in hospital for a long period of time, extending paid parental leave to 22 weeks may have better benefited them.

Well, they say that timing is everything. With the timing of the debate on new clause 7, which we are now debating, being on disability awareness day, who would have thought the last time we were debating these amendments that I have put forward was during Multiple Birth Awareness Week. So it seems that all the way through the debate on this bill the stars have been aligning and begging us to do the thing that new clause 7 asks us to do. But it is not the first time with this bill.

I think it is pretty clear that I am not going to get a third reading speech on this bill. That, I think, is a great shame and it is the shame of the National Government that I will not ever get to talk about the journey of this bill. Indeed with new clause 7 that is part of the journey of this bill because we are talking about it only in Supplementary Order Papers 15 and 472—in fact, two different parts of the Supplementary Order Papers—because of, I guess, the politics that have been played with the bill all the way along. So at the Government Administration Committee we, sadly, were not able to report back a bill that the select committee could report back with amendment. It could report it back only without amendment because we could not get agreement, so new clause 7 is one of those.

Bringing this as a member’s bill—we used to call them private members’ bills; I think we call them only members’ bills these days—what it effectively means is that you do not have access to the Government advice and the Government officials to be able to make sure that when you draft your bill it is going to be entirely in order for what is going to be needed to be making the law change. So new clause 7 is an example of exactly that.

These are the regulations that I had not even thought about as a member—an ordinary old member looking at wanting to extend paid parental leave to 26 weeks. I thought that on two pages you could actually do this by saying: “Let’s have 26 weeks. We are going to amend the part that says what the duration is of paid parental leave, and that will do it.” Well, new clause 7 is the part that would actually make it, if it had been accepted by this Parliament, a complete piece of law that would make some sense when the people who administer the law were required to actually grant people their paid parental leave of 22 weeks on 1 July next year and 26 weeks’ paid parental leave in July 2017, because that is how those regulations would be changed.

Some of those regulations in new clause 7 are the form that people would fill in—the actual form that people who have had a child born prematurely, the people who have had a child born with a disability, the people who have had the joy of a multiple birth would fill in. They would be filling in that form, and new clause 7 is attempting to amend that form.

People have asked questions around the disability part in particular, and I think it is right and proper that I do traverse that on disability awareness day. It is simply a definition to use. One way of defining what a disability was going to be would be to refer to disabilities that were already accepted for Government support. We know that those are contentious. We know that does not cover everything that we would want it to do. But here is the other complication when talking about children born with disabilities and paid parental leave. As members quite rightly said, many of these disabilities we do not know about until the child is older. We do not know that the child has got a hearing difficulty or a lack of hearing, for example, until much later on in their life.

As a member I had to think about what that means. If you find out when your child is 2 that they actually have had a disability since birth, can you go back and have your 6 months’ paid parental leave? I had to come to the crushing conclusion that, no, you could not. The point of paid parental leave was actually having it at that time, at that critical time in those first 6 months when the bonding and attachment were going to aid and abet that child’s recovery or that child’s ability to get on in their life with their disability, which, of course, as we know actually often makes people that very, very special person that they are.

So these were the things that were quite complex to think about in bringing forward this particular range of amendments in new clause 7. Paid parental leave is critically important at that time.

I just want to say thank you very much to the member in the chair, Sue Moroney, for her contribution. That was very helpful. I just want to go over the changes so that the people who are listening understand what is very likely to be voted down with regard to the Parental Leave and Employment Protection Regulations 2002, because this is what new clause 7 does: new clause 7 in Supplementary Order Paper 15 amends the Parental Leave and Employment Protection Regulations 2002. Nobody at this point in the debate has actually articulated this and said exactly what this does. It changes those regulations to say: “In the following provisions of the Parental Leave and Employment Protection Regulations 2002, 16 weeks means 16 weeks, or in respect of a person who gives birth either to 2 or more children as a result of 1 pregnancy and assumes or intends to assume the care of those children, or to 1 or more children before 37 weeks of gestation where the child or children survive birth for the duration of the parental leave payment, or to a child whose impairment would entitle the person to a government-funded disability support service, 22 weeks:”.

So there are two numbers in there. There are 16 weeks and 22 weeks, and this is how the regulations would be amended. Why are those two numbers really important when we amend the regulations?

Well, what is the difference between 16 weeks and 22 weeks? It is 6 weeks—6 weeks’ difference. When we are talking about these circumstances, babies are born at about 35 or 36 weeks. Normal gestation would be 40 to 42 weeks. That is a 6-week difference. All that this change to the regulations is trying to do is bring these parents and these babies to a point of ground zero—to a point of ground zero—the same place that every full-term pregnancy ends up at. That is all it is trying to do. It is just trying to support those babies and those parents with that simple change to the 2002 regulations, to allow these babies and these parents to be at ground zero like everybody else, once those babies end up out of hospital. In my personal experience, that is kind of where most people end up. We have much more tragic circumstances, often we do, but there are smaller numbers of those. Often it is a 35 or 36-week birth in the special care baby unit. Once you get to full term and everything is going tickety-boo then home you go, and you can start at ground zero like everybody else. That is all new clause 7 is trying to do. That is actually all this whole piece of paper has been trying to do.

So with all due respect to Ms Dowie, who stood up and said the Government would love to, it is nice, but it cannot afford it—when you hear the numbers from Mr Hague and you think about the small numbers of New Zealanders who actually require it, the argument does not stack up, Ms Dowie. It becomes a philosophical argument, and that is unfortunate because all these amendments to the 2002 regulations are trying to do is allow these parents and these babies to get to ground zero and then start off like everybody else.

I move, That the question be now put.