Parental Leave and Employment Protection (6 Months’ Paid Leave) Amendment Bill

This is debate on clauses 4 to 18 and schedule 1.

I seek leave for this to be taken as one question.

Leave is sought for that purpose. Is there any objection? There is objection. [Interruption] Order! [Interruption] Order! I am dealing with the matter. [Interruption] Will the member please be quiet, I am ruling on this matter.

It with a sense of strong déjà vu that I rise to take a call on Part 1 of the Parental Leave and Employment Protection (6 Months’ Paid Leave) Amendment Bill, and it is my sincere hope that we do not see a repeat of what we saw last time around. The use of the filibuster against a bill that aims to actually support families and children was, I thought, particularly ugly last time around, only accentuated by having to listen to speech after speech after speech from Mike Sabin telling us how to parent responsibly.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order! I am going to start by interrupting the member and reminding her that this is a debate on this bill, on this part, and it is a narrow debate. Referring to previous bills and previous debates is out of order.

Thank you, Mr Chair, for that guidance. I will now address Part 1, which is the part that actually tells the country about how affordable this bill really is.

As the member promoting the bill, I have worked hard to make sure that it is affordable for the country, and Part 1 expresses that. It does not say we should get to 26 weeks of paid parental leave tomorrow, or even next year; what Part 1 does is say that we should implement this in a staged way that is affordable for the country by increasing paid parental leave on 1 April next year to 22 weeks. That is, effectively, what Part 1 does, and the Government Administration Committee did a lot of work on ensuring that we got agreement and we got good official advice on what the cost of taking that staged approach to implementing extended paid parental leave would be. This is very important in this debate because of the threat of a financial veto that hangs over the head of this bill, so I do want to take a little bit of time to share with the Committee and with the country what the costings were, because they show how affordable it is.

The officials told us that for the financial year we are about to enter into—that is, financial year 2016-17—the effect of this bill would be a gross cost of $12.7 million. That is the impact of Part 1 on the budgetary year that we have just finished debating in this Parliament. I note that because it, in fact, equates to only 0.7 percent of the additional spending that this Government has already committed to the Budget for 2016-17—0.7 percent. That is no justification for a threat of financial veto. When the Government has already seen fit to pour $1.8 billion additional spending into next year’s Budget and this bill would take just 0.7 percent of that additional funding to fund it, it is clearly not an issue about unaffordability. The Government is spending in that same budgetary year $12 million on new charter schools—you know, those charter schools that are failing; the ones where the people operating the charter schools, when they fail, get to keep the taxpayer money. That is $12 million in the next Budget year on that initiative. This bill would cost the same amount, but this bill would actually impact on 30,000 babies and their families in the next 12 months. That is the estimated number of families that will be using paid parental leave in that budgetary year—30,000 families will benefit from this. That $12.7 million, in Labour’s view, is a great investment in the future of this country.

We know that if we can extend, in the first instance, paid parental leave to 22 weeks by 1 April next year as Part 1 asks, then those children will have that ability to get that bonding and attachment going well between parent and baby. If the mother has already established a great breastfeeding regime, that will not be interrupted by her having to go back to work due to financial constraints. That is going to be to the benefit of us all, because the other thing the officials gave us advice on at the select committee was that when we get those things right we save money in a whole lot of areas. In fact, what they told us was that we are going to save, immediately, $28 million as a country if we implement this bill. That is cost savings on things like not having to spend taxpayer money on early childhood education subsidies—the taxpayer paying for other people to look after those children, as this Government would have it, rather than mum or dad being able to be at home on extended paid parental leave, able to get that bonding attachment happening, and able to make sure that the bills are getting paid, the financial stress is not so great on the family, and all those things that submitters came and told us about at the select committee.

One of the things that really stood out for me this time around in the select committee process and the submissions, and why we do need to get to 22 weeks’ paid parental leave by 1 April next year, is that families came and told us that this generation is having to make choices between whether they save to buy a house or whether they have a baby. Those are the sorts of decisions that people in well-paid jobs are now having to make in John Key’s New Zealand. In John Key’s New Zealand, housing prices have increased so much that the families—

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order! I am going to remind the member, again, that this is a narrow debate. The House has accepted at the second reading the principle of this bill; all we are debating is whether these clauses implement the principles that the House has agreed to.

Thank you, Mr Chair. So 22 weeks is what we are seeking in Part 1 of the bill. It is part of a stepped approach, and the approach of making this affordable so that we can get to 26 weeks, but we will talk about that more in Part 2. Part 1 should be supported by parties right across this Parliament. I look forward to hearing the further debate on that, and I look forward to hearing votes in support of this important measure and this important investment in New Zealand’s future.

Thank you for the opportunity to contribute in the Committee of the whole House on the Parental Leave and Employment Protection (6 Months’ Paid Leave) Amendment Bill. I am not on the Government Administration Committee, but I have contributed on this bill in previous readings, so it is really good to have this opportunity.

Speaking on Part 1—as we know, Part 1 is about affordability and also about extending paid parental leave to 22 weeks. As I said, I am not on the select committee, so I did not hear the member Sue Moroney, who spoke before me on this bill, explain why she proposes that paid parental leave should be extended in two stages. That was one of my questions I wanted to ask the member: why did she decide to propose that we should extend paid parental leave in two stages? That first stage is extending it to only 22 weeks.

There is a resemblance to what the Government has done. We increased paid parental leave in two stages. We increased it from 14 weeks to 18 weeks over 2 years, and the reason was affordability. We wanted to make sure that what we are doing is affordable. We also made sure that we were not just increasing the length of the paid parental leave, but including other workers. We included other care arrangements along with extending the length of paid parental leave. So—

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order! I am going to interrupt this member as I interrupted the previous speaker twice. This is a debate on this bill and not on previous bills. So members going over what happened previously might have been relevant at the second reading and might be relevant at the third reading, but it is not at this Committee stage.

Talking about affordability, that was my question to the member: why did the member decide to propose this extension in two stages—that is, going to just 22 weeks in the first stage? If it is about affordability, I want to ask the member—the cost of this is going to be close to half a billion dollars. Where will the member get that half a billion dollars? Where should we cut that expenditure, all the investment that we are currently making, in order to increase paid parental leave to 22 weeks?

We know that the intention behind this bill is good, but it is about affordability and it is about timing. We know that in 2007 the Families Commission recommended increasing paid parental leave to 13 months, and then the Labour Government decided not to because it knew that it was not affordable. So my question to the member is still how are we going to afford to increase paid parental leave so quickly when we have already increased paid parental leave to 18 weeks from this year. It is a long-term view. It is not a short to medium term view. It is not something that we can start this year, do for a couple of years, and then decide that it is not going to work. We need to see what will be the cost of this policy when we implement it in the long term.

It is important that taxpayers understand why we are doing it. We are answerable to taxpayers, and I would like to know from the member how she is going to explain to taxpayers that it is a good measure to increase paid parental leave so quickly when we have already increased it to 18 weeks—to increase it to 22 weeks. I do understand that the reason is bonding. I also see that—

💬 Carmel Sepuloni: You know what it means?

I do understand that this is about bonding, and, yes, bonding is important, but that does not mean that if parents go back to work after 18 weeks or 22 weeks or 26 weeks, there is no bonding or no opportunities for bonding with their children.

I also want to know why the member decided to increase it to only 22 or 26 weeks. Why not go longer? Because there are other proposals in different countries that want to see paid parental leave be longer. It is not that we should be comparing our paid parental leave with other countries, because if other countries are doing something, that is not a statement to us that we should follow. We have our own things to look after. We have to see what is affordable in our country. Given that we have just come out of a huge global financial crisis and that we had the Canterbury earthquakes, we need to be very careful in terms of how we manage our finances. We need to see what is affordable. Looking at the timing, this is not affordable, and I still ask that question to the member as to how she thinks spending close to half a billion dollars on this is justified. How will she justify it to taxpayers? Going around talking to people, they think that as we have already increased it to 18 weeks, we need to see the impact of that before we jump on to the next step. It is something that we need to be very careful about, how we invest our money.

A member spoke about cutting spending for charter schools. That is very ironic—

E Te Kaiwhakahaere, tēnā koe. Tēnā koutou katoa e ngā mema o Te Whare. I am sure that the member, Sue Moroney, has brought this bill to the House with very, very good intentions, but I do want to, I suppose, respond to some of the comments she has made during the first two calls that she took in this Committee stage debate, and also perhaps pose a couple of questions to the member in the chair as well.

I think that despite the good intentions of this bill, if we look very closely at Part 1 and some of the amendments to the principal Act that are proposed in that part—namely, the extension of the duration of paid parental leave—the extensions that would be provided for in Part 1, obviously, are only those that take effect on 1 April 2017, and subsequent parts deal with the subsequent tranches or phases of extension of parental leave. The figure that she quoted was a figure I did not catch exactly. Maybe she would be able to just confirm. It was something like $10 million or $11 million worth of costs—

💬 Sue Moroney: $12.7 million.

—$12 million worth of costs in the first year. The question is whether that figure is actually an accurate portrayal of the real costs of the provisions provided for in this part, given that other estimates that we have seen show that those costs are actually compounding. They are not a one-off. They go on year after year, and they will compound up to a cost of something in the order of $445.8 million a year—at least, that was the figure that the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment has provided as an estimate.

I would also like some clarification from the member. She said that there would be significant cost savings, which, from memory, were roughly twice as much as the costs of this bill and that would be met by the taxpayer. Would she be able to provide, I suppose, some clarification for us of how realistic she thinks those cost savings calculations might be?

The other question I have came from the select committee stage. We heard evidence from a range of submitters, many of whom were in favour, and I will concede that. I think, actually, that for people on this side of the Chamber there is no inherent opposition to the concept of providing paid parental leave as Part 1 does. Actually, this Government has been progressively extending paid parental leave, not only in duration, as Part 1 provides for, but certainly in breadth of availability to those who are self-employed, seasonal employees—people who traditionally were not receiving this sort of paid parental leave support.

The question comes from the submissions, particularly the submission of Mr Paul Clark who is the managing director and owner of the New Zealand Ammunition Co.—it is a small business that provides essential equipment not only to our police force but also to our Defence Force. He is also the chair of the Council of Licensed Firearms Owners, so he is someone who is well versed in the recreational shooting and hunting industries. He made what I thought was a very good submission, which does have some material questions that are relevant to this part, around the costs on small businesses. So far in this debate we have talked about the costs and the impact on the Government’s fiscal outlook, potentially, and the figure that I have quoted is in the order of $450 million going forward. That is a 4-year cost. That is not over the lifetime of this policy but that is just within 4 years.

The points made by Mr Clark, which I actually think do deserve a response from the member in the chair, are around the cost to small businesses—the calculations made by small-business owners; not only the financial calculations but the employment decisions that are influenced—under the understanding that they will be required by the law to take on a considerable financial expense should one of their staff have children. So I would like some responses from the member on those questions.

As I have said, on the side of the Chamber we are very, very hesitant. In fact, we are opposed to the provisions provided for in Part 1 because we believe that they do represent going a little bit too far, that there is a balance to be achieved here, and that a reasonable amount of paid parental leave is something we can all agree to. But when the costs rack up into the hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars per year, then that is an issue that I think we need to look at very seriously.

Obviously, given how particular the Part 1 clauses are, this will be a reasonably short and concise contribution to this part of the debate. But some of the questions that were raised by the last speaker, Mr Paul Foster-Bell, were, I thought, worthy of response.

One of the turns of phrase that he used when talking about the general support that this House has for paid parental leave was that we all support a reasonable amount. Part 1 sets out what a reasonable amount might be from the perspective of the majority of the House, and it is based on an evidence base, rather than on a finger-in-the-air test of what might be reasonable. We have traversed those various reasons why 26 weeks is what is internationally considered as a reasonable amount, and, obviously, it is for health and wider beneficial reasons, but Part 1 then sets out how we would stage towards those 26 weeks.

One of the other members in this Committee just raised the question as to why it was only 26 weeks and why not 12 months. Well, that actually proves a point that Labour has been trying to make throughout this debate, which is that Part 1 is not staged to 12 months because of financial considerations. It is Labour’s policy that that, in an ideal world, would be where Part 1 would take us—in fact, Part 2 takes us all the way through to 26 weeks—but we have taken into account issues that were raised on the other side of the House around the financial viability of going to that point at this stage and we fell, after consideration, on a staged approach that first said “Let’s at least get to 26 weeks.”, which is why Part 1 takes us, first, to 18 weeks and then beyond. But, covering off—because so many people have raised in Part 1 the costings question, which is relevant to Part 1—I do want to just clarify that the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) itself has anticipated the cost of the first staging of this bill to be roughly 0.7 percent of the additional net spending budgeted for 2016-17.

So it seems completely inconsistent to me to hear from that side of the Chamber that there is an issue around the affordability of Part 1 when, in question time today, we had Gerry Brownlee, who was asked by our finance spokesperson about the $20 billion, I believe it was, roughly, required for the Defence Force, as to whether he had spoken to Bill English about that massive amount of spending. If I remember correctly, his words were that there was an absolutely stupendous surplus that was available to the Government because of its pristine financial management, which meant that it was possible that that $20 billion could be invested in the Defence Force. So how is it that we do not have enough within the Budget to allow Part 1 to be enacted—0.1 percent of spending, relative to the 2016-17 Budget—but, on the flip side, we can not only afford $20 billion for the Defence Force but also afford tax cuts next Budget as well? So this is not an issue of it not being in Part 1—

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): I am going to ask the member to narrow up things.

I just wanted to respond to the issue that has been raised there, but also I want to come to the work contact hours, which no one has raised so far. Within Part 1 we did originally have a raft of provisions around maintaining work contact hours during parental leave. It has not been removed because that is not a good provision; it has been removed because that was picked up in the Government’s bill, where it extended paid parental leave to 18 weeks after, of course, we had had this debate in the House extensively prior to it, which led, of course, the Government to finally accept that the general public wanted to see that extension. So that is why those provisions have been removed, and I think rightly so.

I think it is fair to say that we could talk at great length about the trade-offs, or the costs that come with not having paid parental leave that are not factored into MBIE’s calculations. We could talk at great length around the different stages of development for a baby from 18 to 22 weeks, but, actually, all that Part 1 is doing, essentially, is setting out the phasing in of those two stages of paid parental leave. It is a very narrow part, and I think probably everything that needs to be debated has been. Clearly, on this side of the House there are simply different priorities, and that is why we have prioritised the idea that this could be done, it could be staged, and it could be made effective—

It is a pleasure, again, to take—it is kind of a bit like the never-ending story, actually. I keep being brought back to this Chamber to take a call—or maybe it is just because it is about paid parental leave. But, regardless, it is a pleasure to take this call on the Parental Leave and Employment Protection (6 Months’ Paid Leave) Amendment Bill.

Obviously, Part 1 is one of the operative sections that looks to extend paid parental leave from 18 weeks to 22 weeks, and there has been some debate already on this provision in respect of cost. I understand that Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment figures have said that it is at $445.8 million over 4 years. I guess what I bring this back to is that when you are in Government, it is about swings and roundabouts, and it is about a suite of measures to give children the best start in life. So, from my perspective, I believe in paid parental leave—I am going to put that on the table. Obviously, I am a mother of two myself, and I believe in the benefits of paid parental leave.

But, as has been mentioned before, there was a Government bill in this House prior to this one, the Employment Standards Legislation Bill, which extended this leave, and Part 1 at this point in time is redundant in that it is really about a suite of measures to give young children the best start in life. I do want to put it to the member that I am surprised that the keeping-in-touch hours—or work contact hours, as they are called in this bill—were not explored further and were not left in this bill. I think that work contact hours and keeping-in-touch hours are an exceptionally good idea that has been supported by this Government, as was mentioned by the member opposite as well.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order! The member can discuss what is in the bill, not what was taken out of the bill—all right? So this is about the bill as it has emerged from the select committee in the second reading. It is about the bill now.

Thank you, Mr Chair. So, back to the operative section of Part 1, the extension of 18 weeks’ paid parental leave to 22 weeks—this is a matter of cost. Like I say, the Government looks at cost—and it was mentioned prior by the member opposite. Look, just because we do have a surplus at this stage, it does not mean that we spend it. You know, the Opposition would be well advised to take account of saving for a rainy day, and there are all sorts of situations that come up when you are in Government and you are managing this fine country of New Zealand—horrific instances such as the Christchurch earthquakes—that require attention and require money to help support people, moving forward.

So it is one thing to single out parents and babies as to the best start in life—yes, in a world where we had unlimited funds, extending paid parental leave with all of the benefits that ensued from it would be fantastic—but this is a Government that has got us back in black. We have brought our books back into surplus, and we are looking at pragmatic management of this country, looking at all different aspects of equality of life in New Zealand, and spending this money wisely and in a measured way, moving forward.

So, as I said, I support paid parental leave. It is a fantastic concept and there are benefits with it. We talk about bonding with baby. One of the best parts of my life was, obviously, having children and being a mum and being on paid parental leave. It was not as broad as it is now, and it was certainly not the 22 weeks that Part 1 looks to extend it to, but it is a time to bond with baby and it is a time to look at encouraging mothers to do things such as breastfeed. Breastfeeding is seen as—breast is best. Breast milk provides all of the nutrients that are best for baby, but, notwithstanding that, if you cannot breastfeed, it is still an important time for mum to take the time to properly bottle-feed baby.

Before I call the member, I am going to reiterate a ruling I have made now, I think, about four times, to remind members about relevance and repetition. I actually came very close to terminating the member Sarah Dowie’s speech for both. Being repetitious with irrelevancies is not helpful.

I rise to take the first call in the Committee of the whole House stage on Part 1 of the Parental Leave and Employment Protection (6 Months’ Paid Leave) Amendment Bill. Part 1 refers to—and it has been amended to ensure that it is up to date—replacing 18 weeks’ paid parental leave with 22 weeks. That reflects the decision from the Government Administration Committee—and I had the privilege of sitting on the select committee—that, first of all, we needed to update it to take into account the changes that were made last year, basically, as a result of Sue Moroney’s previous bill. But also 22 weeks is one baby step—excuse the pun—towards 26 weeks. Part 2, which I will not discuss now, talks about extending that further, to 26 weeks from 2018.

The progression towards paid parental leave is an essential part of what we should be doing in this country to ensure that we do have a stable economy. People across the Chamber have been talking about costs, and I think we need to bear in mind that the costs are actually more than covered if we look at the longer-term view. If we look at paid parental leave being at 26 weeks—although, this Part 1 talks about 22 weeks, which, as I said, is the baby step on the way—we are looking at a way of addressing the pay gap between men and women. We are looking at a way of ensuring that women who are having children are able to stay in the paid workforce, and it addresses some of the inequities that occur in the workforce around pay. That is one area where it is good for the economy.

The other place where it is good for the economy—22 weeks and then 26 weeks, but, ideally, we would like to see 13 months, which would bring us into line with many of the other OECD countries, but let us focus on 22 weeks in Part 1. The other thing that this would be good for the economy around is the area of ensuring that newborns and their families are able to connect and make solid connections. It ensures that there is ample time for breastfeeding and it gives a start out that is a bit of stability for the family. When you do that, you start to offset some of the potential problems that can occur further down the track. This is research that has been traversed time and time again. It is irrefutable. It is evidence-based that if we invest now in ensuring that we have stable families, there are savings down the track in terms of the health system, in terms of the corrections system, and in terms of education failings—for all of those things, there are savings there. So this short-term approach from that side of the Chamber saying “We are not going to support it because it costs this much.” is not taking into account the longer-term savings.

The other area where this bill—and particularly this part, the extension to 22 weeks, and then to 26 weeks—is good for the economy is around the employers. We have now got a global labour market. We have got a situation here in New Zealand where in order for us to compete globally we need to be having a skilled workforce, and employers are having to compete in that labour market to ensure that they get them. Our parental leave does not make it attractive for those skilled workers to remain in this country. Certainly, if there are better, family-friendly provisions in other countries and companies based overseas, then we start to lose those people who could be contributing their expertise and their innovation to our economy, which desperately needs that. We need that to solve some of the immense problems of the day—for example, to address some of our issues around climate change. So it makes sense to extend paid parental leave, as it says in Part 1, to 22 weeks and then to 26 weeks so that we can actually be an economy that can compete internationally.

I think it is very short-sighted for the other side to suggest that this is going to cost too much when, in fact, that side has directed enormous amounts of funds at areas that we would see as not a priority—areas that do not have short or long-term benefits, basically—things like roads of national significance, which was an issue that was traversed a little bit today during question time.

💬 Iain Lees-Galloway: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. I apologise for interrupting my colleague, but she is ranging quite some distance from Part 1—

Oh, I did stray—you are quite right.

💬 Iain Lees-Galloway: —of this bill, and, in fact, was talking about 26 weeks, which is in Part 2.

I was talking about 22 weeks.

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Order! Roads of national significance are not part of this bill.

Sure, back to babies. No, you are quite right and I do apologise. I thank members this side of the Chamber for that. So, basically, 22 weeks in Part 1—we support that. We support it because it is a sensible progression from where we are at the moment, which is 18 weeks, through to 22 weeks, and I will talk a little bit more about 26 weeks when we get to that part of the bill. Thank you.

I have to say that I am very surprised that the Labour whip took a point of order against a Green member—

💬 Iain Lees-Galloway: Point of order, Mr Chairman.

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): No, no. I have ruled on that matter, and that is the end of it, so we will not get into this cross-play. I have ruled on that matter. I told the member who was speaking at the time, Denise Roche, that that was what the member should do. She came back to the bill, so we cannot relitigate those points that I have already ruled on.

Thank you for clarifying that, Mr Chair. I am very happy to take a call on Part 1 of the Parental Leave and Employment Protection (6 Months’ Paid Leave) Amendment Bill.

💬 Hon Member: Say it again. Say it again.

I want to acknowledge—I will probably come back to it—Ruth Dyson, the chair of our select committee, the Government Administration Committee. She has done a very good job of chairing the select committee and taking this bill through, and I hope that she takes a call in the Committee tonight to speak to the bill. I want to acknowledge the member, Sue Moroney, of course. And, of course, I have got some questions, too, and I hope that the Chairperson will allow me a little bit of latitude to address some of the issues that were raised by the Opposition members during our speeches on this part.

Cost keeps getting raised, and I want to speak about cost, because we have got the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, which has worked on the costings and has come back and was able to report and inform the select committee that the cost is going to be $445.8 million over the next 4 years. That is a significant amount. Anyone sitting at home who is in charge of their own household budgets knows that if you take money from somewhere then you have either got to replace it or one of the family is going to miss out on something. I am really interested to hear, and I would ask the member, when she takes a call—and I am hoping that she takes the call after mine—to run through again and explain to us where the money is going to come from over the next 4 years.

💬 Carmel Sepuloni: She already answered those questions. She doesn’t need to take a call on it.

Well, it would be good for her to highlight that again and talk us through that again—where the money is going to come from and where the savings are.

One of the interesting points that was raised, and I am sure that the member in the chair, Sue Moroney, would agree with me on this one, is that by extending paid parental leave, somehow we are not going to have to build any more prisons, so there is going to be a big saving in the construction of prisons. I cannot see that. I would like to know the rationale. I would like to know the methodology behind that statement, because personally, I cannot see that.

I am going to come back to cost, but I want to talk about small business, because my colleague and the deputy chair of our committee, Paul Foster-Bell, raised a very good point, and that was the fact that we heard submissions from small-business owners. Actually, when you look at the New Zealand economy, 70 percent of our economy is made up of small to medium sized business. When you actually delve into it, when you have a look at our small businesses out there that are always passionate about what they are doing and are always looking for the ability to be able to grow, often cash is king—right? They want to make payroll every fortnight, they want to make payroll every month, and their employees are extremely important to them. So we as a Parliament—and we are not the ones out there every day, working hard and toiling hard trying to grow these businesses, and trying to make sure that there is a strong cash-flow—are very careful about what we do in here. The decisions that we make in here will have a direct impact and can have a direct, negative impact on what our productive part of the economy is trying to achieve and do. So a policy like this needs to be examined very, very closely.

I just want to highlight and come back to the comment that my colleague Sarah Dowie made. It was very good in the sense that we do support paid parental leave, and this Government has got a proud record of having extended that and taken a round of policies that actually provide more support to new parents. I think a very interesting point that came up during our select committee process was that we assume that it always relates to mothers; actually, it does not. Having been a single father myself, it actually relates to fathers, as well. That brings me to another point that I would like to highlight, and that is one of the issues that was raised the last time—

I move, That the question be now put.

I will keep this short and sweet because we have traversed the content and the detail of this bill significantly already in numerous debates. I would just like to speak to Part 1 and put on record the Green Party’s support for this bill, but also acknowledge that the 22 weeks of paid leave that is in Part 1 is an accommodation that has been made by this member. I doubt that anyone on this side of the House would think it is ideal. With the amount of time that this House has been discussing the need for 26 weeks, I think that, actually, everyone on this side of the House is probably ready to go straight to 26 weeks, to give the country what it has asked so clearly for.

However, the fact that we have 22 weeks’ paid leave in Part 1 of this bill is another demonstration of the absolute willingness of the sponsor of this bill, Sue Moroney, to bend backwards to do everything in her power to try to persuade this Government to give the country what it wants. In the last iteration of this bill she confined it down to significantly premature babies and children with very significant disabilities—down to very significant measures. She brought it right down to try to get it over the line for even one group of people, and still this Government just pushed and pushed and was so mean that it could not deliver it.

The truth is, Part 1 of this bill is another reflection of this Government’s meanness and how far this member has had to go to try to get it over the line. It is a real shame, because, actually, all the evidence supports 26 weeks, and we will speak more to that on Part 2 of the bill.

It is a pleasure to rise to speak on Part 1 of the Parental Leave and Employment Protection (Six Months’ Paid Leave and Work Contact Hours) Amendment Bill. It will be a relief when we do eventually get on to clause 1 and can talk about a different title—a slightly shorter one—for this bill. But the main points that we have traversed in Part 1 have been around cost, so I would like to raise just a few items. One is the cost that the member sponsoring the bill raised, and then some consideration of cost and affordability, which a previous Opposition speaker, Ms Ardern, raised.

Ms Moroney, when she was having her first call on this bill, pointed out that in the first year the cost impact of Part 1 would be $10 million—I think that was what she said. That is not quite right for one reason, and is very, very wrong for another. The reason it is not quite right is that the latest edition of figures from the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) actually says it is about $12 million through until the end of the current financial year—so until the end of June this year. The reason for that, which is relevant to the cost consideration as Ms Moroney put it, is that officials, of course, had to give advice on the bill as it was introduced to the Government Administration Committee, and not on the amendments or the recommendations that we finally arrived at.

Originally, what was going to happen was the first increase in weeks of paid parental leave was going to take place in the past—they were going to take place a couple of months ago in this year. Of course, officials made some estimates based on the remainder of the current financial year before then projecting forecasting costs into the future. The bill as has been reported back to the House, which is under consideration in this, the Committee of the whole House, has actually shifted the start date from 2016 to a full year up to April 2017. What will happen in that year, of course, is that when it does come into force on 1 April 2017, should it pass—

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Order! That is in the commencement provisions of the bill. We are on Part 1. You will get a chance to talk about the preliminary clauses that come into force on 1 April 2017 later on, but I just ask you to focus on Part 1.

The implication of Part 1—of moving to 22 weeks—will see an increase in costs of about $12 million from 1 April 2017 through until the end of June 2017. From that point on, each year of paid leave at 22 weeks, doing a rough mental calculation—because MBIE rated the total costs of the full bill across 5 years, plus the few starting months, to be $466 million. Very roughly, if it was only at 22 weeks—which, of course, is all that Part 1 does—then, fundamentally, half is going to be in the order of around an additional $230 million over that period of time. The Government’s point has always been—and this did not seem to be grasped by the submitters at the select committee—that it is not one additional dollar of paid parental leave that is necessarily the problem, but the total cost.

In the course of the consideration of both this particular bill as drawn and the previous iterations of bills in a similar vein, the Government has taken steps to increase paid parental leave. It has increased it from 14 to 18 weeks—

💬 Iain Lees-Galloway: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. The member appears to be straying into other pieces of legislation, not Part 1 of this bill.

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): I am listening very closely. In fact, I have Part 1 in my hand. Being able to refer back is OK, so long as one does not dwell on it. I am listening very carefully. I have the bill in front of me, and I ask the member to concentrate on Part 1.

Thank you, Mr Chair. Exactly the point being made is that the Government’s position has been that it is the complete cost of the change that is the issue. The Government has made the affordable steps already. The most recent Budget, of course, in which the Government has not made a further extension, shows that within the current fiscal envelope there is not the headroom right now to increase paid parental leave further—that the Government has many responsibilities above and beyond simply paid parental leave. We have got schools’ infrastructure, we have got additional money—

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Order!

We have got issues that the Government spends money on that mean that if we are expending money in certain areas, then that money is not available to be expended in this coming year on an extension to paid parental leave. So the position for the coming financial year still remains, and is very clearly evidenced by that current fiscal position, that a move to 22 weeks is not affordable.

Another member opposite, Ms Ardern, made a point about large surpluses. They are actually a future consideration. They are not relevant to Part 1, but she did get to talk to them, so I just want to cover them. Her point was simply this: if in an answer to a question in the House today we can talk about spending a sizable amount of money on defence, then we can spend that amount of money on paid parental leave. The point is that the forecast of those large surpluses will not see them realised and growing in size for about another 2 financial years, and then a further 2 years beyond that. That is well outside the scope of Part 1.

What the member was trying to do is spend money we have not yet earned on something that would cost us money in the next 12 months. It is not exactly unusual for the Opposition to do that—in fact, it is pretty much what it always campaigns on—but what it is not is evidence of money available today to put into force the effect of Part 1, which would be to add a further 4 weeks of paid parental leave. To claim that statements made in the Budget or that answers to questions in the House today are somehow evidence of affordability could not be further removed from the actual situation. It may be—and I am not going to speculate on what our Minister of Finance would do in that position—that with those surpluses in the future, there could be headroom to change, but it is not in this coming financial year.

I just want to mention—and I will not dwell upon this—another reason for the overall picture that we would take, which has an impact on our position on Part 1 and why we oppose it. Care and support for families with newborns can take a number of different forms. This bill would propose simply extending additional weeks of paid leave. But what the Government has done, and still looks at doing further, is actually broaden the eligibility for the level of paid parental leave that exists today. We look at seasonal workers, employees with more than one employer, different family caring arrangements like whāngai parents or grandparents caring for children—family and care arrangements that are relevant and meaningful for the parents but that previously would not have been eligible under a paid parental leave scheme. The Government is expending finances to deliver those services and to broaden the eligibility, but a dollar spent in doing that is, in effect, a dollar that is not, therefore, spent on Part 1—on an additional 4 weeks.

When we look at this and say “Are we prepared to make this extension?”, it is important that we look at the additional expenditure in the area of paid parental leave—not just in the number of weeks, but in the different eligibility broadening. It is important that we look at the total cost, rather than just look at very simplistic things like how many weeks and the total number of weeks. I think this Government has very clearly expended a great deal extra, as I have said, in moving to 18 weeks from 14 weeks and also broadening the eligibility. So we take the position that we show care and support for young families—we are putting the things in place to help them get the best start—for a broader section of the community, in fact, than this bill would give that to, because this bill does not have anything to do with other care arrangements or anything to do with employment arrangements. It is simply about a number of weeks. If it had not been for the measures the Government is looking to put in place, this bill would not apply to those people; it would actually leave them out in the cold, so to speak.

We take the view that there are a couple of ways you can address the whole issue of caring for young families: you can simply take a simplistic approach of increasing the number of weeks, or you can do it via other means. We have been doing it through a balance of both—increasing the number of weeks of support but also broadening the eligibility. On the whole, our view is that that gives a far better outcome across a broader group and is affordable in our current fiscal conditions, whereas to accept Part 1 as it stands would simply be to put in place something that is not affordable in the coming year or the coming couple of years, given the projected surpluses.

Even if we were to consider it further in our forecast surpluses, I would caution the House that a Government has more responsibilities than simply the services or the costs under this bill. When we do look at larger surpluses in the future, we have to think about the other pressing needs across society around the services and the infrastructure that a Government is duly responsible to deliver and make sensible and pragmatic decisions about that are relevant to all of those factors. Right at the moment, our position remains that to support Part 1 and to increase paid parental leave by this amount so soon is unaffordable, and it is something that we cannot and will not support.

I move, That the question be now put.

Kia ora e Te Kaiwhakahaere. In the earlier stages of this debate I posed a number of questions to the member in the chair, Sue Moroney, and I am disappointed they have not actually been addressed and responded to. A few more have come to mind during the subsequent course of this debate. It has been focused solely on Part 1, which deals with the first tranche of expansion in the weeks of paid parental leave. One of the assertions made by the member during her speech at the very start of this debate was that it would have a positive effect on the breastfeeding of New Zealand children. This is a topic that I never dreamt for a moment that I would be addressing here in our House of Representatives, but it is something that, actually, is very pertinent if you are interested in the health and well-being of New Zealand children—our mokopuna, young New Zealanders. It actually has a lifelong effect on the health, the well-being, and, actually, the other social outcomes for young New Zealanders if they have the maximum opportunity to have exclusive breastfeeding—that is, to be fed only human breast milk for as long as possible in their childhood.

Of course, we on this side, being scientifically minded and a Government that is based on rationality and logic, accept the research in that area, but what has yet to be, I think, demonstrated completely—and certainly to the level where I am totally convinced you can claim an extension in paid parental leave to the 22 weeks provided for in the first tranche of this bill, as per Part 1—is that it will have, I think, the transformative effects that the member was alluding to, particularly among some of the more vulnerable communities in New Zealand.

We saw statistics that came from empirical studies in other countries. We saw studies conducted in Norway that were providing arguments in favour. We saw studies from the United Kingdom and America—very different cultural contexts. When the Ministry of Health came in to talk to the New Zealand example, which is very different to those Nordic, Scandinavian, North American, or European examples, the evidence was a little bit less clear. So the questions I suppose I have for the member are about what weighting she puts on the figures that actually show that Māori and Pasifika people do have a significantly lower rate of breastfeeding—particularly exclusive breastfeeding—and how she thinks the extension of paid parental leave to 22 weeks will have a significant or transformative effect on those communities where there is a major underrepresentation of exclusive breastfeeding.

Similarly, I would also like to know whether she thinks that there might be, I guess, in some ways negative consequences by saying that you have to stay at home—you have to be on paid parental leave—to be able to breastfeed or to be able to exclusively breastfeed. This is actually sending a negative signal out there to say that this is something that should not be encouraged in companies. Even in this place, when I first started working for the National Party, I actually worked for Katherine Rich, who was a very fine list MP based in Dunedin at the time, and she was one of the few members who actually had a baby while she was in Parliament. She was one of the pioneers, I suppose, in that regard, and was provided with a room near the Chamber so that she was able to—

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Order! It is interesting, but Part 1 is about 22 weeks. So tie it back to 22 weeks.

I guess the point I am making is that breastfeeding is a fundamental premise of why the member is arguing for an extension to 22 weeks. The evidence was significant, but not entirely conclusive, that extending paid parental leave to 22 weeks would have that transformative effect on the levels of exclusive breastfeeding, and whether there would be a knock-on effect, particularly to private companies but also the Public Service, where we are saying you actually have to go home—you have to be on leave to be able to do this. It is a natural function, but it is also very important for the health of children. It gives them that immunological, nutritional—every advantage in health, even educationally, and going on into rates of offending.

We did have a significant range of evidence. I want to commend the members of the Government Administration Committee, who looked at it very closely and scrutinised that. I want to commend our tenacious committee clerk, who did a wonderful job of ensuring that we followed up with officials to get access to the evidence we needed. But is the member convinced that that evidence is as clear as she seems to want to have the House believe?

There is little debate in Parliament around the merits of paid parental leave. The core issue in this part is whether there is some magical number of weeks in which falls the line between good Government policy for families and children and where it does not. The member in the chair for the bill puts that line at 26 weeks, or half a year. The—

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): No, no. Part 1.

Part 1. As I understand it, Mr Chairman—

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Twenty-six weeks is in Part 2.

—the duration of the extended leave is covered in this part, Mr Chairman. Am I not correct? [Interruption]

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Order! We are on Part 1, and that refers to 16—[Interruption] When I am ruling, we will have some silence please. We are on—if the member would like to sit while I just rule on this.

Certainly.

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): We are on Part 1, and Part 1 refers to 22 weeks. Part 2 refers to 26 weeks, so I will ask the member to come back to 22 weeks, in Part 1.

Indeed, Mr Chairman. As I was saying, there is an arbitrary argument around the exact number of weeks of paid parental leave that should be provided.

💬 Carmel Sepuloni: Like the number of houses that Minister was supposed to build—arbitrary number.

Well, actually, we are building double the number of houses—

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Order! Now, relevance here. We are not talking about roads of national significance, and we are not talking about houses; we are talking about 22 weeks.

Speaking to the point of order, Mr Chairman.

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): No, no, I have ruled, so just carry on with Part 1, please.

If members opposite interject on a completely different topic—

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): I am ruling. You have got the call, and it is Part 1.

The debate around the number of weeks that it is appropriate to provide for paid parental leave effectively comes down to an issue of fiscal prudence. This Government stood on a platform of living within its means. Although paid parental leave has been extended, we have worked very hard as a Government to ensure that we balance the books, but let nobody misunderstand, the surplus is absolutely wafer-thin. In fact, every time there is a new level of forecasts, there is a bigger difference from month to month in the size of the surplus. So, for instance, last year this Parliament debated back and forth, and I do not think any Minister, including the Minister of Finance, knew whether it was going to be a black number or a red number. And even the 2 financial years where we are looking out, in out-years, those numbers are under 1 percent of what the Government spends.

The problem is that in every single area of Government endeavour there is an argument from the Opposition that it is not enough. Paid parental leave is no different to any other area. Whether it is issues of mental health, whether it is issues in the broader health care sector, whether it is issues of housing, or whether it is education, medicine or whatever, including paid parental leave, the Opposition always says: “It is not enough.” And that is where the Opposition is in paid parental leave. The Government’s position is quite simple and is this: if we spent in every single area, including this one, where members opposite want to spend, we would be back in the position we were in when they left Government—of horrendous and increasing deficits, increasing debt.

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Come back.

Well, at the core of the issue, at the core of the debate about paid parental leave, is the issue of affordability. The reason that members on this side of the Chamber say, yes, we are in favour of extending paid parental leave but at a rate that is affordable is that if we go down the road proposed by the Opposition—whether it be in this policy area or any other—the level of increase in expenditure will just get New Zealand into the sort of financial pickle that other Governments and previous Governments in this country have got themselves into. They know how to spend, but they do not know how to earn and they do not know how to live within their means.

So I simply come back again and say that paid parental leave is a good thing. This Government is proud of its record, but what differentiates this Government from members opposite is that we know how to live within our means.

💬 Phil Twyford: You’ve borrowed more than any other Government in history.

Members opposite clearly do not know. I am simply saying I am very proud. Members opposite are questioning the Government’s fiscal record. I think the fact that we have produced three consecutive, very small surpluses—

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): No. This is getting very wide. I would like to hear about 22 weeks. That is what Part—[Interruption] Order! The member will sit while I am ruling. It is all very well talking about surpluses and talking about deficits and talking about other things, but this is really quite a narrow debate that talks about 22 weeks, and I would actually like the member to mention, somewhere, 22 weeks.

I am very happy to mention 22 weeks, and the reason the Government does not support the extension of paid parental leave is that when we are running wafer-thin surpluses, when we have worked so hard to get New Zealand back in the black, when our Government has campaigned election after election, successfully, on a message of living within our means—

I move, That the question be now put.

A party vote was called for on the question that the question be now put.

We will have silence when votes are taken, thank you.

I am very pleased to take a second call on Part 1 of the Parental Leave and Employment Protection (6 Months’ Paid Leave) Amendment Bill in relation to 22 weeks of paid parental leave. I do want to come back to the cost, and I do want to talk about that because it is significant. It is the primary reason why we are opposing this bill. It is not that we do not support paid parental leave, and I support the comments of Minister Dr Nick Smith, who took a call before me on that. He outlined that very clearly.

I want to talk about some of the submissions we heard and some of the concerns I had as a Government Administration Committee member. I know the last time I took a call, when I sat down one of the Green Party members got up and said I was—I forget the term now, but it was something like mansplaining—

💬 Hon Member: Manscaping?

—man-something. Basically, it was an attack on me because I am a man and I dared to take a call on this bill.

💬 Brett Hudson: Did you apologise for it?

There was no apology that came. I was highly offended by the comment, but I am actually used to that. I understand why the Labour whip would take a point of order. That is something that a National Party member would never do against another National Party member.

💬 Iain Lees-Galloway: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. You have ruled on that matter, and matters of procedure are not part of Part 1 of this bill.

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): I do ask members to come back to the part. If you are serious about the relevancy of Part 1, I would ask you to come back to the part. It is a very narrow debate. It is about 22 weeks. You can refer to what happened in the select committee and how you came to report back to the Committee of the whole House, but I do ask that you concentrate on Part 1 and, specifically, on why it is important that it is now 22 weeks, or otherwise.

Let me come back to the 22 weeks, and also let me come back to the point that I was going to make.

💬 Hon Ruth Dyson: What do you mean “come back”? You have to have been there to come back.

I am sure the chair of the committee, Ruth Dyson, will get up and take a call and support me on this. She supported me in the committee when I raised this issue. My concern is that I think we all accept breastfeeding and breast milk—if a new mother is able to do that, it is definitely the best thing for her child, without a doubt. I do not think we challenged the science around that or the submissions that were made to the committee. The one concern I had with some of the language that was being used and some of the discussions in the committee—the risk is that if a new mother, for whatever reason, whether it be medical or physical, was unable to actually breastfeed her baby, somehow her role as a mother was diminished. If a mother—

💬 Iain Lees-Galloway: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. This discussion about the merits of breastfeeding, although interesting, is well wide of Part 1 of this legislation.

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): If it was part of the submissions that were heard and it relates to why 22 weeks is important, then that is fair enough. But I do ask the member—this is my second time asking the member to concentrate on Part 1. Otherwise, I will terminate his speech.

The point I am trying to make, as it relates to 22 weeks of paid parental leave, is the fact that we just have to be very careful that as part of the debate, we do not send a message to new parents that if they are not taking 22 weeks’, or if they are not even taking 18 weeks’, paid parental leave, actually it does not mean they are not able to form a strong bond with their child. It does not mean that somehow their role as a parent is diminished. I know that in my own circumstances, with my mother, she was not in that position, and yet I feel my siblings and I have got a very strong, healthy bond with my mother. She has been an outstanding mother.

I do want to come back to the cost. I know there has been significant focus on this, but I do want to discuss it because the fact of the matter is that if we take half a billion dollars over the next 4 years—and I think the Minister highlighted the fact that although this Government has been very successful in its economic management, with a finance Minister who has delivered us back into a situation where we have surpluses—albeit thin surpluses—when we came into Government we were projected to have 10 years of deficits at least. That is an achievement in itself, and it puts us in a better position. Ultimately, it may put the Government in the position where it has got additional funds to be able to decide where in the economy it is going to be best used for everyone, for all of us as Kiwis. But at the moment we are facing a bill for an additional half a billion dollars over 4 years.

I guess I will take it back to my own electorate. A fortnight ago we were very lucky to open a complete new rebuild of the junior side of Warkworth Primary School, something that—

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): No. We are not talking about education; we are talking about this.

OK. I understand, Mr Chairperson. I guess I am trying to use real examples in terms of the fiscal impact of an additional half a billion dollars of spending over the next 4 years, which is significant. So let me be more general in my comments. When the Government makes its decisions around appropriations, then, of course, we have to be very focused—

I move, That the question be now put.

I am really pleased to take a call on this Parental Leave and Employment Protection (Six Months’ Paid Leave and Work Contact Hours) Amendment Bill. In using the full title of the bill, I particularly want to refer to Part 1, where we are looking at the changes between the number of weeks. Included in Part 1, of course, there are the amendments around paternity leave entitlements and partners, and around work contact. But, philosophically, the philosophy behind the Part 1 changes is around extending paid parental leave out to 22 weeks. Behind that philosophy, and, I am sure, through the submissions to the Government Administration Committee, what was heard was the difference it would make to extend, through this bill, paid parental leave to 22 weeks.

In recognising what stage a baby is at and its attachment to its mother, or, in fact, parental leave for its father, between the difference of what this Government has done—taken 14 weeks up to 18 weeks—and the suggestion in these amendments to the Act that it be taken out to 22 weeks, what we have, philosophically, is a belief that it must be done for the good of the baby and the mother, irrespective of the half a billion dollars of cost that has been projected over 4 years. The debate today in this Committee stage is about whether one is more worthy than the other. We are saying, as a Government, that we cannot afford to take it to 22 weeks at this time, despite the philosophy of the bill’s sponsor that it must be taken at this time, to the detriment of expenditure on other matters.

I am remembering back to when our twins were 18 weeks old, and the difference between that and 22 weeks. I think the philosophy behind paid parental leave and the importance of where we were, some 8 years ago, at 14 weeks, and now, at 18 weeks—that is a phenomenal difference in the age of a child, or children, as it was in our case.

That has been, with the full support of the Opposition, a good move to have made. However, there comes a time when it is really important to determine whether in fact the additional fiscal burden should be taken right at this time. That is why Part 1 and the amendments that Part 1 makes to the current Act, taking it out from 18 weeks to 22 weeks, is philosophically about whether now is the right time. As a Government, we are saying “Not yet. There are other priorities for us.” but it must be remembered that we are completely committed to children having a good start in life, to the development of that bond between the parent and the children, and we have consistently said that we will extend it further than the 18 weeks, which it currently is, out towards 22 weeks at a time when this Government can afford it. In fact, we have been consistently in favour of paid parental leave, as evidenced by our extending it from 14 to 18 weeks.

In addition to that, the important thing that has been achieved before now, instead of taking it to 22 weeks, is the modernisation. In this particular part it is all about 22 weeks, but the modernisation that we have done of paid parental leave to understand that there are some families who need it to be longer for a very good reason—and we have budgeted and provided the funding for that in legislation that has already modernised it.

So my premise here is that this is a philosophical difference about whether now is the time to take it, as Part 1 suggests, out to 22 weeks. I sought today to be on my feet to say that I believe in paid parental leave but that now is not the time. We have competing interests as a Government, and the half a billion dollars that this will cost over 4 years is not for just now. Thank you.

I move, That the question be now put.

The proposition in Part 1 of this bill is that the length of time for which paid parental leave is paid to new parents should be extended from what it presently is—18 weeks—to what the bill proposes, which is 22 weeks. That is the question to be debated.

If you will forgive me, I have a recent experience, on behalf of a friend who had a baby quite recently and had it very near to the time—1 April of this year—when the entitlement period under the current legislation was changed from 14 weeks up to 18 weeks. She was also aware at this time of other changes that were being made to paid parental leave, on which I will not dwell as members are well aware of what those are. It is interesting to just get an insight into how much this change actually makes to the people watching this debate on TV or listening at home on their crystal sets, because ultimately these bills are about the people of New Zealand and the access that they have to the resources of Government. It is interesting, because she was quite keen to hear when the amendment would go through and the changes would occur, and whether or not they would occur at such a time that if her baby was born in time, she would access an additional 4 weeks’ leave. Who would not want to attract an extra 4 weeks of payment when they have just had a baby, at a time when they are under some financial pressure?

We can actually backcast what a 4-week shift from 18 weeks to 22 weeks might look like by looking at the experience of a person who had a baby right around the time there was a similar law change to what this amendment would propose occur on 1 January 2017, which occurred on 1 April 2016—to increase paid parental leave by 4 weeks. As I said, she was interested in this change and in this occurrence, but not wholly interested. I can tell you why that might be, and it goes to the heart of the fact of this issue, and it questions the reason why Parliament has devoted so much time to debating this matter, because, as an expectant mother, she was embarking upon a voyage that will last for around about 20 years. As soon as one begins to debate the correct length of time for the Government to offer some support, the question immediately turns to “Is 22 weeks the correct length of time to pay paid parental leave in the year of 2017?”, which is as long as it will continue, if indeed this part and Part 2 of the bill are passed by this House.

It leads you to ask about other stages of development that we might equally have used to make an argument for the optimal length of time for the Government to use scarce taxpayer resources to give money to parents. Parents sitting at home might ask what about 22 weeks is so substantial. Is it not more important to extend paid parental leave to 40 weeks? If you get to 40 weeks, you are at the stage when babies begin to crawl, when they can pick up objects, when they can wiggle. This is actually important, because this part is fundamentally about a debate about what the optimal length of time is.

What is on the table is 22 weeks. I would like to illustrate, by contrast, that there are some other developmental stages that are important in a baby’s life that might bring into question, for members in the Chamber and those listening at home, whether or not there really is so much wisdom—as the Opposition and the member in charge of the bill claim—in picking this time of 22 weeks for the bill. So I do think it is germane to raise the question of whether or not it should be 40 weeks, but what about another critical time to be at home with a child? That is the time of 52 weeks, the time when a baby begins to understand simple instructions. That particular period is absolutely critical in a child’s development because so much of our brains and the way that they have developed and the reason that our brains are so much larger than other animals of similar size is that we have developed such complex language.

Processing and developing language is actually a task that is critical to our development; in fact, it drives much of our development. If we accept the premise of this part—that we must increase the entitlement of paid parental leave from 18 weeks to 22 weeks in order to improve the quality of children’s development—then we might ask why we are prepared to extend it only to a time that will not allow parents to benefit from this bill when children are developing language, which is so important to our entire species and the development of our brains.

But there are further stages in a child’s development that might equally have the question asked of them. Once you start to ask about 22 weeks, you come up with so many other milestones that parents sitting at home know are equally important. They might ask about 104 weeks—that is language again, so critical in the development of a child—when children are expected to join sentences together. That is a critical stage because the ability to formulate full sentences is absolutely critical in the development of any child. There is much research showing that the children who are confident and articulate are those who are able to succeed in a whole manner of ways in life, and that might well be a good use of scarce taxpayer resources under a bill such as this. But, again, parents might ask if that is really the correct balance.

You can actually carry on this debate quite extensively—perhaps as far as a child’s 260th week, or 5 years of age, when they begin to attend primary school. I have heard it debated that there should actually be 260 weeks of paid parental leave. Why stop here? If we accept the premise that parenting is so dependent on having paid parental leave, then why stop at 22 weeks? It appears to be—

💬 Sue Moroney: Then any step toward that is a positive.

I hear—

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): I am sorry to interrupt the honourable member. The time has come for me to leave the Chair for the dinner break.

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

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Chester Borrows): Kia ora tātou. The House is resumed. Members, prior to the dinner hour we were debating Part 1 of the Parental Leave and Employment Protection (6 Months’ Paid Leave) Amendment Bill. David Seymour had the call and he has 2 minutes and 11 seconds remaining, should he wish to avail himself.

Thank you, Mr Chairman, and I do, indeed, wish to avail myself of this remaining 2 minutes and 11 seconds, or whatever is now left of that, as my contribution to the Committee stage debating Part 1 of this bill.

Mr Chair, when one of your fellow presiding officers was here, I was just making the point that there are actually very interesting stages of development throughout a child’s life, and the question of whether we should be voting in this Committee to extend the eligibility for paid parental leave from 18 weeks to 22 weeks on 1 January 2017 is really a question that has to be put in the context of those other developmental stages. Just to give you an idea, I was referring to the development of language and the various stages of a child’s development at which language becomes an important factor because a child has reached a milestone in linguistic development and the way that that affects the development of brain capacity. Indeed, language is very important as an explanation for why humans have much larger brains in comparison with their body size than other species.

I would also preface that by talking about the very real personal experience of a close friend of mine, who gave birth at or near 1 April this year, when there was a 4-week increase in the period of eligibility for paid parental leave, and the effect that that had on her. I just make the point that, ultimately, that particular increase, although attractive, was really not critical because it occurred in such a long context. The reason for that might be that this particular amendment will not affect the overwhelming majority of parents because, as it has been noted in earlier debates, there are approximately 60,000 children born in New Zealand each year and only approximately 26,000 parents actually take advantage of paid parental leave.

The premise that we have been asked to accept by the Opposition and the member in charge of this bill is that paid parental leave makes such a substantial difference that it is critical to the upbringing of a child—that it is critical tonight that we increase the period of time for which a child qualifies as rapidly as possible, and that we do that in time for 1 January next year. Yet how can it be simultaneously true that this 4-week increase is so important to the welfare of children and yet, at the same time, we find that the majority of parents will not be affected whatsoever because they do not take up any amount of paid parental leave for any length of time?

The other interesting thing about this particular amendment to move from 18 weeks to 22 weeks is that it actually is very poorly targeted at people who really need additional care and additional resource. You might contrast that with an amendment the Government has recently made to paid parental leave that extends it for babies who are born prematurely. You can look at the data that this Government increasingly has when it chooses to direct the State’s resources to increasing outcomes for children. What we find—for instance, from the outcomes of the Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Study, which was presented in an excellent lecture to parliamentarians over the dinner break, and it is a shame that more did not take advantage of it—is that, actually, this bill would make an extension of State resource to around about 45 percent of kids born, in an indiscriminate manner.

In reality, this Government now has a lot of data through its social investment framework to show that rather than applying wholesale increases and extra resources for an additional 4 weeks to the 45 percent of children whose parents have self-selected to apply for and receive their paid parental leave entitlement, this bill is actually going to lack the targeting that could be so much better in terms of getting outcomes by applying resources to those who are in greatest need. Let me give you a few examples from this rich data set that the Government now has available and that we should be applying scarce resources to, rather than applying them wholesale—

💬 Iain Lees-Galloway: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. Although the member is speaking about the bill in broad terms, he is not really addressing Part 1, which I think he should be doing at this point.

Speaking to the point of order, Mr Chair, I can absolutely assure you that I am speaking to the question of whether this part, which extends resources wholesale to a wide range of the population, is the most efficient way to apply resources.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Chester Borrows): OK, well, I am ready to make a ruling. The member will know I have already given one signal to keep it narrow. Although the member may well have been speaking to that up here, in his head, it needs to be delivered, because it is not what he is thinking that is in or out, as far as relevancy goes; it is what he says. If he can keep bringing that back to his 22 weeks over the next minute and 14 seconds, he will be doing great.

Thank you, Mr Chair. I suspect that my greatest challenge of all is to ensure not only that I am thinking it here, in my head, and speaking it here, with my voice, but also that you, Mr Chair, are hearing it there, in your ears.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Chester Borrows): Don’t go there, OK?

Let me continue by saying that it has been raised in this debate—by members who are in favour of the bill and members who are opposed to the bill, and opposed to this part and in favour of this part—that it is the best, or, in some speakers’ cases, an inefficient, use of the Government’s resource to have a wholesale increase in the entitlement for all parents from 18 weeks to 22 weeks, when, arguably, given the resources that the Government has in terms of data, it could be better targeting that resource. That is a very important consideration for members of this Committee listening to the debate but also for those people at home and those parents at home who might ask: if we are going to have a social contract where we pay an amount of tax—[Bell rung] Mr Chair?

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Chester Borrows): David Seymour, final call.

If we are going to have a policy where a scarce taxpayer resource is utilised in order to achieve better outcomes for all of our children in this country, then would it not be better to ensure that that investment is informed by the best data that we have? Simply saying that we wish to extend leave from 18 weeks to 22 weeks on 1 January 2017 is far too arbitrary, given that there is so much need out there and we need to do so much better for our children. Yet we find ourselves with an Opposition that is not prepared to use the relevant data and is not prepared to target resources towards need, but is instead content to rather arbitrarily—and, as I said, in the case of my friend it does seem rather arbitrary, in the wider consideration of parenting that is required—try to extend paid parental leave to 22 weeks on a particular day.

Why might that be? Well, we actually can look at the motivations behind a part such as this and the history of those who have proposed such parts, because public policy exists in a political context. Public policies that are not politically sustainable will not be sustained in a country, so it is worthwhile examining what previous speakers have said about initiatives such as this and their attempts to justify them.

As far back as 2002 Labour introduced paid parental leave—I think it was to only 12 weeks. Labour members would have argued at that time that it simply was not fiscally responsible to further extend paid parental leave. Of course, what is interesting about 2002 is that it was an election year, so I am building the case that we are not talking about extending paid parental leave from 18 weeks to 22 weeks because there is any evidential basis that this is the best use of taxpayer funds for making children better and for allowing them to develop into stronger and better citizens. There is a history where, actually, this type of policy has been proposed in years such as 2002, which was an election year. Labour again moved a change in the law similar to this in 2004, at exactly the time that there was a major change in the polling fortunes of the party that year. The interesting thing is that those were quite modest extensions of paid parental leave. They got us from zero to 12 weeks and 12 to 14 weeks. But the interesting thing is that at that time, the Government had much, much, much larger fiscal surpluses than it has now.

This is why targeting is so important. Today we live in a time when, compared with 2002 or 2004—when we had large fiscal surpluses and political pressure on Labour in Government—there have been modest extensions. The extensions today are constrained by there being a much, much smaller amount of fiscal headroom and, frankly, a lot more pressure on taxpayers, who have suffered from acute fiscal drag since that time. When we look back at the history, we can unpack some of Labour’s motivations.

It is not about the welfare of children. If it was, why do only 46 percent of parents who are eligible actually take it up? It is not about stages of development because, as I have argued, there are so many other critical stages of development that 22 weeks or even 26 weeks—which I am looking forward to debating in Part 2—will miss. It is simply about political posturing on behalf of the Labour Party to attempt to raise the age of entitlement, and when you gather up the evidence that we have seen throughout the history of this particular topic, when you gather up the evidence from child development, and when you gather up the fiscal record of various Governments when they have attempted to increase the eligibility for paid parental leave, what you find is that—[Bell rung]

💬 Iain Lees-Galloway: Thank God for that.

No, I pushed the button all by myself.