Holidays (Bereavement Leave for Miscarriage) Amendment Bill (No 2)

I move, That the Holidays (Bereavement Leave for Miscarriage) Amendment Bill (No 2) be now read a second time.

At the moment, New Zealanders are entitled to bereavement leave after the loss of a family member or child, but that does not include loss through miscarriage or through stillbirth. This bill enables a simple change that allows existing bereavement leave to be automatically made available for those families that have been through a miscarriage or a stillbirth. It is important that we allow families time to grieve, and I know for a fact that this is a sensitive topic that affects many families in New Zealand. I believe that it is important that parents know they have the right in law to grieve after a miscarriage or stillbirth.

Currently, the bereavement leave provisions of the Holidays Act 2003 are ambiguous in their application to miscarriage. Employees are entitled to three days’ bereavement leave on the death of a child, but it is unclear whether this would also apply when a pregnancy ends in miscarriage or in stillbirth. This ambiguity means that an employee’s entitlement is left at the discretion of the employer, and some families have not been able to take much needed time to grieve. My bill makes a very simple change: it allows families certainty that they have a legal right to access bereavement leave following a miscarriage or stillbirth. This bill removes the ambiguity by making it clear that, at the unplanned end of a pregnancy by miscarriage or stillbirth, this constitutes grounds for bereavement leave and that the duration of the leave should be in line with entitlement of other deaths within the immediate family.

Experiencing a miscarriage or stillbirth is an incredibly difficult time for a family, and I believe what this bill represents is showing that we have compassion in allowing families time to grieve, through having the right in law. Not everyone who experiences a miscarriage or stillbirth may feel like they need to access bereavement leave; however, it is important that we give people the option to access that leave should they choose to or wish to need it. There has been significant public support for this bill, with almost 7,000 members of the public signing an online petition to support the advocacy of members. Also, I would like to mention the person who initiated this bill, which was Kathryn van Beek, through being brave enough to tell her own story and to tell that in a public context.

I would like to take a moment to acknowledge all of the women and those families and organisations that came through the select committee process and told their stories, and acknowledge that that process was not an easy one for many of those women. Many of the submissions at select committee on this bill spoke about the importance of legislation to provide time for those who have had a miscarriage and to have time to grieve that loss. Submissions spoke about how a miscarriage or stillbirth is a traumatic time for all involved and how arguing with an employer about leave entitlement could potentially create further stress at this time. Submissions mentioned that many women in New Zealand experience miscarriage, with around 20,000 a year, and that there is a significant amount of stigma and discrimination surrounding miscarriage. The committee heard that bereavement leave may help to eliminate some of the stigma, shame, and silence and allow people to get the support they need, including in the workplace.

There were also personal stories amongst the submissions which spoke about the huge toll of having a miscarriage and how that can take a toll not only on the individual but also on the wider whānau. Women stated that having the ability to take time for bereavement leave would make a huge difference to those immediately involved surrounding that loss. They spoke about how this bill is an acknowledgment of those who have suffered miscarriages in the past and that has largely been done in silence, and it would acknowledge that grief.

I’d like to quickly run through some of the submissions, because I think the statements made by some of those people and those organisations were most apt in describing the current situation that can happen in the workplace and the issues which this bill is addressing. I’d like to acknowledge the Council of Trade Unions. They stated that when a baby is lost through miscarriage or stillbirth, it is bereavement leave and not sick leave that is required. Bereavement leave is distinctly different from sick leave. Bereavement leave provides time for a person or people that have had the miscarriage or stillbirth for grieving that needs to be done after a death.

There are many stories of people who have experienced a miscarriage or stillbirth and have had to argue to take that leave. As well as having paid leave and having an entitlement to that paid leave, it’s a statutory right that means job losses or job insecurity is not threatened by taking that leave or requesting to take that leave. A miscarriage or a stillbirth is a traumatic time and arguing about leave entitlements creates further stress and high emotion and it should not be at this time. It should be guaranteed as an employment right.

I would like to acknowledge Family Planning for what they contributed, and I think this contributes to the wider debate around what some of these issues are for New Zealand. They state: “Like other areas of sexual and reproductive health, it is important that we work to eliminate stigma, shame and silence surrounding miscarriage. Historically, women have been blamed for and judged because of miscarriage, and, sadly, there are still societal beliefs and attitudes which perpetuate this discrimination, particularly in some areas of the world. Misconceptions about the causes of miscarriage, as well as the ongoing discrimination women face about reproduction and reproductive decision-making contributes to shame and emotional distress experienced by people who have a miscarriage. This needs to change. People deserve support, compassion, and respect no matter what the outcome of a pregnancy and no matter what their decisions around reproduction … We hope this legislation not only provides relief to individuals who experience miscarriage, but helps to eliminate that stigma, shame and silence surrounding miscarriage so that people can more easily reach out for the support they need from friends, family, colleagues and their wider community, where that is helpful.”

I would like to conclude by running through some of the key changes that the select committee made when considering this bill, and I would like to acknowledge the excellent work that was done. I believe that these changes strengthen the bill and provide greater clarity. Initially, it has made it clearer around the knowledge of pregnancy. It makes it clear that a mother does not need to have known they were pregnant. It acknowledges that sometimes when someone has a miscarriage they did not know that they were pregnant in the first place, and not having the word “confirmed” makes it clear you are still eligible.

Secondly, around proof of pregnancy, this is a change to clarify the proof that would not be required for an employee to take bereavement leave. The committee considered that removing the term “confirmed” is important because they did not want the term to be misunderstood and lead to an uncomfortable exchange between employee and employer.

Finally, also the definition of miscarriage—amending the definition of miscarriage to clarify that bereavement leave could be sought for the unplanned end of a pregnancy no matter how far along that pregnancy was. The committee recommends changing the definition in order to reflect that. This would ensure that any pregnancy that ends after 20 weeks would still be defined and included.

The fourth change is expanding the definition that would be able to be taking bereavement leave. The committee believes that parents planning to adopt a child and parents having a baby through surrogacy should also be entitled to bereavement leave on the unplanned end of a relevant pregnancy, and that that should be reflected by changing it in the bill.

The final change is the cause of pregnancy ending. It clarifies that employees who experience the end of a pregnancy by way of an abortion would not be eligible for bereavement leave. The committee believed that the intent of this bill is to provide bereavement leave to those who experience a miscarriage or stillbirth, not for abortion. The committee recommended changing and removing the word “unplanned” from the bill.

In conclusion, I would like to acknowledge all of those women who submitted, all of the time that has been given to drive a change that I know will make a real difference in women’s and whānau lives around New Zealand. Nō reira, I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s a pleasure to stand and take a call on this bill this afternoon. I was a latecomer to this piece of legislation. I’ve only been the spokesperson for women for the past two weeks, and so I came into the select committee at the very last moment, when we were adjusting the last few pieces of wording before it came back to the House. But I do want to congratulate, first of all, Ginny Andersen for putting this bill forward. Often, members’ bills see somewhere where there’s a small gap in a piece of legislation that makes such a huge difference, and this is going to make a big difference in the lives of women who suffer from miscarriage. It seeks to make it clear that employees are eligible for bereavement leave for three days if they do have a miscarriage. At present, the Holidays Act doesn’t allow for that, so it’s a very, very strong move, in my mind.

It surprises me, actually, when I look through some of the reading that I’ve done around this, because as the member mentioned before, there remains for some people a secrecy—for some people, a shame—around miscarriage, and yes, society can do better. You know, it’s quite surprising when you read that one in four pregnancies end in miscarriage, and yet it’s not something that is often noticed. It’s not that we want to make a big thing about it for a woman either, but it’s just something that seems to go under the radar for the reasons of either shame or secrecy. I know the stories of a number of women who have had a miscarriage and then just picked themselves up and gone back to work, and it’s not until, you know, weeks, days, months later that the grief starts to kick in.

So National supports measures which support women and families, and that’s why we’re supporting this bill. Miscarriage is an important issue, because it affects around 20,000 women in New Zealand every year, which is not an insignificant number. It’s a very large number of people. We also believe that most employers would act in good faith when it comes to leave applications. However, we recognise that there are some who may not. It’s even wider than that, because if there is secrecy and shame surrounding this, it’s not just that the employers might not grant the leave; it’s actually that perhaps the woman is too embarrassed to ask for the leave, too shy to ask for the leave, or doesn’t want to bring attention to the fact that she would need leave for a miscarriage. So I think it’s really important that we make this clear.

So the bill is removing ambiguity from the law, making it clear that an unplanned end of a pregnancy constitutes grounds for bereavement leave for the mother and her partner or spouse, and that the duration of the bereavement leave should be up to three days. Now, when I came in a couple of weeks ago, at the end of the discussion—and I’m not going to go through all of the particular changes, because there are other people that were there, and we’ve actually heard from Ginny Andersen herself what those changes were. But the one that I think was really significant in the last moments of preparing for this bill was that we thought about parents who were going to be adoptive parents.

We looked at not just a woman and her partner in the sense that we think about miscarriage but someone who had undertaken to be the primary carer, and so often that is somebody different than the natural birth mother. So we spent quite some time having a look around what the wording of that particular need would be in the bill. Really, it was to support someone who had undertaken to be the primary carer, and so that’s described in section 7(1)(c) of the Parental Leave and Employment Protection Act 1987 of a child born as the result of a pregnancy. So if the child had gone to full term and been born, then the person who had undertaken to be the primary carer would then be the primary carer of this baby. Under this Act, if that pregnancy results in a miscarriage and the baby is lost, then it means that there’s also some grief that comes upon those people who had undertaken to be the primary carer had that pregnancy resulted in the birth of a live baby.

So I think, from me, that’s about all I’m going to say at this point, but I again congratulate the member and I congratulate the committee on the way with which they’ve worked with this bill and brought it to the House in the way it has been brought to the House, and it’s a pleasure to commend this bill to the House. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It is truly a pleasure to stand in support of this bill here this afternoon, and I too want to take the time to congratulate my colleague, Ginny Andersen, on firstly bringing this bill to the ballot and then having it drawn from the ballot and then working through it with our Education and Workforce Committee. I say my congratulations here this afternoon because I was away when this bill went through its first reading at the end of last year. I was really disappointed that I was away because I have a personal affinity to this bill, as I have suffered two miscarriages myself, one before my two children were born and one after my two children were born. Both were devastating on my life, and working through this with the select committee at the time brought back a whole lot of personal anxiety as I was working through that, but it also reminded me of just how necessary legislation like this is.

As the previous speaker, Barbara Kuriger, has said, sometimes there are small changes that are required in our law that seem small to many of us but make the biggest difference to so many people. This piece of legislation, as we heard in our select committee, will make a very, very big difference to so many people, and I will say particularly women. It’s not just women; there are a number of men who will benefit from this bill as well, but I think that from my perspective, it really is the women who will benefit greatly from this bill.

As we heard from Ginny Andersen in the first speech here this evening, we heard about the ambiguity that currently exists in the 2003 Holidays Act, where employees are entitled to three days’ bereavement leave when there is a death of a child but there is ambiguity over whether that would extend to a miscarriage or a stillbirth. This particular bill does make that clear and tidies that up and makes the line very, very distinct for people who are going through the situation of the miscarriage or stillbirth. As I said, the bill does remove that ambiguity.

During our select committee process, we actually had 37 submitters. Now, sometimes we could say that that doesn’t seem a lot, but actually we heard from other people outside of the select committee process right throughout that time, through the media. Everyone—those whole 37 and every other aspect where we heard from—was completely in support of this bill. I’m not sure—I think this actually might be the first bill that I’ve sat in in select committee that we’ve had 100 percent agreement from our submitters that everyone was in favour of this particular bill. There were elements that people brought up where we could strengthen the bill, but everyone supported the intent of it, and as a select committee I’d have to say that we did work through this with diligence. We worked very hard on it, and it was great to have such good support across both sides of the select committee in working through this particular bill.

Submissions spoke to the select committee about the importance of this piece of legislation. The submitters spoke about how—we heard personal stories and how much it would mean to them as people that they didn’t have to argue for leave. People didn’t actually necessarily bring up the aspect that they had to argue for leave, but they said to take that element away, that stress away, was really important. I can distinctly remember in that select committee process where one submitter spoke of the fact of the shame that they felt of having had a miscarriage and the fact that they then had to go to their employer to ask about having leave, and they weren’t certain whether they would be entitled to that leave. Now, this bill will take that away, that they know that that entitlement exists because it exists in law.

Now, the previous speaker talked about the fact of being quite amazed at people coming forward and feeling that sense of shame. That is something that I absolutely know from personal experience that those women felt. I know that I had that same sense of dread when I had to go to my employer and tell my employer, who knew that I was pregnant, that I had lost my baby. I didn’t even want to have to articulate the words in that first instance, and I think that I’m still feeling that grief today, and that’s 27 years later that I still feel that grief. So to say that these are just moments in time or that you will get over it is not correct, and that is what we heard from every single submitter who shared their personal experience during the select committee process.

The select committee also spoke about making certain that there was that importance given for time to grieve in this instance, not just being able to say or ask, “I need sick leave.” but actually acknowledging it as grief, and that is a really important distinction. We don’t need, when that situation happens, sick leave—that might have to come as well—but we need to acknowledge our grief, and acknowledging that as bereavement leave was really, really important to the people who came to our select committee and shared their experiences with us. There were tears shed from some of those people, and they were women. There were tears that were shed in that time, and I want to thank those people for actually sharing those very, very personal experiences. I know how difficult that would have been for them, and I know that I would’ve struggled in a similar situation, but the fact that they did come and acknowledge how personal that grief is, and was, and how it would help to have that acknowledged by society by having this bereavement leave for them, how important that was, made this bill so much stronger. I acknowledge them for their strength of character to be able to do that.

As I’ve said, telling their stories was a big part, and I sometimes, thinking about this bill, wish we had a few more that could’ve shared those stories, because sometimes in this place we lose the sense of the heart stories to put the picture around the legislation, and yet we need to hear those heart stories to understand just how important it is, the work that we do here. There’s no greater bill than this one for being able to tell those heart stories.

So I’d really like to finish with a quote from one of the submitters who has shared their experience of their miscarriage and just what that means to us here and this piece of legislation that we’re committing here today: “I have personally had two miscarriages. Both pregnancies, my husband and I got to see our baby on the scan and saw a heartbeat as well. We began to bond with the life that had started to grow inside of me and were both absolutely heartbroken when we lost these pregnancies. While I was fortunate that the companies I worked for were compassionate enough to allow me three days of bereavement leave, my husband was not offered any leave whatsoever for that time he required off not only to care for me but also his own grief, his grief of his own loss. I think that this bill will create equity among employees so that they don’t have to hope that their employer is one who will be compassionate enough to offer bereavement leave for miscarriage and instead will know that they are covered by law.” That is exactly why we’ve worked so hard to make a very, very good piece of legislation, and once again, I’d like to acknowledge my colleague here, Ginny Andersen, on the fantastic work that she has done in bringing this bill and shepherding it through the House. I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I’m taking this call to say that this side is supporting this bill. I want to acknowledge Ginny Andersen for her work on this bill. During the select committee process, I want to give special acknowledgement to Ginny Andersen for her very collaborative manner that she had to work with all members on the select committee on this legislation. So I really want to acknowledge her for that. She wanted to make sure that everybody was happy with the changes that were being made in the select committee process and she’s not a regular member of that select committee, the Education and Workforce Committee, but she was always there when we discussed this bill. So I want to thank Ginny Andersen for her commitment on the select committee as well. Can I also acknowledge Jan Tinetti. I want to express my sympathies to Jan Tinetti and I’m really sorry to hear your experience and I fully understand the pain remains for ever.

This legislation is really important because, as we have heard from other members before, this is something that people don’t openly talk about, and maybe through this legislation it will make it easier for people to actually come forward and state the actual reason of going out and seeking that leave.

So in this bill we understand the main purpose is, according to the member in charge of this bill, about clarifying a discrepancy in the Act, which is that bereavement leave is there if somebody’s child passes away but there is no bereavement leave for a miscarriage. That is to be clarified, or it can be seen as an extension of bereavement leave. Whichever way we see it, we support this bill and we support the cause and the reason why we have this bill before us.

During the select committee process we received 37 submissions. We had the opportunity to hear from 10 submitters, and I want to thank them. I’m really grateful to them for their courage, for their submissions, and the way submitters actually shared their experiences as well. So I want to acknowledge that too.

In the select committee, we made some changes and the changes were mainly to make sure that this leave is available to all people that are affected. We didn’t want to unknowingly exclude anybody who would go through this experience of miscarriage and not be able to access this bereavement leave of three days. So in all other cases, yes, it’s three days in the Employment Relations Act, and we wanted to see that it is three days for this one as well.

There are changes that I would like to highlight. The first one was a mother’s knowledge of pregnancy. So here we wanted to make sure the word “confirmed” was not implying that medically it is proven that the mother is pregnant before she experiences a miscarriage. I personally don’t know any friends, but I have heard from my friends about their friends, those who have experienced miscarriage—this is without knowing that they were pregnant. So we wanted to make sure people, those who experience miscarriage without knowing that they were pregnant and realise when they had that miscarriage that actually they were pregnant, are covered through this legislation.

Then the other issue is how you deal with the employer about this issue. So the employer—we know that, yeah, the good faith principle applies here again, according to the Employment Relations Act, where for other kinds of leave employers can ask for proof. But we didn’t want to see that that should become a hindrance for this person who is already suffering, already grieving, that the person is also required to produce proof, because in a situation when a person experiences miscarriage without knowing the person was pregnant, it would be really difficult for them to produce proof before they go on leave.

So the main purpose of this bill is to give this individual and other people that we have extended this leave to, through this legislation, in the select committee, the opportunity to grieve and also deal with the whole process. So that’s why we have changed some words. These words which were changed during the select committee, it might look like it’s just one word removed or one word changed, but that has changed the whole meaning of the change where it has happened. Like, as I said, “confirmed pregnancy”, we were not sure about word “confirmed”, so we decided not to have that word “confirmed”, and, again, proof of pregnancy that is related to that.

Then next, we also changed the definition of miscarriage, because we didn’t want to exclude anybody. Originally, as the bill was proposed, the definition was taken from the Births, Deaths, Marriages and Relationships Registration Act, and, according to that, we would have excluded people who were pregnant up to eight weeks. So we didn’t want to exclude anybody. We wanted to make sure that anybody who experiences a miscarriage, whether it’s a gestation of two weeks or whether it’s 36, 38, or 40 weeks—40 weeks is actually the birth time, I would say—any time before the normal birth happens, if it is a miscarriage or stillbirth, that person is actually entitled to this leave. So up to 20 weeks, according to this now, is considered to be a miscarriage and after 20 weeks a stillbirth.

Then, the other thing was: who should be entitled for this leave? Because we know that when bereavement leave is accessed, it can be accessed for a number of relatives, and sometimes as the extended family you can access bereavement leave. Here we wanted to make sure we are extending this leave to people that would be grieving. So parents that possibly were going to adopt, if that was the situation, or if there was a surrogacy arrangement, and also, if some couples or an individual was going to become a primary carer, all those people are covered. So those kinds of changes were made in the select committee.

And then finally, a very important change was made in the select committee about this word “unplanned”, because we wanted to make sure that the end to pregnancy is unplanned. But in some circumstances, as it was discussed in the select committee, an individual could be having some other treatment for another illness, but then the secondary consequence of that is that the person undergoes miscarriage. In that situation, that medical treatment was planned, but the person didn’t want to see their pregnancy end. So we wanted to make sure those people are included as well in this leave. But it is quite clear that abortion is not included. So it is actually the secondary consequence of any other treatment if that leads to a miscarriage; that is definitely included in this bill.

So I would say that this bill is actually something that is quite thoughtful. We know that the number of women that we have—as for the numbers, as we have discussed before, that normally people don’t come out and talk about it. So there could be more numbers than we know about, but we would really like people to feel comfortable about it and come forward and seek this leave where it is needed in that good faith relationship with their employer. We want these people to be supported, because their health and wellbeing is really important for us. Obviously, that is important for their employer as well. So, we are quite supportive of this legislation. Thank you.

It is a privilege to rise on behalf of New Zealand First to, once again, offer our support to this Holidays (Bereavement Leave for Miscarriage) Amendment Bill (No 2). In doing so, I too would like to join in the congratulations for the member Ginny Andersen for the way she has shepherded this bill through so proactively and for her engagement with the select committee process, of which I was part.

Members’ bills, as Barbara Kuriger pointed out, are often quite technical or are for wee gaps in legislation, but in regard to this one, it is a substantive one. We’ve got an estimated 20,000 stillbirths or miscarriages every year. This is a huge cross-section of New Zealanders that are affected by these circumstances, and I think this bill will make a real difference to people’s lives, so congratulations to Ginny Andersen for bringing this forward. Of course, this looks to amend the Holidays Act of 2003, recognising stillbirth and miscarriage in regard to bereavement leave, and it does clarify the ambiguities that sit within that Act now.

During the select committee process—it was a good process—there were 37 submissions. The ones—I think it was 10—that submitted in person were very emotional, and they certainly left us in no doubt of how much a need that this piece of legislation will be.

During that, we made a number of amendments. We removed the need in the amendment to section 69 in clause 4(2) to have had a “confirmed” pregnancy, because it was pointed out by a number of submitters that women don’t always know that they are pregnant when a miscarriage occurs, and we did not want to be in any way punitive or to draw a line there where it was making it more difficult for one mother over another to get access to this entitlement. So I think that was a good part of the process that we brought through the Education and Workforce Committee. Of course, as has been pointed out, there’s still the duty of good faith within this with section 4 of the Employment Relations Act, and that still applies.

As has been traversed, this bill applies only to unplanned terminations, miscarriages, and stillbirths. It does not apply to planned terminations or abortions.

The other thing that we did—and I think New Zealand First absolutely supports—is recognise the breadth of people that are affected within this as well. I too was moved by Jan Tinetti’s heartfelt speech before, and I do not wish in any way to minimise the effect on the female within this process, but for fathers too—while we may not be physically carrying the child, we’re certainly emotionally involved. It is something of great anticipation to become a parent. So it is great that through the select committee process, we did clarify who would be eligible for such leave, which, of course, includes the partner of a biological parent who may not actually be still in the relationship with the woman concerned, and also caregivers who may have been the parents who were undertaking to be the primary caregiver post-birth and, of course, surrogates as well. So I think that was something that Clayton Mitchell, in his first reading speech, had indicated that we would be looking to see some indication of for the fathers and how they would be treated through this, and I’m not trying to draw equivalence, but there’s certainly is an effect there.

More broadly, I’m pleased to see this has got support across the House, because it does reflect the renewed or the much-increased focus on mental health. You know, across the House, I think we’ve recognised that we need to do much more in this space. There’s a lot of resource going in, but I think this is a practical way that we can deal with this traumatic situation. It allows some time to grieve for a miscarriage or a stillbirth process, and it allows some healing to go back on. We heard through the submission process just how horrific this can be, and to then actually have to get up and have a shower and get dressed and go to work—you know, that’s pretty horrendous stuff.

I know that for the vast majority of cases, employers would be empathetic and would make provision, but this just ensures that there is an entitlement there for the people involved: the woman involved and the tight circle that are eligible within this legislation to take leave. It’s actually an entitlement, and they don’t have to put themselves through the trauma that Jan Tinetti outlined to us before—and many of the submitters too.

So, without further ado, New Zealand First absolutely supports this. Once again, I commend you, Ginny Andersen, on the way you’ve brought this through and for the important impact that it will have on the lives of many New Zealanders. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I intend to take just a short call on this bill, the Holidays (Bereavement Leave for Miscarriage) Amendment Bill (No 2). This is an alteration to the Holidays Act. It’s simply a clarification for the death of a child, clarifying that, actually, the death of a child can include unborn children—so up until 20 weeks it is considered a miscarriage, and after 20 weeks it is considered a stillbirth.

We’ve heard lots of contributions from the Government benches. I congratulate Ginny Andersen on being fortunate enough to have her member’s bill drawn in her first term, and as some other women, and especially the submitters, have mentioned, it is something that is significant for some women to experience miscarriages, and my own experience of that, on a couple of occasions, were both quite different. So it’s very difficult to determine that you must convince an employer of the pregnancy but also have that entitlement, as the member who just resumed his seat said, for the ability to grieve and recover.

So we have no issues with this bill. It has been through a thorough select committee process. I do note that it has taken the ambiguity out of the language to clarify, but it also shows that laws, as they are passed and embed themselves into society, do require some tweaking over time, and this is simply doing that, and for a very sensitive issue as well. It will allow for leave for up to three days for women who experience the unplanned loss of a child. I have no hesitation in commending this bill to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I too am very pleased to rise on behalf of the Green Party to take a short but very enthusiastic call on the second reading of the Holidays (Bereavement Leave for Miscarriage) Amendment Bill (No 2), which is a member’s bill brought forward from Ginny Andersen. I really want to acknowledge her for getting this drawn, as others have, but more, actually, for listening to people in her community, and mostly women in her community, who were telling her of a problem with our existing system. I think this is the best of Parliament, when we are able to hear the concerns of people and come up with solutions and join together in a unanimous voice to make lives easier.

I too want to acknowledge that the point of this legislation is to ensure easy access and extended access to bereavement leave for pregnant people and their partners who have experienced the unplanned end of a pregnancy. I do just want to note how many times in the community I’ve met with people that have spoken about points in their life where things went wrong, or started going wrong, and how striking it has been to me—how often that comes back to a point of grief that was unresolved. I think it has, can have, an incredibly profound impact on people and family. I think this piece of legislation is really important in terms of raising the profile of this as an issue, of enabling people to speak about it, and, in acknowledging that, taking time to deal with your grief can pay off in the long term, and that we as a country support people to do that.

I also would just like to acknowledge the Education and Workforce Committee. I wasn’t fortunate enough to be on the select committee, but I think they engaged with the bill really actively, with the 100 percent of support from submitters, and with practical changes that were recommended. They made a small number of changes—but significant—to improve the bill that were supported by the members: so making it clear that the pregnant person didn’t need to know that they were pregnant to be able to access this leave, and that proof was not required. This bill is about trying to avoid those conflict conversations in an employment context, and just ensuring that people in the depths of their grief are able to focus on their grief, not having a difficult conversation with their employer in proving the cause of their grief; and refining the definition of miscarriage—that is, that it is an unplanned end of the pregnancy, no matter how far along; and that there’s a different time definition, miscarriage pre - 20-weeks versus stillbirth after 20 weeks. This just smoothed that out.

It expanded the definition of eligibility to include parents planning to adopt, and those involved in surrogacy. It ensured that former spouses or partners of the pregnant person should be entitled to bereavement leave as well, recognising a planned child and the huge investment that many people have in the future for themselves with that child. That’s true for the person carrying the pregnancy as well as the partner, or former partners—it is about the whole family. And this legislation is not to apply to abortion, because the point of difficulty around people’s mental health that can come up in relation to abortion—it’s not actually in relation to abortion, it’s about having an unplanned, unexpected pregnancy, and not the ending of it. So we are very pleased to be supporting this. This is an important step in this country around supporting people to grieve and work together as a family to overcome tragedy.

It’s a pleasure to rise and take a brief call on the Holidays (Bereavement Leave for Miscarriage) Amendment Bill (No 2)—an amendment bill to the Holidays Act—which we’re discussing today. I do want to echo the congratulations to the member Ginny Andersen for bringing this issue to the House. It is through members’ bills that I think issues like this can be identified and resolved, so I do want to applaud her in the House. Also, to my fellow select committee colleague Jan Tinetti, I didn’t know those stories about what you faced, and thank you for giving realism to the bill that we’re discussing today and for sharing your story.

Look, the bill that we’re discussing, of course, has been through a select committee process. I’ve come in on the back end of that, in the select committee. I joined the select committee just as we were putting this report together, so I wasn’t able to hear the 37 submissions that were discussed or debated, but I was involved in the discussions around some of the intricacies of how we actually make this work from a practical basis—for example, whether we require proof for bereavement leave, and the scope and definition about who this should in fact apply to. I think we’ve got the balance about right in terms of giving effect to the grieving process.

I do want to call out Jan Logie’s statement that this is really about just an acknowledgement that it is OK to grieve. For those of us who have been through this process or lost a loved one, we know that the grieving process takes time—in fact, in most cases, far more than the three days that’s under the law. But this is just an acknowledgment that, look, it is OK to in fact grieve for something that has been lost.

So I just want to acknowledge all the work that has gone into this process. I want to acknowledge, of course, the employers out there who have in the past given their staff bereavement leave for this even though they weren’t required to under the law. I think on this side of the House, we always respect the employer-employee relationship, and that is one that is built on good faith and trust. I think a lot of employers, had they known in the past that their workers had been through this, would have actually stepped up and said, “Look, just take a couple of days off. Take a breather and come back with fresh eyes.” And I do want to acknowledge all the employers who have stepped up to the plate and gone beyond the law and actually extended this.

But this is an important day for Ginny Andersen. It’s an important day for the more than 20,000 women out there who go through this process every year, and I want to acknowledge the members of the select committee, the officials, the submitters, and I commend this bill to the House.

This is a split call. I call Priyanca Radhakrishnan—five minutes.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise to take a call on the Holidays (Bereavement Leave for Miscarriage) Amendment Bill (No 2) with great pride, partly, because it’s in the name of my friend and colleague Ginny Andersen, one of the “class of 2017” from Labour. I just want to, as many others have done in the House today, commend her on the work that she’s done to shepherd this bill through the different stages to where it’s at today. I also, just on the outset, want to acknowledge and thank Kathryn van Beek and the other women who have pushed for this legislative change over many years and, really, once again, just thank them for the work and the courage that it’s taken for them to speak of their experiences as well, because at the heart of this bill lies the issue of grief, which is an extremely painful process.

When we lose someone we love we experience all sorts of things from insecurity to fear; to anger, sometimes; to shock and disbelief; and even physical symptoms, especially so when it’s the loss of a baby through miscarriage or stillbirth. And so that is the last point in time that someone should be expected to go through uncertainty or ambiguity about the leave that they can expect from their employer at that point in time. Acknowledging, as others have, that there are some employers who, of course, would grant that leave willingly, but we know from submitters to this bill that for many people that hasn’t been the case, and that’s where this bill, changes things.

So this bill takes the ambiguity out of current legislation and it clarifies the fact that employees who have lost a child through miscarriage or stillbirth are entitled to bereavement leave. That is an important distinction. In some cases, people say, “Why can’t they just take sick leave?” Firstly, sick leave entitlements are not infinite, but also, more importantly, they’re not for bereavement. This is a specific reason that people need to take leave. Also, my colleague Jan Tinetti pointed out in her speech, her contribution earlier today, that the fact that women can take bereavement leave in itself is an important distinction, because that’s part of the healing process and that’s what this bill speaks to and allows for as well.

Other speakers have gone into the various changes that the Education and Workforce Committee has suggested, has recommended, to finesse this bill. And I too just want to point to the fact that what the select committee has done in their consideration of this bill is to actually clarify it further. And I thank members who sat around, who were part of that select committee, and put their heart and soul, from what I’ve heard, into doing this.

So the knowledge of pregnancy—I know from others that there are women who haven’t actually realised that they’re pregnant, but do lose that pregnancy. The effect to them is the same in terms of the grief that they feel of the loss of that child and so one of the select committee recommendations was to amend clause 4(2), making it clear that the mother doesn’t need to have known that she was pregnant in order to be able to avail herself of this particular kind of leave, bereavement leave. There’s also not a requirement for proof of pregnancy for an employee to take bereavement leave as well. There was a recommendation around the definition of “miscarriage”, also the relationship requirement, and I was happy to see that this bill also believes that parents planning to adopt a child or parents having a baby through surrogacy should also be entitled to bereavement leave on the unplanned end of that relevant pregnancy. It also includes the former spouse or partner of the pregnant person if they were the biological parent of that child.

I, just in the time remaining, quickly point to the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions’ submission around the fact that Family Planning reports that there’s also a lot of stigma and discrimination around miscarriage and stillbirth and that, you know, allowing women to take this bereavement leave might actually eliminate some of that stigma and silence that women face. And I say this particularly as the chair of the NZPPD, the New Zealand Parliamentarians’ Group on Population and Development, where we work on issues around sexual health, sexual reproductive rights, and health as well. And I’m hugely supportive of this bill, and I commend it to the House.

Before I call Agnes Loheni, can I ask the members of the public that are in the gallery for a little bit of quiet. There’s a really important debate happening on the floor of the Chamber, and it would be really helpful for the process of this bill for a little silence.

Thank you, Mr Speaker—a pleasure to be able to make a short contribution to this, the second reading of the Holidays (Bereavement Leave for Miscarriage) Amendment Bill (No 2). I’d like to acknowledge the member Ginny Andersen in bringing this bill to the House. We in the National Party support measures that support women and families.

Miscarriage is an important issue, and it’s a painful one. It’s an issue that affects one in four women in this country every year, and, sadly, I am one of those women. I am truly grateful to be a mother of five children, but I’ll never ever forget the baby that I lost, sadly, 16 years ago through a miscarriage. That experience was very traumatic for my husband and I, and so I support the intent of this bill, and as the previous member who sat down said, this is about grief.

I just want to put some thoughts to that, in terms of grief, because I do have some issues with this bill. As I said, I support the bill, but I do have some issues in that we are allowing a grieving process for one part of loss but not for others. We are allowing into this bill grieving to be allowed for women who lose a baby through miscarriage or stillbirth, but, unfortunately, that is not a compassion that will be shown to women that have lost a baby due to abortion.

I would like to acknowledge all those that took the time to make submissions on this bill, and I want to highlight some points raised in a submission by Catherine Gillies, who is a woman that works a lot in the space of post-abortive counselling. In her submission—and I echo the sentiments raised in Catherine’s submission about women in post-abortive grief: “They need their grief to be acknowledged. Society does them a grave injustice when it says, ‘it was your choice, live with it’ and expects them to just pull up their socks, bury their grief and get on with it.” So as I said, this bill creates a class of loss, a class of grief, where one is acknowledged and one is not.

So there is an underlying hypocrisy with creating a law which will undoubtedly lead to women having to lie about their abortion so that they can be considered for bereavement leave under this legislation. In my Abortion Legislation Bill speech, I spoke about caring for women who had gone through an abortion. I cared about their mental health and the ongoing effects of grief. It is an intellectual dishonesty by refusing to acknowledge that a woman who has had an abortion has lost a child. They willingly concede that a woman who has had a miscarriage has lost a baby worthy to be grieved over, but if a woman has had an abortion—no regard for that loss. Nothing to see here, folks—move on.

So whilst I support this bill so we can support women who have suffered the loss of a baby due to miscarriage or childbirth, I feel that this bill is incomplete. Thank you.

Tēnā koe e Te Māngai o Te Whare. Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to take a call on this bill, and also, like many before me, I’d like to congratulate Ginny Andersen for her member’s bill. The cross-party support for this bill obviously reflects the importance of this particular issue.

Currently, the provisions of the Holidays Act, as they are written, quite often lead to disputes between employers and employees when it comes to having to take bereavement leave. And that, of course, in the circumstances that that occurs, is absolutely unacceptable and unreasonable, but it happens more frequently than not. Having worked at grassroots levels at a union, I can state for the record that I have frequently represented women who have had to defend themselves for needing to take leave for their miscarriage. Now, there are examples of employers even going through social media to say, “Well, you said you had a miscarriage that day, but at night we saw you at a party.”, or “At night, we saw you going out for dinner.” What that doesn’t recognise is that quite often the women actually put on a brave face and don’t admit to their employer or to their friends and family that they are hurting from this particular event.

No, a miscarriage or a stillbirth is a traumatic time, and arguing to have to take leave during that time is adding to that particular grieving stage. So this bill is a really good opportunity for people to also talk about the issue. I acknowledge Kathryn van Beek as well for her advocacy on this topic, and of course my colleague Clare Curran for all her work that she has done on this bill.

It has been mentioned by our previous speakers that our select committee heard or received 37 submissions on this bill—all supporting either the bill completely or the bill with amendments. As it is evident from the submissions that we received, it is also important that people feel more comfortable talking about pregnancy laws. There was a submission from New Zealand Family Planning, which stated: “it is important that we work to eliminate stigma, shame, and silence surrounding miscarriage.”, and it isn’t something many people talk openly about. The PSA Women’s Network committee said, “Miscarriage is not really talked about so openly … [it’s like] an incomplete job or project. Family and friends would say ‘Oh, just try again you will have no problem’ or ‘sorry to hear that, don’t worry it will happen’ … It is almost as if couples, especially the women, are silently viewed as a failure”. In fact, I will add myself to the record as well, and I had a miscarriage at 13 weeks. In a way, even though I didn’t feel ashamed of it, I did feel in some way that it was an unfinished project—it was something that I had failed at. So I can very much understand how these women that have submitted to us may have perceived their miscarriage.

So many submitters shared their personal stories with us, and I think they were very brave and forthcoming. It is due to their openly shared stories that we have been able to get this bill across the House, potentially with cross-party support. It is also really important that we acknowledge that it is also important when you look at the growth of people in precarious work situations in Aotearoa New Zealand, higher proportions of Māori and Pacific women are in this casual and seasonal work, and it means that those groups of women will experience greater disadvantage; in particular, these groups of women will need greater protections in employment law, and that is exactly what this bill will do.

So this bill will greatly reduce stress around a time that is already very difficult for women, and it will prevent arguments between employers and employees, and it is a burden off women not having to worry about either their job security or having to take unpaid leave off work, and I commend it to the House. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I’m really pleased to take just what will be a very short call so that I can leave the last speech before the dinner break, or the other speeches tonight, for the Labour Party.

Firstly, can I congratulate Ginny Andersen. This is a fantastic example of one of the very, very good members’ bills that we have seen. There’s obviously a gap in the law, and this is a very, very good way of sorting that out. Obviously, as was evident—and I only joined the select committee at the very end of this process, and I didn’t get to see those submitters who came to tell their stories. But it is very clear that there is a gap in the law. If you lose a child, for example, the bereavement leave is available to you, but not if you are to lose a child through either stillbirth or a miscarriage.

Speakers before me have gone into the changes we made at the Education and Workforce Committee, but I just wanted to talk about one in particular and just talk about a personal experience of mine. In the definition of “miscarriage”, the changes that we made in the select committee make it so that at any stage of the pregnancy, the loss of that pregnancy would count in the bill, rather than eight weeks’ gestation.

I have a very, very dear friend of mine who was going through IVF and went through three cycles, and I went on that journey with her. It was an absolute roller coaster of emotion, from being told that she was pregnant to, a number of weeks later, finding out that that pregnancy hadn’t lasted and that she had lost her baby. The emotion and the stress and the grief that she went through was a terrible, terrible time for her, and this bill, allowing her and other women like her to take leave to go through that grieving process, is essential, in my view.

This is a very highly personal issue. I just wanted to say to Jan Tinetti, to Marja Lubeck, and also to my colleague Agnes Loheni, thank you for sharing your stories tonight to give weight to this bill. Again, Ginny Andersen, for bringing to the House, thank you very much, and I commend the bill to the House.

Thanks, Mr Speaker. First of all, Ginny Andersen, well done. It’s such an exciting thing to get a member’s bill drawn, but to have something so powerful to take to this House that gets the support across the House is a big deal. So well done.

Thank you to you, Erica Stanford, for bringing up IVF, which is another often unspoken experience that so many women have. I am one of those women. Nine cycles I went through over 18 months. You know, I’ve had a few painful experiences in my life, but that was probably the most in terms of the impact that it has on you psychologically. I am so thankful to have two beautiful boys—twins—as a result of that process, so it was worth it.

But for so many women—and we know that the stats say one in four suffer a miscarriage, and it may be much higher than that. We in this House today are providing recognition to women who have had that experience that they often suffer in silence and feel that they can’t really speak of, and it goes unrecognised. One of the powerful things that was said—and I think Ginny said it right in her speech—was that it’s not sickness, but it’s bereavement, and, therefore, it’s grief that needs to be acknowledged.

So I want to say thank you to Kathryn van Beek—in fact, a heartfelt thankyou to Kathryn van Beek—who first came to my office in Dunedin at the beginning of 2017 with her idea for a member’s bill. She was quite clear about what she wanted to change. I talked it through with her, and I thought it was a good idea. I asked her to go away and to see if she could build some support and to come back to me. It took her quite a few months. By the time she came back to me with that incredible support that she had built up through the Sands website and the Facebook group that she had worked through, the Government had changed and I was a Minister, and I couldn’t take a member’s bill through for her, but I’m so pleased that Ginny has taken that up. I’m so proud of her tenacious and sensitive approach to this issue that has touched a real nerve around the country and in this House, indeed.

So well done, and I know that we’re not quite there yet. We’ve still got to go through the committee stage and the third reading, but it feels like a really powerful, powerful moment in our House tonight. So I certainly commend this bill to the House.

Just quickly, I’ll touch on the messages that came out through the Education and Workforce Committee around the distress around miscarriage and stillbirth. They were around the employers requiring workers to use sick leave for miscarriages and stillbirths, and around the stigma around miscarriages, and submitters said that there needs to be more open dialogue. They said that miscarriage impacts those dealing with chronic illness more significantly and that Māori and Pacific women and women from migrant cultures may currently be more likely to avoid discussing pregnancy loss with their employer. All of those issues came out through the 37 oral submissions that we had on the select committee, and they have provided the ability for us to produce a much better bill out of that select committee, which means, now that it’s going back through the House, it will be a much more solid piece of legislation.

Just finally, I do want to give another shout out to Kathryn van Beek, who actually writes children’s books now. Her latest book is called Bruce Goes Outside, and I heartily recommend that you go and look it up. So I really commend this bill to the House.

Bill read a second time.