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 third time.

Back in 2018, when my member’s bill had just been drawn from the ballot, Dunedin writer Kathryn Van Beek wrote in The Spinoff an article, and in that article she wrote the words that “A miscarriage is a strange, secret birth that is also a death.” Kathryn miscarried in 2016. She described the loss of her baby’s heartbeat, having to leave the hospital without a baby, and also packing away her baby sheepskin. She described grief as a word that she had never known before, and she talked of wishing she told more people of what was happening to her, because miscarriage is so often not talked about. It is left in the shadows.

Despite the fact that one in four New Zealand women have a miscarriage, it is still considered a taboo in our society today. It is still seen as the strange, secret birth that is also a death, exactly how Kathryn described it. At a time when a woman is dealing with the physical and the emotional loss that comes with the unexpected end of a pregnancy, there is still stigma in New Zealand today around asking for help. Kathryn also spoke of her anger—her anger at the lack of information that was available on miscarriage, her anger at the taboo of miscarriage, and her anger that the Holidays Act did not specifically provide for either stillbirth or miscarriage as a justified reason to have bereavement leave.

Well, as Kathryn has said, angry people get stuff done, and so she did. She went to her local MP at the time, Clare Curran, and I’d like to acknowledge Clare Curran’s role in bringing this bill as far as it has come to this day. Dunedin South MP Clare Curran got the idea from Kathryn that she could take her member’s bill and make miscarriage and stillbirth explicit reasons for bereavement leave. Clare was supportive and advised her to gather community support, and Kathryn did exactly that. She got thousands behind her—thousands of people and thousands of women and parents and other New Zealanders—in support of what we’re here today passing into law. So a member’s bill was devised, drafted, and then drawn, and this has brought us here today on the third reading of this member’s bill.

I’m proud to stand here as my first member’s bill passes this third reading today. I’m proud to stand here and represent a bill that makes workers’ rights and rights for women stronger in New Zealand. I think my mum and dad would be proud. I’m happy to be able to look up today and share this day with Kathryn—I think she’s up there somewhere, hopefully. I know that she’s taken time to come up from Dunedin today at a time when we were uncertain when this bill would be heard due to the House being in urgency, so I’m pleased that you are able to be here today, Kathryn. As a writer, Kathryn voiced the stories of so many women. Her grief was theirs, her words were theirs, and her fight has been for all of us. We would not have been here without you, Kathryn. Thank you for your voice, your strength, and your advocacy. This is your bill. This is your bill, and it is also the bill of 20,000 New Zealand women who miscarry each year.

We are fortunate enough to have many decent employers in this country who are already allowing bereavement leave to be taken in the event of miscarriage or stillbirth, but there are some who are not. There are some who are making employees use up their sick leave at a time when they are dealing with extreme loss, and that is callous and that is wrong, because the grief that comes with miscarriage is not a sickness; it is a loss, and that loss takes time—time to recover physically and time to recover mentally; time to recover with a partner, because often the mother is not alone in her grief. The grief of a partner is the shared grief, and I am so pleased that the provisions in this bill extend to both mothers and partners. Couples need time to work through their grief together without the pressure of loss of income or using up sick leave.

The bill also extends to those people who are seeking to adopt a child, and parents having a baby through surrogacy. For those prospective parents, there would’ve been considerable planning and emotional investment in a pregnancy. Many may not have been able to have children themselves, so their grief is intensified by the loss that they could not themselves carry. It is only fair and it is only right that those who had intended to become parents through surrogacy or through adoption should be entitled to bereavement leave in the same event of miscarriage or stillbirth. The bill has also been extended so that the leave provisions apply to a former spouse or partner of the mother if they are the biological parent. At times of stress or change, breakups can happen, but that in no way diminishes the grief felt by both biological parents at the unexpected end of a pregnancy. In fact, it can often exacerbate it.

I am proud to live in a country that doesn’t shy away from compassionate, fair, and progressive legislation for women. From being the first in the world to enable women to vote—from, also, our world-leading equal pay legislation—to removing abortion from the Crimes Act, we have a proud history of fairness and equity for women. The passing of this bill shows that once again, New Zealand is leading the way for women, becoming only the second country in the world, as far as I’m aware of, to provide leave for miscarriage and for stillbirth. Coverage of this bill when it was first done at first reading went global as other countries looked to us as a world leader, an example of legislation that explicitly recognised the grief that comes with miscarriage or stillbirth. I can only hope that while we may be one of the first, we will not be one of the last, and that other countries will also begin to legislate for a compassionate and fair leave system that recognises the pain and the grief that comes from miscarriage and stillbirth.

In turn, I hope that this bill will go some way in allowing women to feel more comfortable about talking about miscarriage and that they feel comfortable reaching out for support and for help in what is a huge physical and emotional loss, without the pressure of financial insecurity or insufficient leave to take that needed time to grieve. The premise of this bill is simple: it is a bill about fairness. When employers value their workers, their workers value their work. As it stands, the law is unclear around provisions, meaning that women are less likely to question or clarify their rights, particularly during what is an immensely difficult time. As such, they all too often suffer in silence and are stoic. This means that women will no longer have to question their rights, as their rights will be explicit in law. Parents will be able to grieve with certainty—certainty that they have a steady income, certainty that they can grieve together, and certainty that they do not have to use the misnomer that is sick leave when dealing with the loss of a pregnancy.

I first learnt of miscarriage from my mother. She had two miscarriages, one before I was born and one after I was born. I was too young to remember her going to the hospital, but she was always open to me about what she went through, both mentally and physically. While this bill is primarily about fairness and workers’ rights, I also hope that it promotes openness in our society about pregnancy, stillbirth, and miscarriage. We should not be fearful of our bodies or shroud them in mystery. It is simply part of life. I wish to commend this bill to the House.

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s a pleasure to take a call on this bill today, and it’s a pleasure to commit National caucus’s support for this piece of legislation.

It’s kind of impressing on me today that we’ve spent a lot of time in this House over the last few weeks doing urgency on bills where we don’t necessarily agree with the consequences of what’s going to happen with these bills. This is one of those times where we come together in the House and we acknowledge that for the good of all families, for all women and for men, this is a really good bill to do. And I commend the member Ginny Andersen for picking up the bill on behalf of Clare Curran, and also want to pay some acknowledgment for Kathryn for being the inspiration for this bill as it found its genesis. And just looking at it now, seeing how it’s taken from 2018 until now, and sometimes legislation does take a long time to pass through this House, I think it’s really fitting that we move with it today and get it in action so that it can happen for the benefit of everyone that’s going through this bereavement scenario.

I was lucky enough to be the spokesperson for women at the stage that this bill was going through select committee, and I really do want to commend the Education and Workforce Committee from the 52nd Parliament for the work and effort that everyone on that committee did to bring the parts of this bill together where there was a little bit of doubt around what certain parts of the bill meant, and actually lining up all the pieces so that we know that we’ve got everything in place, because miscarriage, sadly, affects around 20,000 New Zealand women each year. So we’re not talking about an issue that’s insignificant. This is not occasional; this is something that many women would be going through every day.

And so we also believe in National that most employers operate in good faith when it comes to leave applications, and we believe that most employers would be of the view that they would give their employees leave; but sadly, in this situation, there will be a few that probably would have been unlikely to, and for that reason we support this bill going through the House to be sure that those women and those families who are going through this situation have the opportunity and have the time for their bereavement that they need.

So the time in the select committee was spent clarifying that this bill applies to both known and unknown pregnancies—so the fact that a woman wasn’t aware that she was pregnant when she miscarries doesn’t preclude a woman from having this bereavement leave under this bill—and clarifying that a proof of pregnancy is not required for the employee to claim the bereavement leave. But I think that one of the key things in here is clarifying that a miscarriage can occur at any time during a pregnancy, no matter how far along that pregnancy is. So there’s no time frames; it’s not time bound. If a pregnancy ends due to miscarriage, then bereavement leave is on offer.

I think it’s very important to state in the House, given that we have done abortion legislation over the last period of time, that parents who experience the end of a pregnancy due to an abortion would not be eligible for the bereavement leave, and that was a very important piece of the legislation to make sure we were very clear on. And one of the most important parts, I believe, of the select committee’s work was expanding that definition to talk about the relationships to an unborn child, and so it’s expanded the bill to include surrogate parents. So if you were expecting a child, even if you’re not the person who’s actually going to be giving birth to it, there is a bereavement process for those people that happens at the time when that unborn baby is lost. Any parents that were planning to adopt—same thing. And I just want to mention men, because often we think about woman when we do bills like this, but actually there are husbands, there are fathers, and there are also former spouses. So there’s a lot of people in this grieving process who are likely to be affected with a miscarriage.

So I’m not going to take the full time to do this speech today, because I think it’s more important that we acknowledge where we’ve been, that we’re acknowledging where we’re going, and that we get this bill passed and start working on getting this legislation into action. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Tēnā koe e te Māngai o te Whare. Thank you, Madam Speaker, for the opportunity to also take a call in this third reading of the Holidays (Bereavement Leave for Miscarriage) Amendment Bill (No 2). It took a little while, due to a variety of circumstances, but I am very pleased to be standing here, taking a call, and being able to extend my congratulations to my colleague from our class of 2017 on her very first member’s bill going through the House today, and I’m looking forward to some celebrations afterwards as well.

Now, Ginny Andersen in her speech said that her bill makes workers’ rights and rights for women stronger. That is a really important point to emphasise as well. At the moment, the way that the current situation is, of course, is that the current bereavement leave provisions, as they are now, can lead to disputes between the employer and the employees regarding any potential entitlement to bereavement leave. And, of course, at a time when people are at their most stressed and in situations that they didn’t foresee, that is the last thing people should be ending up having to do—negotiating if they should be taking either their sick leave or their holidays. Neither of those are fit to be taken in these circumstances. So it is a really important issue here, strengthening the rights for workers and for women to know what their entitlements are.

Now, I know that employment lawyer Kathryn Dalziel wrote a media article in August 2018, and I’d just like to quote her from that media article. She said, “Women and their partners who are denied miscarriage bereavement leave can raise an employment relations problem and ask to go to mediation to discuss the matter with their employer. They can also refer the matter to the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment to see if they might talk to the employer about the meaning of the word ‘child’ ”. Now, just listening to all of that, you can understand that arguing about leave entitlements at a time like this only exacerbates any stress that the people are dealing with and exacerbates any grief that they are trying to deal with at such a difficult time. So a statutory employment right clearly stipulated in law would provide that much-needed clarity on what currently is, obviously, a very uncertain process.

Now, I know that Kathryn van Beek has already been mentioned by a previous speaker, but I would also like to pay some acknowledgment to Kathryn being a driving force behind this issue, as well as our former colleague Clare Curran, who, as a local MP, drove this issue through. And, as well, it is really great to see the cross-party support that this really important issue has. And, again, that cross-party support really emphasises how important this particular issue is.

A lot of mention has been made by the previous speakers on the work that the Education and Workforce Committee did on this bill. I was part of that select committee. We received 37 often very heartfelt submissions on this particular topic. As a result of those submissions and the discussions that took place, our select committee made several changes, and I might just take a little bit of time to run through some of that background as to why we did that. But I think it is also important to mention that several of these submissions spoke about the discrimination and the stigma that we still see surrounding the issue of miscarriage. People also said to us that an ability to be able to take leave to actually deal with the grief would also be an acknowledgment of all those people who have suffered in silence and who have gone through a lot of grief—that would be an acknowledgment of that grief.

Now, I mentioned our select committee hearing many heartfelt, very personal stories from workers who often had to rely on the goodwill of the employer to allow them time off. As the previous speaker mentioned, many times with good employers that is no issue at all, but it has been, and that was very clear from some of the stories that we heard. We also heard from several unions that there are employers who require workers to use their sick leave rather than bereavement leave. And, of course, at a time that people are in when they experience such a stressful time, the last thing they need to do is negotiate with an employer, because it only adds further stress. I would like to quote from one of the submissions from E tū: “During this time of mourning, families should not have to go through the pain and anguish of having to convince an employer that they should be allowed bereavement leave, to enable them to grieve this acute loss.”

But it is also not just a matter of paid leave; this also goes to the essence of job security, and that was a point that the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions really pointed out, as well. And, as is obvious from the submissions, people will also be made more comfortable to talk about pregnancy loss. I talked about the discrimination and the stigma earlier, the taboo of the issue. The New Zealand Public Service Association (PSA) women’s network provided our committee with the following submission: “the fact that we do not accept miscarriage as a common place example of a bereavement, means people like me, who have suffered them, feel almost odd comparing them to the bereavement of another type of close family member (which are recognised in employment law).” So, again, people are feeling uncomfortable to even have to bring this up as a valid bereavement, due to the uncertainty in the law.

Family Planning stated, “Like other areas of sexual and reproductive health, it is important that we work to eliminate stigma, shame and silence surrounding miscarriage.” And then, lastly, from the New Zealand College of Midwives: “Taking time to initiate recovery from a traumatic event such as miscarriage or stillbirth will support future mental health and wellbeing.” So, again, the submissions that we received made it really clear that the bill would remove the stress of negotiating leave with employers at a time of grief and people coming to terms with what they have just experienced.

Now, this is also important to consider in light of the growth of people in precarious work situations in New Zealand. So we have a higher proportion of Māori and Pacific workers in casual and seasonal work, and that means that they do need better protection when it comes to their employment rights, and protection of their statutory minimum employment rights as it is.

We did hear from the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions that there are plenty of places that are already providing over-and-above bereavement leave provisions in their collectives. So, for example, the Ministry for the Environment, Crown Law, the Ministry of Education, and the Christchurch City Council are amongst workplaces where the PSA has negotiated bereavement leave for miscarriage into the collectives for their union members.

Now, our select committee made several changes to this bill; we have heard a lot about those. There is one in particular that I think is important to note. I asked the member in charge of the bill about this, actually, in the committee of the whole House stage of the bill, and that was in regards to “confirmed pregnancy”. Now, the word “confirmed” could be confusing. It could also maybe imply that there is a proof of requirement needed, which we absolutely didn’t believe should be the case, and there are already existing obligations between employers and employees when it comes to good-faith provisions—so, open and honest communication and doing nothing that could potentially mislead. So these already apply under those circumstances. As the previous speaker, Barbara Kuriger, already mentioned, we also talked about the people that are eligible for bereavement leave, because partners, as well as the person themselves suffering the loss, need time to grieve and come to terms with what they have just gone through.

So, again, just to wrap it all up: this bill will reduce the stress around a very difficult time by ensuring bereavement leave is available to assist those grieving with coming to terms with what is a really difficult time for them, and also they don’t have to worry about their job, about their wages, about job security—and, you know, just know what their rights are during a very unexpected time when they have to take time off work. So it is an absolute pleasure. I see, unfortunately, my time has run out. I could have done another 10 minutes, but here we are. Thank you very much for the opportunity. I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I’m very pleased to rise to take a call on the Holidays (Bereavement Leave for Miscarriage) Amendment Bill (No 2). Firstly, I just want to say some words about Ginny Andersen, not just “Congratulations for having your bill drawn.”—but congratulations!—but also the way that she has conducted herself during all of the speeches and also the select committee. And especially today her speech was eloquent, it was passionate, it was poignant, it was emotional, and I think it showed the strength of her convictions in this area. Well done, my friend.

I think over lockdown, when we saw stories of women who were having to go through what were pretty harrowing circumstances, having a miscarriage on their own, it gave those of us who haven’t experienced a miscarriage an insight into just how traumatic and difficult that process can be, and we heard some of those partners of the women who were going through that speak on the news and how distraught they were. I think that highlighted just how difficult the process is.

At present, in the Holidays Act 2003 one is entitled to bereavement leave for the death of a child or a family member but not explicitly for a miscarriage or a stillbirth. And currently the Act is very ambiguous, with employers left to decide whether or not a miscarriage or a stillbirth constitutes a bereavement. It’s always been very unclear and this bill tidies that up very nicely. With approximately one in four women experiencing a miscarriage, it’s really important that we clarify this.

I wasn’t on the Education and Workforce Committee for the whole process. I came in at the very end, so I missed the submissions, but I did read some of them and I’ve heard how harrowing they were. The changes that were made from those submissions were very good ones, and they’ve been traversed before. Not requiring a mother to know she was pregnant—the grief that is experienced is the same whether or not you knew you were pregnant. The definition of “miscarriage” being no matter how far along you are—again, that change was a really important one, and I mentioned in my second reading speech on this bill about the people who are going through fertility treatment and experiencing those loss of pregnancies very, very early on. It’s really important that they are captured in this bill, and indeed they are. The fact that no proof is required to employers was also a good change, and the definition of who can take leave being expanded was a very good one. The grief is the same whether or not you are a surrogate parent going through a surrogacy or, again, adopting.

One of the things that was made explicit in the bill was around abortion, whether or not that would be included, and in the end it wasn’t. I’m not sure of the intentions of Ginny Andersen around this, and I want to speak just from a personal perspective; this is just my personal opinion. The grief and anguish and trauma experienced during an abortion and the fact that it’s not included in this bill make me uncomfortable—personally uncomfortable. I just wanted to put that on the record. I’m not sure whether or not it was the intention of this bill to include it or not, but I do note that it was expressly left out. Again, I feel uncomfortable with that but maybe it’s something we will revisit in the future.

Again, can I extend my congratulations to Ginny. This is a fantastic bill. It will make a difference to so many women out there. Congratulations, well done, and we commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I’m pleased to be speaking on this very, very important bill that’s going to affect predominantly, I would say, women, because they are the ones who go through the physical loss, but also fathers, who lose their unborn babies. So it’s a very, very important bill. I would also kick off my contribution by reiterating the words that Kathryn used: miscarriage is strange; it’s also secret births and deaths, and those are the profoundly strong words of a brave woman who has gone through a lot, but also who has done a lot to bring this bill to this House.

Every Kiwi in this country is entitled to provisions that guarantee bereavement leave through the Holidays Act 2003, but when it comes to bereavement through miscarriage, this legislation is confusing, it’s unfair, and it’s also unclear. So the fact that this bill is designed to fix this is good.

Can I also go back to the beginning and add my voice to every single person who contributed to this bill, especially for those who are no longer with us in this House today. I just want to mihi to them.

So this bill goes to the heart of workers’ rights issues. I will just go back and mention what E tū union said in its submissions. One of the things they mentioned is that pregnancy is supposed to be a time of joy and celebrations as the parents look forward to their unborn child. But the joy and the happiness can be also quickly turned to deep sorrow and profound loss when the eagerly anticipated child is miscarried. So this can be really heartbreaking, but the last thing the parents want is to have to deal with a difficult employer to get their leave. This should not be the case. As a union organiser in my previous job, I have seen a lot of people going through this, and I have seen the struggle—it’s real. Even with intervention from the advocates and the union organisers, things can be really difficult. So losing an unborn child, an anticipated child, is difficult, but having to deal with difficult employers just adds another layer of difficulties.

So for all these reasons, the Holidays Act 2003 is not clear around this, and often when you have to deal with ethical employers that allow you to take time whenever you want, life can be easy, but I have seen employees being asked to either use their sick leave or go back to work early because they don’t have an option, and also the third one is going back to work without leave. This also can be heartbreaking—on top of the load that is already inflicted on you, losing the financial support or the financial income can be also another issue.

Not only the people that I know and the people that I advocated for, people who are close to me through family or friends—I have seen them going through this. When the employer is good and ethical, like I said before, life can be easy, but when you have to deal with a difficult employer, life can be really difficult. So I just wanted to make a point around the difference that having a good employer makes, so that no one having to deal with the loss of an unborn baby also has to worry about their income or has to fight the difficult employers.

So every change that has been suggested in this bill is quite refreshing. It’s a really good thing to see also that the House from all sides is coming together and collaborating on this. So I just want to shout out to everyone who spoke before me, but specifically my friend Ginny Andersen, who has done a lot. Before I came to Parliament in 2019-2020, I was watching from outside Ginny working on the No 1 bill, and I just can’t thank Ginny enough for doing this.

So when this bill was introduced, I wasn’t part of the select committee that heard all the submissions, but in the very short time that was allowed to me, I went through some of the submissions. The stories can be heartbreaking but, at the same time, also refreshing, because the conviction and the strength of this woman who went through this is something.

So, at the end of my speech, I highly commend this bill to the House. I’m just going to leave it there. Thank you.

What a treat to get to stand up and tautoko this bill of Ginny Andersen’s. It’s the Holidays (Bereavement Leave for Miscarriage) Amendment Bill (No 2), and it’s my favourite kind of bill to debate in this House, I think. One that’s come so directly from somebody’s lived experience where somebody has put what they’ve been through out there and then translated that into an effort to change the experience of others through their own experience—that, to me, is a really beautiful thing, and I hope the member really acknowledges herself for carrying this through so smoothly and beautifully that everyone in this House is able to stand together in saying, “We’re going to fix this.” There’s definitely, clearly, a need for it.

I also want to acknowledge that even through the debate of this bill, it’s been helping to fix some of the problem because that silence that has caused so much harm has, in part, started to be broken by this debate and by Parliament’s attention and will, at the end of today, through the clarity in the legislation, be broken down a bit further. As has been mentioned already, one in four New Zealand women have had a miscarriage, and 20,000 women miscarry every year. It is an incredibly normal experience, but normal doesn’t mean easy; it doesn’t mean without pain. But we have for a long time, through silence and stigma, forced women—primarily women—into actually just pretending as if it hasn’t happened. And we know that suppressed grief causes additional harm and that that can be very long-lasting. So I hope that this makes a real difference.

There’s been some discussion about, you know, the fact that the legislation enabled most people—technically enabled them—to be able to access this leave already through the death of a child and that that was cross-referenced into another piece of legislation where the definition of child was provided. Just to give people a little more sense of what we’re trying to fix here, for me, when I read that definition and the other piece of legislation, which is that a child includes a stillborn child defined as follows: “a dead foetus that—(a) weighed 400 grams or more when issued from its mother”. Like, seriously? That was the legal measurement in terms of somebody’s entitlement to this leave—that or whether it “issued from its mother after the 20th week of pregnancy” in marriages registration Act. The weight?

💬 Arena Williams: It’s ugly.

It’s just ugly. It really is. And so it is well over time to me that this legislation disconnects from that and really puts in a 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, no matter whether actually even that the person where the pregnancy had ended—the only kind of test is that really it was an intended pregnancy. It didn’t even have to have previously been known to be able to access this leave and that no proof would be required, no weight scales would be introduced into the discussion, which, thankfully, I don’t think we heard any examples of that happening. But certainly the committee did hear examples coming primarily through our unions—being the voice for working people in this country—telling us that actually this has been disputed, where, mostly women that I know of but could also have been other pregnant people seeking to access bereavement leave, and their employers saying they weren’t entitled to it. And the process for that is somebody deep in their grief having to go through our employment processes to mediate that decision is just impractical and not realistic and adds to the damage of the situation.

So the Greens, again, just want to acknowledge Kathryn van Beek for her advocacy and Clare Curran for listening and bringing that through and for Ginny Andersen so adeptly shepherding this through the House and are very pleased to stand in solidarity with everyone else in this House, and particularly with those who have experienced a miscarriage, to support this bill.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I’m really humbled to take this call. You know, we’ve heard so much about the years of work and energy that have gone into getting us to this moment. I do want us to take a moment to think about some of the numbers that have been given to us in the House today. One in four women—that doesn’t mean one in four women experiences this grief once; some of them experience it time and time again. Twenty-thousand pregnancies in a year—again, it may not just be one for one woman—that end in miscarriage or stillbirth. That number does surprise us, because we grieve these losses so privately. With those odds, I know that each and every one of us in this House can think of someone we know that has been impacted by such a loss. You can think of them—your sister, your partner, your mum, your daughter, and possibly even yourself. The impact of this legislation is intensely personal to so many of us in this House, a loss that we are usually too polite to mention, feel too awkward to talk about.

So, again, I use the word “humbled” to be able to stand here and acknowledge Clare and Ginny and Kathryn for your bravery and your anger, not just to enable us to talk about this but to do something about it, to effect some real change for people’s lives. This legislation—it does so much. Firstly, the clarity, which was made even clearer in select committee, actually gives support and reassurance to all those employers who are trying to—and really, really want to—do the right thing, to act with compassion and integrity, and it’s really complicated, and it can make it really hard for them to do.

We’ve heard about the advice from the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment that it’s up to the bereaved to convince their employer that this pregnancy is worth grieving. That is a really distressing place for an employer and a parent-to-be to be. The changes made in select committee to help with that clarity were carefully and thoughtfully brought back to this House, and I thank them for that. To remove that word “confirmed” from clause 4(2)(c)—to remove that need for knowledge or proof—is really important at a time when things are so hard. They can be so hard. To have those hurdles of proof and knowledge unnecessarily there can make things even harder. As for the changes in clause 4(3), as has already been talked about, recognising a miscarriage at any point is a miscarriage and can leave a parent-to-be bereft—we don’t have to convince anybody that our pregnancy is worth grieving.

I really appreciate the broadening and the acknowledgment of those parents-to-be and the impact and, actually, the permission it gives to so many in our communities and our families to also grieve alongside their partners or their mothers or sisters or daughters. It’s OK for them to be sad too.

We’ve really valued the opportunity that this process has given us to shed a light and make it possible to talk about something. You know, we’ve heard the words “taboo” and “shame” and “politeness” and all of those things that are really hard, and it makes it hard for those who are grieving, but also employers. We’ve heard employers in good faith want to do the right thing, and to have them to navigate this and, you know, not wanting to cause any more harm by going, “Well, actually, I have to ask you for this.” or “You have to prove that.” is a really horrible position to put everybody into. So we really appreciate those changes that have been made.

So, hopefully, we won’t have to grieve quite so silently any more. It isn’t that every time a woman goes through this experience they are going to need to take some time away from work, but the opportunity is there if they need it. The fact that we will no longer have to think about, let alone convince, somebody else whether our pregnancy is worth grieving—this pregnancy may have been years in the making or it may have been your sixth, and you don’t have to justify it any more, and that’s really, really important. You can just be sad and you can take that time if you need it. At this point, I’m going to commend the bill to the House.

I rise on behalf of the ACT Party in support of the Holidays (Bereavement Leave for Miscarriage) Amendment Bill (No 2). This bill is about a deeply personal matter: about miscarriages and stillbirths. I want to take the time to acknowledge the women in New Zealand who have suffered a miscarriage or a stillbirth, and some people have suffered many, many. I think a lot of us will know people who have. I also want to acknowledge the partners who are there, who don’t suffer the miscarriage but they feel that grief and they support their partners in that grief, too, and that’s a deeply personal matter between a couple.

I think, really, everybody is different. I know some people who, as work colleagues, love to share every element of their family life, and I absolutely love to hear when someone’s kid has done at well at school and when someone has won the swimming competition and done ballet. I think that’s absolutely wonderful. But we also know people who are very private—and that’s as it should be, because everybody is different—and they don’t share those personal aspects of their life and you don’t really know when they are grieving. But that comes from a lot of life experience, too. I know people who don’t share those stories, because they’ve already been put in that awkward situation of, having shared the fact that they are trying for a child and they’ve had a miscarriage, everybody now knows that they’ve had a miscarriage and they’d prefer not to have to go through that experience again, of that awkwardness of those encounters with their colleagues, about what they should and should not say. I think we do need to get better at knowing how we support our colleagues when that does happen, but, ultimately, it is a personal issue, and employers will want to do the right thing. I deeply believe that employers do want to help their employees when they are suffering and grieving from the loss of a child and from a miscarriage.

I would really hope that every person has a happy story—people who really want to try to be a good mother and be a good father, and know that, for some instances, this is what they’ve always wanted to do in life. I know many women who I’ve grown up with who just say this is the one aspect that they would just love to be—they’d love to be a mother—and, unfortunately, that doesn’t happen. We need to acknowledge those people. They don’t have a child that dies; they have a miscarriage. Life is just not straightforward. The ACT Party acknowledges that this bill is just a minor, technical change. It removes an ambiguity in the law, and currently an employee can access three days of bereavement leave on the death of a child. All that this law would do would allow it to apply when that happens in the case of a miscarriage as well. I believe that is a good use of leave—much, much better than, for example, a five days’ sick leave increase. I think that this is the right thing to do, and ACT will be supporting this bill. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s a real pleasure to stand and speak on this bill, the Holidays (Bereavement Leave for Miscarriage) Amendment Bill (No 2). I want to acknowledge my friend and colleague—I was going to say the honourable, but that’ll be soon—Ginny Andersen, the mighty MP for the Hutt, who has progressed this bill right through. It’s been since 2019 that this bill has been working its way through the House, and it’s a real pleasure to see a colleague, a friend of the class of ’17, be here doing this, so congratulations, Ginny, and thank you for such an important piece of work for the women and the fathers of our country.

I’d also like to acknowledge Clare Curran for the work that—she brought this bill originally, and to Kathryn van Beek: “the strange secret at birth that is also a death.” That really resonates with me, that statement. It really resonates with me: “the strange secret at birth that is also a death.” It’s a taboo in this country. We know it’s a taboo in this country to talk about miscarriage. It’s a taboo for us to talk about that we’re trying for pregnancy. It’s a taboo to talk about abortion. It’s a taboo to even talk about menstruation or menopause. It is a taboo for us as women to talk about the things that are natural to us and happen to us, so I’m really delighted to be standing up here, talking about something that happens to 20,000 women per year.

The bill does a number of things, and we’ve heard this from a lot of the members today, but I’m just going to go back through it. It amends the Holidays Act to remove the ambiguity in the Act around bereavement leave entitlements. Employees are eligible for bereavement leave following the unplanned end of a pregnancy by miscarriage or stillbirth. Unplanned has been talked about earlier. Unplanned specifically excludes the planned ending of a pregnancy. The mother and their partner would be entitled to three days’ bereavement leave each. And that’s important—it’s really important that we recognise biological parents in this situation; it’s really important. Many of us know of people who have had stillbirths or miscarriages, and mum gets some leave, gets some time off—her workplace has enabled her to have time off—but the father has to go back to work, and misses the opportunity to grieve alongside their partner and give their partner the time to grieve together. That to me talks to us about the role of fathers in our country, and I’m so delighted that, in fact, the biological parent is recognised and that there can be a time of healing in a time of grief.

So the bill clarifies that knowledge of pregnancy is not needed. And I think that this is something I’ll just talk a little bit about. I know that there are many women who don’t know that they are pregnant when they miscarry, but the grief—and this is the experience I’ve had from friends and family—and the loss that they experience, regardless of whether they recognised that they were pregnant, is a visceral and real thing. And so I’m really delighted that not knowing that you’re pregnant is still counted here.

Proof of pregnancy: nobody needs to prove that they are indeed pregnant. No one needs to have told the world that they are pregnant, but gosh wouldn’t it be great if, when we were celebrating the fact that we had fallen pregnant, we felt confident and comfortable enough to tell everyone that we were, in fact, carrying a pregnancy and happy about it. Often we are silent because we do not want to have to explain and have that awkward time when someone says, “How’s the pregnancy going?” And you have to say, “I’ve lost my baby.” The awkwardness and the uncomfortableness, the compassion that we all feel at that point, it’s one of those taboos in society—it’s one of those taboos—and I’m really delighted that we are so progressive in this country that we’re recognising that this is a real and genuine issue.

I guess the other thing is the definition of miscarriage: no matter how far along the pregnancy you are. I think my colleague Angela Roberts, who just resumed her seat, spoke about the value and the worth of pregnancy. God, these are things that are immeasurable. So miscarriage is now defined as the end of pregnancy within the first 20 weeks, and then after that the pregnancy is a stillbirth.

So I’d just like to take a couple more minutes to thank the Education and Workforce Committee for the work that they did. It had a closing date of 14 February 2020—how poignant is Valentine’s Day to close submissions. There were 37 submissions, and reading the Hansard, my colleague the Hon—squeal!—Jan Tinetti talked about the fact that all 37 submissions were in support of this bill. And there were 10 oral submitters. And I also have to thank, I understand, the officials from the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment for their sound work. I understand it would have been quite harrowing work and very difficult to hear from some of the submissions.

I want to close my contribution with three quotes—I just have to find them. So there are three quotes that spoke to me particularly, and the first is from New Zealand Family Planning: “We hope this legislation not only provides relief to individuals who experience miscarriage, but helps to eliminate 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.” That is my wish too, and I think this legislation helps and supports that.

The National Council of Women of New Zealand talked about a matter which I think they’ve come to the nub of this, and I think it’s important to acknowledge this, because the experience of a miscarriage for all walks of women are different. So they talk about “Currently, as workers are unsure of their rights, they are less likely to want to enter into a dispute with their employer, particularly at such a sensitive time. In particular, Māori and Pacific women and women from migrant cultures may currently avoid raising this sensitive issue.” There may, in fact, be cultural prohibition for that. This bill would help people stay in employment and provide opportunity and guidance on how employers can provide appropriate support.

And finally, I am a member of Zonta International, and so I need to make a quote in regards to Zonta: “[This] bill recognises the need for bereavement leave for mothers, spouses, and partners suffering loss, trauma, and grief after a miscarriage or stillbirth. The bill in turn reflects the importance of supporting women and their families in these circumstances, not only as an act of compassion, but also as a much needed and very sensible measure for their health and wellbeing.” I am delighted to support this bill. I’m delighted to take a call on this bill, and I believe that this bill goes towards a more compassionate New Zealand. Thank you.

This is a split call—five minutes, honourable—

Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. I wanted to congratulate, firstly, the member who has been stewarding this bill through the House. Ginny Andersen has done a good job picking up on the work that was done in a previous Parliament by the Hon Clare Curran. I also just wanted to thank the member who has just resumed her seat, Angie Warren-Clark, who has very clearly and carefully and warmly set out the parameters of what this piece of legislation does and why it is that it needs to be done.

As parliamentarians, we often come into this debating chamber and we divide and split along party lines. We divide and split along lines that are driven by mere politics. But occasionally—and not often enough, in my view—we come together as parliamentarians in a unified, dignified, respectful way to do the right thing. This is an example of such an occasion where this piece of legislation seeks to remedy some definitional issues in relation to bereavement leave, the Holidays Act, and issues that a previous Parliament in less enlightened times omitted, probably simply because it was too difficult for them to even think about, and that’s a blot, actually, on some of our predecessors, to a degree. But times change, views change, circumstances change, and, fortunately for us, futures can change as well.

Normally, as the National Party’s workplace relations spokesperson, in a situation where employers were being asked to provide further paid leave for a situation for an employee, often we would be saying, “Well, that’s an unnecessary impost upon employers.” The reality is that in this matter to do with the definition of miscarriage and the changes that Angie Warren-Clark talked about—the real reality is that this will have very little financial impact on most employers, because the vast majority of employers are already, I think, doing the right thing and have been for a very long period of time. That said, there are some—and it’s a very small minority, in my view—who haven’t been doing the right thing, and this piece of legislation puts that to right, and it does so in a way that I think is appropriate and dignified.

It does remove an ambiguity in the current law, and it’s an ambiguity that’s existed for far too long, in my view. Bringing a clear definition, for instance, simply to the word “child”, in terms of eligibility for bereavement leave, I think is an important thing, and the fact that this House has not done that previously is a sorry state of affairs, to be honest. I would hope that, in future, parliamentarians in this place will have the boldness to actually address issues of this sort in a far more mature, compassionate way than maybe has been done in the past.

So I too want to join with others across the House in supporting this piece of legislation, thanking the Education and Workforce Committee for the work that they have done in this Parliament and also the work that has been done previously. I haven’t spoken on this piece of legislation in the past, but I did have an opportunity to sit in on some of the proceedings of the select committee. And I’ve got to say that, again, just as this debate has proven in the third reading, Parliament can and does occasionally work at its very best. So too can select committees actually do really good work to achieve an outcome that will be beneficial and important for women and also men in the future. We put right today a situation that for too long has been wrong. I, with pleasure, support and endorse this bill and commend it to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker, for the opportunity to make a short contribution on this bill, the Holidays (Bereavement Leave for Miscarriage) Amendment Bill (No 2). I want to take this opportunity to acknowledge the leadership of the sponsor of the bill, Ginny Andersen. I want to acknowledge her courage and her passion in shepherding this bill in the House. I also, like many speakers before me, want to take this opportunity to acknowledge Kathryn Van Beek for her courage and conviction in talking over 7,000 people into signing a petition and taking that to a local member of Parliament, the Hon Clare Curran. Now we’re here in the House, where we mark in our history as a country providing a provision for compassion to families at their most difficult time.

I also want to acknowledge the chair of the select committee, Marja Lubeck, and the committee of the Education and Workforce Committee for their due diligence in terms of listening to submissions and listening to advice on this bill. The reason why I talk about listening to submitters is because submissions talked about 20,000 women who experience the loss of a child, but, actually, it is 20,000 households a year—20,000 households. In this legislation, it actually describes the insightful understanding of the select committee and everybody concerned—it is about the mother who’s lost a child, her partner also, and also if there is a surrogacy involved, they too are also in this piece of legislation. And if the former partner is no longer a partner but they’re biologically connected to the lost child, then they too are acknowledged in this bill.

That’s why it’s really important that we acknowledge this as a country, almost to the point where we’re describing what love is in times of loss. I’m Tongan, and in my culture, there’s a lot of things we don’t talk about, but a loss of a child is something that we do talk about, that we come together at a time of a loss to provide support for the household and for everyone involved. So we do talk about miscarriage, and we do provide that support because we understand that it is a loss.

Also important: I was an employer in my past life, and I want to acknowledge the unions that came through: the E tū union, the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions, the Public Service Association (PSA)—a former PSA member myself. As an employer, a staff member came to me and said, “I have to go home because two days ago I had a miscarriage, but my doctor said that I’m OK to come to work.”, and I was just dumbfounded. I said, “What are you doing at work? Why are you here at work?”, and she said she had no sick leave left. This piece of legislation actually supports employers to continue to provide care, and I want to acknowledge those employers who have been good employers. Employees had to rely on their good faith as a good employer to do that, but, actually, in the example that I have provided, it removes all of that. It removes and it clarifies the need to support a person—and we don’t just see the person; we see the family and the need for support for everyone who is experiencing a loss.

That’s why I speak about that as a maturity in our country, that we—and maybe it’s because, in terms of the maturity of our country, we do have the voices of women in the House, we do have diversity in the House, that we now are able to listen with our hearts and the House is capable of having that maturity that this bill, in its shepherding through by the leadership of Ginny Andersen, has everybody in support. I wish and I hope for the future of New Zealand that we continue to have respectful conversation about things that matter as an everyday New Zealander in an everyday household. If one in every four women experiences it, that’s all of us who are experiencing that loss as a country. On that note, I commend this bill to the House. Mālō.

Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. I’m going to take a short call on the Holidays (Bereavement Leave for Miscarriage) Amendment Bill (No 2). The House is in general support of this piece of legislation. It makes a change to the Holidays Act and it clarifies some detail within that Act about the bereavement leave that women and their families, their partners, surrogate parents will now qualify for. I have no issues with the content of the bill. Where I do have some concern is about the timing of it. I believe it was highlighted by Angela Roberts in her piece when she talked about women who tragically experience miscarriage over and over again. The onus for the support—the financial support for these women and their families that go through these tragic losses—now falls back on employers, and I just feel that in this time with some of the strain on business, when we have spent two years getting this bill to this point, delaying it for a small amount of time would have probably been the right thing to do. But we are here in this House to see it through its passage, and I commend it to the House.

Kia ora, Madam Speaker. It’s a real privilege and honour to take a call on the Holidays (Bereavement Leave for Miscarriage) Amendment Bill (No 2). I would also like to acknowledge the member Ginny Andersen for championing this bill along. The change to allow three days’ bereavement leave for mothers and their partners who have lost their unborn child, I know, personally, will make such a difference.

As some of the other members have spoken, many of us, unfortunately, know people who have experienced miscarriage, or have experienced it ourselves. I know about 10 years ago my best friend, who is now one of my constituents, lost her child. When that happened she applied for tangihanga or bereavement leave, rightly so, but was declined that leave and offered annual leave instead. She declined that annual leave because she had other children that she needed to save that leave for, but, more than that, this is not a holiday. This is the death of a child, and that’s a big difference, and that’s why it belongs, quite surely, in the bereavement leave legislation.

We also have those personal stories. I remember when I was about 11 years old and I and my two younger brothers were super-excited because my mum was five months pregnant, and she and Dad couldn’t wait to have another child. Then one day Dad picked us up and said, “Today you’ll need to stay with your grandparents.” We said, “Why is that, Dad?”, and he said, “Your little sister”—we were sure it was a sister—“has gone to heaven.” When that happened, I remember Dad then being super-sad. Mum and Dad were super-sad, and I remember Dad having to travel for those couple of days while Mum was in hospital to go and see her straight after work, and that’s why straight after school we stayed with grandma and grandad. That is because he couldn’t get the time off. My dad was the only earner in our household and so leave was really important to my family. For me, again, he shouldn’t have had to take leave for his wife and himself losing a child.

More than that, though, I also have my own personal story, as, unfortunately, myself and my husband had around seven miscarriages before we had our three beautiful boys. During that time—and I remember my first one—I remember having to ask for leave was hurtful and humiliating, and I was a bit worried too. It was my first job in the Public Service, so I wasn’t sure how that would go down. They gave me annual leave, of course—again, I didn’t think it was a holiday. But even that annual leave wasn’t long enough, because when you lose a child, it’s not just about your three days’ leave. It’s also about the physical hurt that you go through and have to work through, and I mean having to go for scans, I mean having to have time off to go and see your doctor, I mean having to have time off if you have to have any further treatment, and so that’s just not you on your own if you’re lucky enough to have a partner. That’s both of you who both need to go along for emotional support and you both need to take leave, therefore both are not working at that time. And if you’re not getting leave and one of you is going without leave, that’s one less pay cheque coming in during that really needy time.

More than that, though, it is also about the emotional hurt. While three days is amazing, three days doesn’t quite cut it. The emotional pain to my partner and myself was huge, and I think that we sometimes forget as mothers what our partners are going through at that same time. They experience that loss as well, and it’s important that their employers also acknowledge that they have had a death as well and need that time off.

I believe that three days is good. It will give people time, but, more than that, it also means that we don’t have to go in there and tell them what has happened, explain ourselves. We can just apply for bereavement leave under the miscarriage provision and leave it at that. We don’t have to relive that stigma, that hurt, and we can make sure that we get the leave we need to be able to get our heads right and our hearts right.

I also want to just say again how grateful I am to all the submitters. Again, I thank Kathryn for bringing it through, but also, again, Ginny for championing this bill. I know personally, as I’ve mentioned, what a difference it will make to not have to worry about the financial situation while you’re going through that—and, actually, we do have three beautiful boys now—and not to have to worry about using up your annual leave when you can use that for things that are holidays and the like. For me, I just want to say thank you again. And from all other mothers with our beautiful babies in heaven, thank you very much. With that, I commend this bill to the House.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a third time.