Parental Leave and Employment Protection (Shared Leave) Amendment Bill

Oh, happy day. This is one of those days in Parliament where we have the opportunity—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): Order! My apologies; if you could move your bill please.

Yes, I move that this House introduce the Parental Leave and Employment Protection (Shared Leave) Amendment Bill.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): If the member could just read it. Thank you.

I’m going to be very precise about this. Thank you, Madam Speaker. I move, That the Parental Leave and Employment Protection (Shared Leave) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Finance and Expenditure Committee to consider the bill.

Oh, happy day. Now that we have introduced this member’s bill in my name, I want to make some pre-emptory celebration, because I think that this is an opportunity for Parliament to work in the way that so many New Zealanders ask us to make it work but that is often not the case. And that is, we can use this time to make a pragmatic, modernising change to a piece of legislation that has become out of step with modern families but to which we together as parliamentarians, free from ideology or political partisanship, can make a good change that will make a difference to parents and caregivers across the country. I hope that all political parties will support this bill.

What this bill does is it modernises paid parental leave rules by giving parents more flexibility to share their leave entitlements. In New Zealand, we have paid parental leave for caregivers. While parents and caregivers can nominate who receives that entitlement, there are currently rigidities around how they use it. What I want to see is those rules being loosened so that parents have more flexibility about the choices they make in their caregiving arrangements during those first few weeks of parental leave with a new baby. This bill modernises the outdated existing rules by allowing parents to divide their paid leave between themselves in the way they think best, so it allows them to take it at the same time, to take it one after the other, or to take it in overlapping instalments. It frees up parents to make exactly the choices that best suit their personal circumstances.

Whether you’re a dad wanting to support mum in the first few weeks after birth and take your paid leave at the same time as her, right now our archaic law will not allow that. This bill will make it possible. Whether you wish to share your paid parental leave between two primary caregivers in overlapping instalments, right now the law will not allow you to do that. This bill will let you do that. It recognises that the choice belongs to families and shouldn’t belong to a rule book bound up in a Government department. As we stand here today, outdated Government rules are getting in the way of families doing what they think is in the best interests of their own babies.

I think about how much things have improved in terms of the way we view those early weeks with a baby, in terms of the ways we view the need for support, and in the way that we recognise that people would arrange the care arrangements not according, necessarily, to gender or traditional roles but according to the circumstances of their own families. This bill seems an absolutely sensible and pragmatic evolution along that path. It’s a good thing when you can make a practical change that makes a difference without creating any extra cost for the taxpayer, and that is the case with this bill. What it doesn’t do is increase the overall leave entitlement that is available to parents; it simply says, “Here’s your bucket of entitlement; divide it between yourselves as you wish. If you want to do six weeks together, go ahead. If you want to do it in overlapping bits, go ahead.” All of those choices can be made without any impact on Government funding and without any impact on the choices available to Government.

The only people those choices impact are the parents and the child in that home. Anyone opposing this kind of modernisation, I think, would be inserting themselves into families and saying that Government knows better than they do about how they should use the entitlements they are given. I believe it would be unconscionable for anyone in this House in 2023 to take that stance.

I’m feeling a little bit nervous, I’m noticing interjections from across the House, I’m seeing furrowed brows on the faces of Labour backbenchers, and I think we may have a situation, team. I think we may genuinely be in a situation where members opposite—out of partisan, petty politics—may oppose this bill.

💬 Hon Member: Oh, say it’s not so!

I sincerely hope it’s not so. If it’s not the case, I apologise for impugning you in that way, because surely—surely—that would not be possible. Surely a modern Labour Party that says that it wants to represent the best interests of families and children would not neglect the opportunity to modernise this outdated piece of law. To do so would be unconscionable. It would be out of step with modern families. It would be out of step with modern parents.

As I look around this House, I think of all of my colleagues, on this side of the aisle and on that side of the aisle, who themselves have had babies and who have had them in such different circumstances. We’ve had babies to all sorts of caregiving arrangements with dads and mums, married couples, unmarried couples, mums as primary caregivers, dads as primary caregivers, and adopted dads as primary caregivers. In my world, all of that is great, because what matters is the love a parent or a caregiver shows for their child. In my world, what doesn’t matter is outdated rules telling you how you should do it best. The idea—the idea—that Government rules would stand there and say, “Well, actually, the way that we think it should happen is one parent at a time. We disagree with the idea that two parents should take it at the same time.” Well, you know what? It’s none of Government’s business. I believe that parents and caregivers are best placed to make the choices for their babies and their kids about how they raise them. What matters is the love that they give them and the care and stability that they give them. This bill is a logical progression in support of that philosophy.

So, as I stand here, I make this plea: sometimes, my fellow Labour colleagues, a member’s bill comes to your caucus and you might have someone stand up—a Minister—and say, “Oh, look, we’ll oppose this because it’s a National bill; we’ll oppose this because we don’t want Nicola Willis to get a win.” Well, I would plead to you, when it comes to something this simple that comes at no cost to anyone, don’t stand on the priggish side of partisan politics; do what’s right.

💬 Hon Dr Deborah Russell: Ha, ha!

Don’t laugh when, actually, there are mums and dads and parents who this affects who have written to me and said, “Why is the law this way? Why is it stopping my family doing it?” Don’t laugh at this change, which is exactly what Parliament is meant to do. It’s meant to take the statute book and say, “What’s in keeping with our modern communities? What’s out of step? How do we keep the law reflecting the values and ideals which we as a society wish to progress?” Don’t be MPs who stand in the way of that because someone in your caucus meeting said that politics is more important at this time in the political cycle.

I welcome this opportunity to bring a bill to the House that will bring New Zealand’s paid parental leave rules in line with the expectations of modern families. I want to pay tribute to Amy Adams, who first brought this bill to Parliament. I want to pay tribute to all of those men and women who through the years have made pragmatic changes to ensure that parents in those first such important days of children’s lives are able to make the arrangements that provide them the stability and the choice that allows them to be good mums, dads, and caregivers. And I want to, once again, put it to you that parties who oppose bills in this House that come at no cost to anyone—except for the political pride of those who oppose them—are parties who are out of step with what really matters.

I think back to the time with my young babies. I admit I look on it nostalgically now, because probably at the time I was completely exhausted and stressed and all of those things—I understand that—but I look back on that time, and it is one of the most special and momentous times in anyone’s life to be doing that job of bringing a child into the world, of giving them your love, and of raising them as well as you can. And if we in this House can step one step closer to making that profound experience a little more practical, then that’s exactly what we should do. So I appeal to your better selves, members opposite. Do what’s right; don’t do what’s political.

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Thank you, Madam Speaker, and thank you for allowing me the opportunity to take a call on this member’s bill, the Parental Leave and Employment Protection (Shared Leave) Amendment Bill, brought in the name of Nicola Willis, and I thank the member for bringing this important issue to the House.

Parental leave and the paid aspect of parental leave have been important aspects of consideration for this House over a number of years. In preparation for this speech, I did actually go back and look at a lot of the history of paid parental leave and how it has been implemented within New Zealand. A common theme is that we actually started out in New Zealand with very, very few rights for paid parental leave and for parents to actually take time off to take care of children. That’s because we had, for a very long time, a different system where most likely the mother, in most families, would take a large amount of unpaid leave—maybe not entering the paid workforce at all—in order to take care of children. The advent of paid parental leave is relatively modern in New Zealand and a world context. We need to recognise the fact that, these days, a lot of carers—a lot of primary carers—also have a paid job and shouldn’t have to sacrifice their career to be able to do that.

There is a proud history in this House of the consistent increase of paid parental leave and entitlements. So when this bill came to our caucus—and I take the member’s points in terms of her assumptions of the conversations that we had, but I can assure her that this is a bill that we looked at really carefully, and it does raise important issues which I think this House should take into account. It’s something that needs attention in terms of not only the child in question but also the way that families do share and take care of their leave. I do think it is an important issue, so I don’t want to belittle the issue by saying that it isn’t important.

I’m not delaying saying how we’ll vote on this for any anticipation means; we won’t be supporting this bill. The reason that we won’t be supporting this bill is because we see it taking away and having an impact on children and primary carers.

💬 Nicola Willis: Oh, so you know best! Labour knows best!

If members opposite would allow me to elucidate some of the thoughts on that, I would like to, because I do think it’s an important issue, and I’m not trying to minimise the importance of it.

The history of paid parental leave, that I was able to ascertain, started in 2001 with the Labour-Alliance Government. That was the introduction of 12 weeks’ paid parental leave. Then we had an introduction of 14 weeks in 2005.

💬 Hon Scott Simpson: Shame on Labour!

These are hard-won wins by campaigns run by women, mainly, and also by trade unions and by parents to actually get these entitlements. If we talk about shame and talk about people knowing best and not wanting to support parents, then we only have to look to 2015, when the majority of members of this House voted to increase paid parental leave to six months—26 weeks. And what happened then? We had a National Government in power, we had Bill English lose his financial veto—

💬 Nicola Willis: Point of order, Madam Speaker. Standing Orders require that members speak to the bill, which is a very specific bill about allowing caregivers and parents to share their paid parental leave entitlements as they see fit. It is not about a previous bill many years ago, and I would invite the member to speak to the bill.

💬 Simon Court: Madam Speaker, speaking to the point of order. I’m a new MP here, but I understood that points of order are to be heard in silence, is that correct?

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): That is absolutely correct, and can I just appeal to all members in the House: this is a robust debate; members who have spoken previously—there was no shouting down of the members. I would actually like, as the Speaker sitting on this Chair, to be able to hear the speech of the member Camilla Belich, so can we please be respectful of each other.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. So we did have that particular moment in the history of paid parental leave, which I do believe is relevant to this particular bill as it seeks to, in our view, reduce the entitlement of the paid leave in terms of time, which is important for children. In terms of time, if this bill was introduced, some children would receive less paid time available to their parents than they currently receive. So I do believe that the history of it, and the hard-won fights that people on this side of the House, myself included, were involved with to try and get this entitlement put there in the first place are relevant.

The 26 For Babies campaign, which was the campaign that eventually—if I continue with my history—in 2017 increased paid parental leave to six months was a very, very hard-fought campaign. It actually required changing the Government to get this put in place. I don’t necessarily want to make a contribution about the various parties and what they’ve done wrong in the past; what I want to look at is what’s best for children and for families.

💬 Erica Stanford: What if a mum’s just had a caesarean and needs dad there?

I do think the issue that the member has brought up is an important one, and people on the other side of the House are yelling at me, but what I want to say to you is that I think what the member has raised is important. We did consider it very, very seriously, and the reason that we are not supporting it is we do not want to see a situation of reduction. We think if more support is needed for babies and for other parents who are not the primary carer, then that should be looked at separately and not in a way that reduces entitlements. That is an important issue that should be looked at, but this bill, in our view, is not the way to advance that. I just wanted to go through all of that history, because it is really important, and I did, you know, start my speech by commending the member for bringing this bill and raising this important issue.

The member brought up two things: she said that this does not impact on anyone else, just the family; she said it is at no cost. I disagree. This bill, if passed, would have an impact on children and on families in terms of the time that they have. We can look at the science behind that and the evidence on how important it is for children to be able to spend time with their families. So it does have an impact. It is not true to say that it has no impact. We know those first hundred days and that time that the children spend with their families are so important in their development and how they grow up as adults, so it does have an impact—

💬 Nicola Willis: So mums should stay at home, hey?

No, absolutely not. It just does have an impact. It has an impact, and it does have a cost, because it reduces the time.

So what I would like to conclude with is just to say that I do think that the support—

💬 Nicola Willis: You’re standing here saying mums should stay at home—unbelievable!

I’m absolutely not saying that; I’m saying that the availability of time for primary carers should not be reduced, and this bill would do that. It would reduce the time available for primary carers if they chose to do that. What is available for New Zealanders at the moment is that if they want to take unpaid leave, if they want to take time out, and if they want to take annual leave, there are absolutely no restrictions on them doing that at the moment. What we’re talking about is actual Government-provided paid parental leave and how that should be implemented.

I’ve said that getting to where we are now with six months’—26-weeks’—paid parental leave was a huge fight for this country, a huge achievement. We do not want to see the amount of time that families have reduced, and we consider that this bill would do that. That’s why, sadly, we cannot support this bill.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s a pleasure to rise to speak to the Parental Leave and Employment Protection (Shared Leave) Amendment Bill. It’s a pleasure because, to me, it is just a no-brainer that we support this. When I looked at it, I thought, “What am I actually to say about it?” I couldn’t think of much, because it was so sensible and so fair. During the debate on the last bill, the gift card bill, I heard a Labour member say that Labour is a party of fairness, and I think we’re absolutely proving now that Labour is a party of petty politics. To bring up past, vindictive-type behaviour is, I think, quite unfortunate.

The policy statement says the bill amends the Parental Leave and Employment Protection Act 1987 to ensure that paid parental leave can be split between spouses or partners who are caring for the child and can be taken at the same time. The paid parental leave, as has been indicated, is not going to cost anything. It is a choice that the couple make. The couple are not forced into anything; it’s their choice. The flexibility that that will allow will just make many families quite happy that they can choose to bring up their kids the way they want to and not the way the Labour Party thinks they should.

Having both parents bringing up those young kids is really important in brain development, social development, and forming habits, and the health outcomes are known to be better. It’s just a no-brainer in terms of the first few years of a baby’s life. It’s certainly not up to the Government, a political party, to decide how parents are going to bring up their kids as far as the leave goes—I think that’s quite despicable.

There will be a time in the future to discuss the Family Court and some of the decisions they make based on whether the parties are male or female, and we could discuss the fairness of a lot of those decisions. But that is for another time, not for this bill.

It’s an absolute pleasure to support this bill, and I’m really disappointed in the attitude that Labour has taken.

I rise to speak to this bill as a mum of four children and as someone who chose, with my husband, that I would do the main parenting role while they were little. So I know very well the strains of being a young mum at home with young babies. Rightly or wrongly, we had three of ours within 3½ years, and, boy, that was tough.

So I do want to acknowledge Ms Willis for bringing this issue before us. It is a really heartfelt and important one; we need to talk about it. I am going to talk to my experience for a few minutes, if I may, in the context of this bill. So when I was a young mum, I had my small amount of parental leave under the previous regime, because my last baby was born in 2007, but my husband took his parental two weeks, because what we recognised was just how hard it is for young mamas to be alone with newborns—particularly to be alone, may I say, with a two-year-and-one-week-old, a 3½-year-old, as well as a six-week-old; can I just put that out there. Yeah, it is really tough to do that. Tom took his two weeks. I was lucky: my mum took in a week as well, and they balanced those. I was so darn lucky to have that opportunity. You can look at this and say, “Isn’t this great for parents? It gives them the opportunity to do that shared parenting time and to cut that 26 weeks.”—as my colleague Ms Belich put it, those hard-won 26 weeks that we had to fight for in 2017. You can say that it increases fairness for those parents to be able to take those 26 weeks, but I think it’s short-sighted. What it isn’t looking at is that the reason we want that parental leave is not actually for the adults in the equation; it is for the babies. I have absolutely no compunction in saying it is our duty to take care of those who cannot care for themselves—I say that as a parent, but I also say that as an MP—and infants are the prime example of that. They need at least that 26 weeks of one-on-one intensive care, and I am concerned that while it sounds really nice to say, “Let’s enable the parents to cut this pie any way they want.”, what you’re really doing is creating an either/or, not an and/and.

I do invite Ms Willis to live up to the much-vaunting beginning of her speech where she talked about the need for cross-party collaboration on the issues that matter and to really engage with the Government—whatever Government is in next time; I hope it’s us—who will continue to do the policy work that really isn’t in this bill at this point. We do not need an either/or that, effectively, cuts the 26 weeks that our vulnerable infants get at this point, and that creates a half-situation where we are back to possibly worse than the 18 weeks the National Government fought so damn hard to keep us at. We need to not do an either/or. It is a false fairness. It is a false economy. It does not create equity. We need to be looking wider and more ambitiously. We need to be looking for an and/and. As someone who had a partner who took six months and swapped, I know how rich and valuable it is to be able to co-parent with another parent who has actually been there in the trenches with you on a full-time basis. It’s vital. But Ms Willis—

💬 Hon Louise Upston: Yeah, together, at the same time.

No, I would just say to the member opposite, let’s have more ambition for our children and our families. Let’s go beyond either/or, cut the pie, keep the pie smaller. Let’s actually take this half-baked idea and turn it into something really magnificent and an and/and.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. With pleasure, I rise to speak to the Parental Leave and Employment Protection (Shared Leave) Amendment Bill in the name of Nicola Willis. I congratulate the member for getting the bill drawn, and I acknowledge Amy Adams, who I remember having this discussion with previously, when she last put it in front of Parliament.

I’ve got, personally, a very long history with paid parental leave. I was part of the campaign team who got it introduced. We were one of last developed countries in the world to provide that support for our families. I am a huge believer in it. It’s a policy that has multiple positive outcomes for our communities. One of them is that it’s a very, very significant contributor in terms of reducing the gender pay gap, because women’s time out of employment is—often with caring responsibilities—one of the main drivers of that gap. It’s also a driver around women’s attachment to employment, which has positive social outcomes, and it plays a really essential role in terms of supporting positive attachment in the early years and the wellbeing of our tamariki and children. The reason the six months—the 26 weeks—campaign was specifically in that link was to ensure breastfeeding was able to be supported at home during those early years, specifically in that time frame.

The Greens, unlike Labour—I understand the arguments that they’re making, and I think they are genuinely valid arguments—are supporting this bill today because we believe that the conversation is really an important one to have as a country. Women in this country have said that paid parental leave and the sharing of it and the ability for both partners to take parental leave is one of their priorities. There was a survey in 2022 of 3,500 women that said that making the leave entitlement available to both parents was their top-rated solution to support women to balance their caring responsibilities with other things in their life. That was ahead of even more Government funding for childcare. So if we’re listening to women, then we do have to engage in this conversation. The National Advisory Council on the Employment of Women, way back in the day, in 2008, recommended paid paternity leave, leave specifically reserved for fathers of infants—not this proposal, which is about sharing; it’s about ring-fencing a specific allocation for the other parent, which is what we know, internationally, will have the impact of encouraging that other partner to take the leave. There’s a very low uptake of parental leave for the other parent in this country. International evidence shows us that just enabling people on paper to share the leave, as this bill will do, does not make a difference in terms of the increase in that other partner taking the leave.

What makes the difference is a ring-fence provision of “use it or lose it” and—possibly not surprisingly to many in this House—increasing the payments that recognise that, actually, one of the major disincentives at the moment particularly for male partners from taking the leave is the massive drop in family income that comes about if they take the leave, because men are still far more likely to be paid much higher than their partners.

At the moment, there’s been, under this Government, a 7.7 percent, I think, increase in paid parental leave. I want to acknowledge that, but that is still significantly below minimum wage. When families are struggling to pay the rent and pay the bills, we have to increase it. The Green Party policy is to have 100-percent payment of the average male wage, if we’re going to be supporting our families, for 15 months—this is the Green Party policy based on the best evidence of what will support our families—and to increase it, to enable people to have it, and to ring-fence it, “use it or lose it”, for partners, because, actually, we need to make that commitment to our children and to our families and to reducing discrimination. We’re happy to have the conversation and hear from New Zealand to get that result, which would be better than this.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I appreciate the opportunity to take a call on the Parental Leave and Employment Protection (Shared Leave) Amendment Bill. Also, like others, I’d like to acknowledge the member Nicola Willis for bringing this bill to the House and for raising this important issue that we are debating today.

I feel like it would be useful, like other members have shared in this House, to share a little bit of personal experience. I find that it is important that, as MPs, we do that from time to time so that people know we are real people. In 2008, my wife and I had our first child. At the time, my wife was working as a school teacher. I was studying, and working part-time while I was studying. My wife received 12 weeks’ paid parental leave. That was the amount at the time; it was 12 weeks. So she received that 12 weeks and, basically, gave up her teaching role, and I continued to study and work. Needless to say, our income was fairly modest at that time. We made the decision for my wife to do her very best to stay at home to look after the kids. We ended up having three more. We had four under five, which was a bit of a blur, really. I wouldn’t recommend that, to be honest. It was a challenging time, but that 12 weeks of paid parental leave was absolutely vital for the early years of the life of our first son.

There was an MP in the House at the time—Sue Moroney; Labour MP—and she was campaigning to see that increased from 12 weeks. She was successful in that, in terms of getting support—I believe it was from the Hon Peter Dunne at the time—to increase paid parental leave to 26 weeks, which is what we currently have. I agree with the previous Green member Jan Logie in terms of the benefits of having one of the parents at home with the child. It’s incredibly challenging at the moment for a lot of people to be able to do that, and a lot of that I’d put down to rising house prices. Also we acknowledge the challenges around the cost of living at the moment, but certainly the cost of rent and the cost of mortgages has gone up a lot, which means that it is very difficult to have a parent staying at home if the couple does want to go down that route. Personally, I think it is still the preferred route, in my personal opinion, to have a family member at home. We used to see a lot of that back in the 1940s, 50s, 60s, and 70s, but particularly in the 80s, we started to see a few changes in the area.

This piece of legislation—I guess, building on that—talks about having some flexibility in that so that it doesn’t have to be just, as it was in my case, the mother at home. At that time, I could have also got some paid parental leave, and we could have shared it, so I understand where the member’s coming from. She certainly makes her arguments very clear in terms of the benefits of that flexibility.

Personally, after the election, I’d like to see the Government of the day look into this issue, because I think it’s an issue that is worthy of working with officials on and actively looking into, in terms of what the member’s brought to the House today. So I do hope that, in the next term of Parliament, this is actively looked at. I would like to go on record by saying that I would like to see the Government of the day do that. Mr Speaker, thank you for the time today.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I am a mother of five daughters, and my oldest daughter, Tabitha, turned 27 yesterday. When I was thinking and hearing about what people were talking about, it took me back to what it was like when Tabitha was born 27 years ago. We didn’t have paid parental leave 27 years ago, and I went back to work when she was six weeks old. We were a young couple who had a mortgage to pay, my husband was a freezing works worker, and we couldn’t afford to have me at home looking after my first baby. I can remember the challenges I had, even then, trying to establish breastfeeding, and 27 years ago, it was pretty much OK: I popped her on the bottle, went to work, and Mum came in and helped look after Tabitha.

I then had Brittney and Augusta, and they, too, weren’t at a time when there was paid parental leave. By the time I got to have Livia, who is now 14, there was paid parental leave. Having that time with my youngest baby made me realise then how significantly important it is for a mum to be able to spend time with their baby and to be able to breastfeed for six months. The greatest gift we can give a child is time—it’s time. This bill, the Parental Leave and Employment Protection (Shared Leave) Amendment Bill, will actually take a length of time away from the one-on-one attachment between a parent or a caregiver and the baby in those first six months.

Nobody knows how significant it is for a child to have that time, which all the research shows, and so I have spent some time thinking about this bill and looking at what it would really achieve. What it would achieve is—yes, it might enable two parents to be together and to be with their young baby, but that will take time away from the length of time for which at least one parent doesn’t need to return to work during those first six months.

We wouldn’t even be talking about this bill if it hadn’t been for the Labour Party and being able to introduce paid parental leave—something that, I’ve already said, was never available to me as a young mum; it wasn’t available to my mum, and it certainly wasn’t available to my grandmother. To think now, as we go forward, that all five of my daughters will have that time with their children while they are first-time, second-time, third-time, or maybe five-time mums—I can’t wait to have grandchildren, by the way.

I just think that we need to look at how we can enable something that is better than what’s on offer in this bill. If we can come up with a way that does enable us to give the most time we can give for newborns to be with their parents, then I think we should. The main reason why I can’t support this bill is that the greatest gift we can ever give a child is time. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I want to talk about the great gift of time for a newborn to be with both parents, if there are two parents available. That is at the heart of this bill—and I emphasise “the heart of this bill”—that has been put forward by my colleague and friend Nicola Willis. I find it bizarre and ridiculous that we are hearing arguments from the other side of the House that they will not support this bill, which gives flexibility for different family arrangements and different circumstances in the way that we could have shared leave—as that phrase was used in the bill—to enable families to do what is right and what is best for themselves.

So we have, just to be clear, a situation where Nicola Willis has proposed a scenario whereby a family can choose that the amount of leave that they are already accorded, by way of parental leave, be sliced and diced in different ways, if that were to suit the family, in different circumstances. So it might be, for example, that both parents—if, again, there are two parents, and I accept that’s not always the case—could take that leave both concurrently or in order, one after the other. Or it could be that they choose, of course, for the primary parent—usually the mother, but not necessarily, again—to have all that time in one hit, straight through—just that person alone.

There are different circumstances that might suit different families according to their particular needs. Then, we come, therefore, to the question of choice. We’re not saying, for example, that a family should not have the ability to have that maximum length of time in the very one-dimensional way that the Labour Party seems to consider the matter. Actually, it could be that the family does choose that. It might be that in a lot of situations, that’s the case. But where they might choose something different because they know best what is best for their family—not relying on being told that by speeches by Labour Party members in the first reading of this bill—then, actually, they should be able to choose that. If this is a thing that belongs to them and it’s for their benefit, then why on earth would a nanny State approach be taken that says that they can’t take that in the way that best suits them? If you think about that phrase “nanny State”, I mean, traditionally we think about the nanny telling the kids what to do. In this case, the Labour Party seems to want to tell the parents what to do as well, which I find is a strange intrusion for them to be wanting to make.

Let’s deal with other potential objections to the bill. If we’re thinking, “Will this cost more to have two parents involved in taking the leave?”, the answer is no, of course, because we’re talking about, again, the same amount of leave that would be or could be split across two parents; we’re not talking about any additional resources of the State. We’ve heard the Green Party making a pitch for extra time, and I think we can all be sympathetic about that, even as we weigh the different costs and benefits available. But, in this case, that need not be an objection, because there is no additional time that’s required; it would merely be that it could be taken in a different form and a different shape by the family, again, if they were to choose it. I find the idea strange that there needs to be more policy work done, somehow. More policy work is not required by the Government; it should be a decision of the family. So too we must acknowledge that there are no additional resources that are needed in that way.

I do want to talk about flexibility, because that relates to the question of choice. This is why it’s powerful that families would have the choice. In different circumstances, it might be that the mental health needs of the primary parent or the first parent or the one who would ordinarily, all things being equal, be providing that care for the whole time—it might be that their mental health needs are best served by the second parent being available at the same time, right at the start. It might be that the physical health needs dictate that. By way of example, in the case of a caesarean-section birth, it might well be the case that a second pair of hands are needed to lift, to drive, and to do various things that are important at any stage of life, and, goodness knows, when one has a newborn child, that’s all the more important. I don’t usually speak about my own family situation in this House for various reasons, but suffice to say, I’m aware of circumstances in which that would be very helpful. I think it’s a real disappointment, to put it mildly, that there is such a lack of imagination across the other side of the House that they can’t conceive of those scenarios in which that might be beneficial to families who are in that particular situation.

For a first-time mother or new parents, it might be the case that this is particularly valuable, the proposal that Nicola Willis makes. It might be, in the case of second and subsequent children, particularly helpful, because the extra pair of hands is needed to take care of those older kids, depending on what they’re up to and whether school or other care arrangements are needed. I can’t understand the reason that the Labour Party’s not supporting this—unless it’s politics, not policy. And I say to them, the National Party—supported by anyone who also sees the common-sense arguments in favour of this bill—will pass it with or without you, and if it be following the election rather than in this member’s bill, now, in the name of Nicola Willis, then so be it.

Kia ora. Thank you, Mr Speaker. I’m taking this call to express my opposition to the Parental Leave and Employment Protection (Shared Leave) Amendment Bill. Before I begin my contribution, I just want to do a shout-out to all the parents here in the House and then also to the parents that are probably listening to question time while on their parental leave at home.

I have memories, when I was a young dad at home with the kids, of chucking the kids in the jolly jumper, while watching question time, and then running away to get bottles and things like that, and, yeah, using the jolly jumper for babysitting probably. That’s probably why my boy is so keenly into politics right now. The big thing for me was just to make sure that the house was tidy enough by the time that my wife got home. That was always a challenge, but question time was a good babysitting mechanism for my kids.

Now, this bill would allow paid parental leave to be split between spouses or partners who are caring for a child. In that way, during the birthing period, one partner could give the other partner a few weeks of their paid leave so they can both be home for the child. Now, while I truly believe the member that brought this bill before the House has the best of intentions, the bill, as it stands, I feel, doesn’t quite go in the direction that we would like, and there is definitely a lot more work required.

Parental leave is an important right for new parents. It has been shown that taking parental leave greatly relieves stress on new parents and allows them to create a stronger bond with their children. That’s why Labour extended the paid parental leave to 26 weeks, in the first place, when we came into Government in 2017. This was in line with the recommendation of the World Health Organization of exclusive breastfeeding for children up to six months of age, and the finding that extending paid parental leave improved the health and happiness of both children and parents.

When I think of parental leave, I also look at the support that’s required inside those 26 weeks. I do have memories of—you know, we only had one car at the time. I’d get home from work, the car would be running in the driveway, Sheree would jump in the car, and then she’d go to work. It was always like a double team in providing care for the kids. We were always short on cash, you know, and had to do side hustles to get enough money in the door to pay for things like formula and nappies. As we all know, those can be quite expensive. So I was very proud of Labour’s policies. Things like free prescriptions go a long way. Things like the Best Start payments and fees-free, if you want to upskill while you’re on parental leave, and things like that are very important and provide that holistic approach while parents are on parental leave—and then also after those 26 weeks as well, because it doesn’t mean that everything’s OK after that 26-week mark.

I think that this bill, as mentioned, has the best of intentions. I even agree with its goal to allow parents to spend more time with their children. However, the bill does not really achieve that. It does not represent real progress for parents. The bill divides existing leave between the partners, and it does not create any additional time for parents to be with their children. The overall paid parental leave time available to the family does not increase, as Camilla Belich mentioned in her contribution. The direction I want to go in is extending that leave for both parents overall. As it stands, the bill would only create more complications for parents.

My question is: why should we just slice it between parents? And if you look at the bill itself, under new section 9A, inserted by clause 5, it’s got an example there where “Abby is entitled to 26 weeks of primary carer leave.”, and then “Abby transfers 6 weeks … to”—who was it there?—“her partner”. Now, what if her partner was pressuring Abby to get back to work earlier so he could sit at home? I think sometimes there might be inequality there where the mother might feel compelled to get back to work earlier, which is not in the best interests of that young infant. So, for that reason, the bill, as it stands, I do not commend to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I probably might be the only non-parent that has taken a call on this bill here this morning, but I am the proud child of a gynaecologist, one who is trained in Western medicine, who has been working on the surgery table in the operating theatre, and one who’s also trained in traditional Chinese medicine—or TCM, as we call it. Gosh, the stories I had coming back to school from our family clinic when I was helping out at the front desk for my mum, helping her patients.

Now, I don’t know if the House knows this, but in Chinese traditional medicine, we have something called “fitting in for a month”, or it’s better translated into English as “the confinement period”. I know that in a lot of Asian cultures, we have this thing where mothers need to stay home for a whole, entire month after giving birth. So sometimes I do get a little bit astounded when meeting people who are holding their two-week-old baby and coming out to meet us, and I go, “Aren’t you supposed to be at home? Aren’t you supposed to be in a beanie?”—because we think we have to protect the head. You have to be kept warm, you have to have socks on your feet the whole time, and in ancient times, we didn’t even allow women to wash their hair in that month as well, because it lets away the good energy.

We feed them very nutritious food: a diet of chicken soup, pig trotters—because it has collagen to help with breast milk production—and a special regime. Then the whole family comes in, whether it’s your mum—so the mother of the mother. So the grandmother on the mum’s side comes in to help you with caring for your daughter, or even your mother-in-law comes in and helps.

In modern day times now in China, there are actually special institutions that are set up so that it’s almost like a hotel. I don’t know if this analogy is right, but it’s almost like a retirement village, where you go in. There’s medical care, there are nurses to help with teaching, and then there are coaches as well to help you take care of the child. Obviously, all of the needs of the children are taken care of, and there are those special, nutritious, professionally designed meals for the mothers. Actually, it’s quite a luxurious stay. At other times, we invite what we call “pui yuet”, which is directly translated as “monk nannies”. These are confinement nannies, who come and live in our homes to help those young mothers with their first 30 days after giving birth.

So I do think that young mothers in the Asian communities are looked after really, really well, and often it’s the reason why people attribute—not that there’s any scientific evidence, but it’s the reason why people attribute it and say that Asians don’t age as fast. We think sometimes that it’s because we look after our mothers really well in the first 30 days. That’s when all your body’s hormones are readjusting, and often if you have long-term ailments, it’s because you haven’t done your confinement properly. That’s what we believe in our culture.

I say all of that to, basically, come back to the point that I think it’s extremely important to give our birthing parents—our mothers—the time they need. Especially for me, it’s those 30 days, which might be in jeopardy because of this bill. There is no actual minimal guarantee for the person who gives birth to actually spend that time at home. My good colleague here—Dan Rosewarne—has just talked about coercion, and maybe it’s within the family, or it could be from society as well. If you’re the higher-earning parent, maybe you could be coerced into going back to work as well, as we know well in this House.

I think about my own future prospects, and I think about my own career here, as well. For these moments, I want to make sure that a bill we bring to this House is one that is not half-baked but it is one that actually has had all of the scenarios thought through and that there are actually safeguards within the bill to make sure that the birthing parent has that physical time to get better so that all of the parts are back in line again—not that I heard it ever does—and it should be when we’re sure that they’re ready to take on the world and that they have some time—as we’ve talked about it here, over and over again—to have that breastfeeding establishment period as well. That’s why we’ve raised the parental leave period entitlement to 26 weeks.

So it is a bit of science and it’s a bit of, I think, sage-old experience from the ages as well, but we’re making sure that when we come to this bill, it’s one that really looks after the birthing parent. Like my good colleague Emily Henderson has said, it’s an and/and, not an and/or. I really want to make sure that this bill is one that is well-thought-out, and that’s why I cannot support this bill.

Nicola Willis—five minutes in reply.

What a shameful day. Members opposite should hang their heads in shame. In deciding to vote down this bill, they have insulted every parent in New Zealand because they believe they are better placed to tell parents what to do with their parenting and caregiving arrangements. They have insulted them by voting against parents’ opportunity to have more choices about how they arrange their affairs to best deliver for their own families.

I did not think that in 2023 I would hear a Labour MP tell me that they knew what was best for the birthing parent. That was the phrase that was used by Naisi Chen just now—“This is about what’s best for the birthing parent.” Well, I’ll tell you what. I’ve been a birthing parent, I have birthed four children, and I find it insulting for members opposite to imply that women do not know what care arrangements best suit their family. For Labour to say it is wrong for men, for fathers, for lesbian partners to say, “Well, actually, we think it’s best in our family that we take paid parental leave at the same time.”, I find that insulting. This is 2023, and members opposite would do well to reflect on what the role of the Government is. Is it to insert itself into the arrangements of families and tell parents who should be at home and who shouldn’t and how much time they should spend breastfeeding? Well, actually, I prefer to leave it to mums and dads and caregivers to work that out for themselves.

Let’s think about what this bill actually would have done. I want you to think about the mother who sustained a birthing injury, who’s suffering from terrible post-natal depression, and who has no family support, and her partner says, “You know what? I’m going to stay at home with you for these first few difficult, challenging weeks so I can support you, and we will take our paid leave at the same time so we can keep this family together. I can look after you and our baby, and we can do what is best for our family.” What the Labour MPs opposite say to that family in that circumstance is, “No. You’re not allowed. We know better. There shouldn’t be paid parental leave for both of you at the same time.”

I am shocked, because one of the things I think is important in this House is that we do not seek as individuals to impose our particular personal experiences upon others. I am really conscious of that, because here I am as a mother of four—and, boy oh boy, was I lucky that I had a supportive partner, and I had the ability to stay at home on paid leave. I know many members opposite had the same thing. But there but for the grace of God go I, because I can imagine circumstances—and women have written to me about their circumstances in which things didn’t go that well—“I really needed my partner at home taking paid leave at the same time.”

It shouldn’t be beyond the Labour members opposite to have that empathy and that imagination too. What they have done today is take a no-brainer of a bill, a bill with no cost to the taxpayer, a bill that does no harm to anyone but simply enhances flexibility and enhances choices, and they have said, “No, no. We’ll put our own patronising political views first, and we will deny it.”

I think that what’s really going on here is that Labour has cast aside their values as they become desperate about the upcoming election. What they really wanted to do today was deny National a win. The sad thing is it’s not about National; they’re denying parents a win. I would implore the members opposite to think again, because, actually, we’re here in this House not for our own selves but for the people whose lives we can have an impact on. With this churlish decision to vote against a pragmatic, modernising, cost-free bill, the members opposite have shown they’ve left their values at the door and they’ve put petty politics first, and I tell them that New Zealand parents will ensure they pay the price.