Pae Ora (Healthy Futures) (3 Day Postnatal Stay) Amendment Bill

Committee of the whole House

Thank you, Mr Chair. Clause 4 includes an amendment to the definition of “inpatient postnatal care” where the only change from the original member’s bill is that “a woman and baby” is changed to “a mother and baby”, and I’d like to ask the Minister—I’ll just keep my contribution brief so that there’s an opportunity for some follow-up questions on this. I was wondering if the Minister could explain why “a woman” was changed to “a mother” and if this has any relationship to a desire not to be captured by amendments under way to the Legislation Act to define a woman?

Committee of the whole House

The term “mother” is used throughout the bill, and this is consistency of terminology.

Committee of the whole House

Thanks to the Minister. The term “mother” wasn’t used in the original bill, so I’d like to understand the rationale for changing from “woman” to “mother” in the Minister’s amendment, please. I’m aware that there’s a lot of debate about the use of the word “woman” in legislation, so I’d like to understand why—[Interruption]

CHAIRPERSON (Tom Rutherford): Just a bit of quiet on my right.

—that was so important that now “woman” is being removed from legislation and “mother” put in instead.

Committee of the whole House

Thank you, Mr Chair. I’d like to turn now to the words of “Section 4 amended (interpretation)”. Consistent with the initial bill, where we were talking about “for the purposes of post-birth recovery”, I’d just seek some clarification from the Associate Minister of Health about whether that has any limiting effect on new Part 3A, section 93C, where it looks to be fairly—

CHAIRPERSON (Tom Rutherford): That’s in a separate clause.

It is, but I’m talking about the nexus between these two clauses. In section 4, in the interpretation, it speaks very clearly about “for the purposes of post-birth recovery”, and yet, in new section 93C, there seems to be an absolute entitlement that isn’t dependent upon a specific purpose—in other words, the fact of labour and the fact of birth enables that entitlement. It does not have to be for the purpose of recovery; it is just assumed that there is an entitlement.

I really just want to seek the Minister’s clarification about whether, in the interpretation, those words could be confusing and whether perhaps we could just cross out “for the purposes of post-birth recovery” and just say “provided to a woman and baby”—or “a birthing parent” would probably be better words. I wonder if the Minister would entertain that, given that there are clinical implications of using “mother”—if we stop the words after “labour and birth” so that we don’t confuse the requirement of a purpose of recovery with what seems to be a more absolute entitlement in the subsequent provisions of the legislation.

Committee of the whole House

To clarify, using the word “mother”, it was a drafting decision by the Parliamentary Counsel Office to ensure the language in the bill is consistent and has a plain, ordinary meaning.

Committee of the whole House

Well, I do have questions about the choice of “mother”, and the reason being for a couple of reasons. Sometimes the non-birth parent is also a mother—that’s what happened in my own family, actually; so it’s not as clear as you might think. The second thing is that often it’s argued that the word “woman” should be used because a woman is a person beyond just her role as a mother, and while she might be in hospital because she is a mother, she has her own rights, ability to make decisions, thoughts about how she should be cared for, health concerns that may not be relevant to the health of the baby, and she deserves to be recognised for those things that are relevant to her.

If the change is purely at the behest of the Parliamentary Counsel Office, it seems to me that there is a potential loss of important emphasis on the woman as a full person by describing them merely as a mother, and I wonder if the Minister, who in other debates in this House has stuck up for the need for women to be called women, would on this occasion consider “mother” to be replaced with “woman” as was in the original version of the bill. In my view, calling a woman “a mother” is reductive and sees them only as related to the needs of their baby, when they in fact have needs of their own.

Committee of the whole House

I’d like to ask the Associate Minister of Health, following on from that, if the Minister can please tell us whether “birthing parent” was considered as one of the ways of describing that function. The reason I ask that is because there has been other legislation at the Health Committee where we have considered “birthing parent” and it has actually been New Zealand First members that have had a problem with it. I think most New Zealanders would like some consistency across our legislation that captures not only the fullness of the people that my colleague has described but actually the clinical implications of what’s being described as well.

Now, it is not outside the realms of possibility for a birthing parent to not necessarily be a mother. Are we going to have to come back at some point in the next 10 years and amend the legislation because we’ve confined ourselves to words that don’t take into account the advances in medical technology? Could “birthing parent” be a more accurate and efficient way of ensuring that the legislation is futureproofed?

That includes, as my colleague the Hon Dr Ayesha Verrall has mentioned, the Improving Arrangements for Surrogacy Bill. In fact, we did spend hours discussing this in quite a frustrating way, because on one side we are trying to consider the best use of the resources of Parliament to make the legislation fit for purpose. On the other side, there seems to be some kind of weird moral identity argument about using words that appease particular members of the public that are going to have quite far-reaching implications and could conceivably make us come back to this House in the future to have to amend the words because they do not cover the scope of what might be technologically available to result in a birthing parent and somebody who needs to have post-birth recovery.

Committee of the whole House

I move, That debate on this question now close.

A party vote was called for on the question, That debate on this question now close.

Ayes 67

New Zealand National 48; ACT New Zealand 11; New Zealand First 8.

Noes 48

New Zealand Labour 32; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 11; Te Pāti Māori 4; Kapa-Kingi.

Motion agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Tom Rutherford): The question is that the Minister’s amendment to clause 4 set out on Amendment Paper 647 be agreed to.

Amendment agreed to.

Clause 4 as amended agreed to.

Committee of the whole House

Clause 5 New Part 3A inserted (Access to inpatient postnatal care)

CHAIRPERSON (Tom Rutherford): Members, we come now to clause 5. This is the debate on new Part 3A inserted, “Access to inpatient postnatal care”. The question is that clause 5 stand part.