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

I move that the Pae Ora (Healthy Futures) (3 Day Postnatal Stay) Amendment Bill be now read for a first time. I—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O’Connor): Catherine Wedd.

CATHERINE WEDD: Ha!

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O’Connor): There’s a reason why—the call is to alert those in the communications to who is speaking. That is why that’s done.

CATHERINE WEDD: Thank you, Mr Speaker. I move, That the Pae Ora (Healthy Futures) (3 Day Postnatal Stay) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Health Committee to consider the bill.

The Pae Ora (Healthy Futures) (3 Day Postnatal Stay) Amendment Bill is about providing mums with greater protection and support after having a baby. This bill will enable them to receive a minimum of three days’ post-natal care if they need it. It also requires the lead maternity carer to let the mother know that she is eligible to stay for 72 hours.

In this first reading of the bill, I would like to acknowledge the Hon Louise Upston, who put this bill into the members’ tin five years ago, following a petition and the advocacy of Chloe Wright, who worked hard to put the spotlight on post-natal care and highlight the insufficiencies with post-natal care in New Zealand. She was a fierce warrior advocate for post-natal care. The three-day post-natal stay bill happened with Chloe’s advocacy. Chloe Wright stood up and said, “Mothers matter.” She didn’t just stand up and say, “Mothers matter.”; she shouted it. Today, we stand up in this House and say, “Mothers matter.”

I am proud to stand up for this bill, because it will positively impact mothers and families across New Zealand. It will support and protect mums and families by helping us provide better post-natal support. One of the most stressful experiences for a new mum is making sure that you can care for your newborn baby while also processing all the information being given to you by your midwife and by your nurses. This bill will give mums more time to bond with their babies in those crucial first days. Women are currently not making informed choices about post-natal care, which is critical to ensure that mothers can form a loving attachment with their newborn baby. Women are currently entitled to up to 48 hours of funded in-patient post-natal care, but many don’t realise this and are pressured to leave early. Giving mothers this extra time and extra flexibility will result in positive outcomes for mum, baby, and their family, with three days in a supportive environment and a dedicated facility, if they wish, to have this post-natal care provided.

As a mother of four children myself, and having experienced a traumatic first birth, I understand how important those first few days are after having a baby. I want to make sure that all new mothers can have access to the post-natal support that they need. The bill gives more choice. Every situation is different. Every birth is different, and the level of protection and support will differ in individual cases. As mums will know, it’s so unpredictable what your experience is going to be like. This bill is about ensuring women have the access to essential post-natal care whatever their situation. Those first hours and days with your newborn baby are critical for the ongoing bond that you form with your baby. Mums should have that time if they need it. Having a newborn baby is the most special moment of your life. A new mum will go through so much emotion as well as having to learn so much about everything, when you know nothing, from breastfeeding, sleeping, changing nappies, wrapping babies, sterilising bottles, dealing with fatigue, expressing milk, bathing—the list is endless; it can be so overwhelming.

On this day exactly 14 years ago, I was about to give birth to my first child—an anxious but exciting time for any new mum. The journey of having your first baby should be incredibly special and something you remember for ever. I remember finding out I was having a baby. We were just so thrilled and excited. I booked into the antenatal classes, and my husband and I planned our birth. We had our birth plan sorted with our midwife—dim lights, a water bath, soothing music, and then the magical skin to skin. This was the plan, so we certainly were not prepared for the reality of what actually happened. The pain of those contractions, our baby getting stuck; doctors, specialists, nurses, all in the room; the horror, the emotion of not knowing whether you were going to survive or your baby was going to survive; the pain of waiting for your baby’s first cry, the pain of having your baby whisked away off to SCBU, the special care baby unit; the emptiness you felt as a new mum—exhausted, emotional, and without your baby. Then, not knowing our rights, we felt vulnerable and scared.

You shouldn’t have to fight the system. If it wasn’t for our amazing midwife, our story could have been different. Thank you to our midwife for fighting in our corner. We stayed, we were cared for, and my baby girl turns 14 tomorrow, but the end story is not always a happy one. Thank you to all the amazing midwives who bring so many precious lives into our world every day. This bill is about providing a tool and legal rights for mums, midwives, and our families. A birth may have gone really well and a mum may be ready to leave hospital straight away, and that’s their choice, but for many mums, they need extra support, especially those first-time mums who don’t know any better. This bill requires the lead maternity carer to let the mother know what she is eligible for, because mums need to know that there is care available. Giving mums this extra time and extra flexibility will result in positive outcomes for mother, baby, and families.

This bill is about standing up for parents who should have a right to enjoy one of the most special moments of their life. This bill will give many mums better protection and support. I acknowledge that our health system is under pressure. I visited our maternity units, our midwives, and experts in the area of post-natal care, and I have listened: we need to improve. Workforce is also a big part of this: to provide this extra resourcing. It’s pleasing to see our midwife shortage improving, with the most recent statistics from Health New Zealand showing we have an increase of 97 fulltime-equivalent midwives compared to this time last year. It’s improved, but we acknowledge there is still a lot of work to do.

This bill is about prioritising post-natal care and the funding available for it. Mums will never get that time back, and there is ongoing risk if we don’t give new mums the support that they need. Already I’ve been connecting with various women’s, family, and birthing groups, as well as midwives and maternity units across the country. The bill is receiving a lot of support from many people across the motu who know we must do better in post-natal care. We must provide our mums and babies with better post-natal care.

Having public select committee hearings will enable us to put the spotlight on post-natal care in New Zealand, it will enable us to raise any concerns, and it will provide the opportunity for those who want to share their stories. I encourage people to submit to the Health Committee, and I look forward to these submissions as we work to improve post-natal care in New Zealand.

We owe all mothers and babies across our country this opportunity. The first 1,000 days of a baby’s life are critical; the first three days of a baby’s life are fundamental. Today is about standing up for mothers and families across New Zealand and protecting and supporting our most vulnerable newborn babies. I commend this bill to the House.

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Congratulations, the Pae Ora (Healthy Futures) (3 Day Postnatal Stay) Amendment Bill has been born from the ballot. Congratulations to the member. After a long gestation of five years, as has been noted, we get to debate this bill. Just like we happily greet any new arrival to the world with congratulations, the Labour Party will be supporting this bill. After all, who would not agree to care for new mothers?

I’m lucky to have my remarks on this bill grounded in my experience delivering babies. I think I’ve probably delivered about a hundred babies, most of them in my mother’s country, the Maldives, where I entertained an early career ambition of being an obstetrician, but that was not to be and I became an infectious diseases doctor instead. It was certainly a privilege to see new people come into the world, many of them, as it happens in the Maldives, called Ayesha, but other wonderful babies who weren’t called Ayesha as well.

I do think that while we all want to do our best for mothers and babies and families across New Zealand—all of us from all sides of the House want to achieve that—there are ways in which this bill might be described by a midwife as light for its gestational age, because our worry on this side of the House is that it does not go far enough to achieve its stated aim. As the member Catherine Wedd has already stated, this bill changes the 48-hour entitlement to a 72-hour entitlement. In a sense, we might ask: what is the problem we are trying to fix with this bill and is the fix achieved by changing the entitlement from 48 hours to 72? I would argue that it is not, because that entitlement is not being particularly effective in making sure that people receive the care they need as it is.

The fact is that there is a wide range of care that people need. Some people do not want to stay in hospital for longer. Others need to stay for a very long time—say, if they are recovering from a particularly traumatic birth, and, in that case, these entitlements are not actually helping them. The underlying issue is the resourcing of our hospitals. Some need three days, four days, five days, and some people need two weeks because of their particular circumstances.

I want to draw members’ attention to section 93D, in clause 5, which says that Health New Zealand must resource this commitment. This seems to me to be the biggest problem with this bill and one that we intend to return to both at the select committee and should this bill pass. As members already noted, the existing commitment is not adequately resourced, and that creates a worry for us on this side of the House that passing this bill is a hollow gesture, intended to signal commitment to the issues that mothers and their babies face but not actually changing the reality for them.

Earlier this year, it was reported that there was a national shortage of 330 hospital midwives. Addressing that would be a way in which we could materially impact the situation for mothers and babies. There have been delays to midwife exams, which means that midwives’ passage into the workforce has been delayed, and there’s been no sign of the improvements to midwife bonding that has been promised by the Government.

I’m particularly disappointed that the efforts many women’s health advocates made in the last term of Government to submit to the Women’s Health Strategy appear to have been papered over by this Government. The last answer I received from the Minister responsible for women’s health, Casey Costello, in relation to a question on what is being done to implement the Women’s Health Strategy, said, “Well, now we have a Government policy statement.” Members may not know that the Government policy statement mostly relates to five targets that the Government has set, none of which cover maternity. That is troubling in terms of the Government’s commitment to wider women’s health initiatives.

With respect to this bill and my concern that this does not make a material commitment to improving care for women, I want to illustrate that those sorts of changes are possible. Under Labour, we passed historic pay equity settlements that raised wages for midwives to improve their retention in the hospital workforce. We had graduate midwives starting on $76,000, and senior midwives on $153,000. We had a programme for improving retention in midwifery training, because midwives often have to be able to, during their training, attend at all hours, meaning they face additional costs. The Te Ara ō Hine programme was intended to reduce attrition by 30 percent. Sadly, there is no mention it of it in the workforce plan released by this Government last week.

I was proud of my colleague Carmel Sepuloni who, as the Minister for ACC, passed legislation to make sure women suffering birth injuries were able to have those injuries covered by ACC. What a practical way to improve the care that women can receive. We also funded maternal mental health initiatives, which I’m sure many of us recognise is an under-recognised area where we could do a lot more.

There are meaningful things that can be done to make sure that new mothers and their babies get the care they need, but, sadly, that is not achieved through this bill. Were we to look to the future I think we could come up with better plans than what’s contained in this bill. We could look at other ways of achieving post-natal care. We could think about innovative service provision, because women have commitments outside of hospital as well that they want to return to, which drives them to leave hospital while they still need support. And we could implement the recommendations of the Perinatal and Maternal Mortality Review Committee, which, for a number of years, has pointed to gaps in the safety systems in the maternity care system. Sadly, all of those issues are unaddressed by this bill.

I want to just point to the importance of some of these practical issues in achieving care for women with a report just out today about changes at Whakatāne Hospital. There’s an obstetric unit there that cares for 650 mothers a year, and that unit is staffed by an obstetrician, so it provides specialist care. That unit is being downgraded to a primary maternity service, which is valuable but, clearly, would not be suitable for those requiring specialist care, so 650 women each year are losing access to specialist care. This is part of the cuts that this Government has put on the health system where we’ve seen hiring freezes and staffing being scaled back, and many clinicians tell us that in peripheral hospitals they’re not even allowed to escalate their vacancies to the regional chief executives in order to get them addressed.

There are a number of ways in which the care for mothers could be improved, but it seems very difficult in a context of cuts and austerity in our health system, and I fear that this bill will not do enough to make a difference. It’s all very easy to say we want to pass a bill supporting mothers, but then to not be able to deliver the resources to do that fundamentally undermines the effort the House is making.

I just want to reflect that when we make these sorts of gestures when the reality of what’s happening in our health system is so different, it does seem to undermine the commitment. Think about the fact that, in this city, women giving birth were told that they weren’t even allowed toast after giving birth because of cost cutting at Health New Zealand. It is not possible to put a band-aid over—[Interruption] Yeah, get upset. Get upset, because it’s wrong. You may not like it but that is what’s happening under your Government. That is what’s happening.

It’s all very easy to posture and pass a bill, but we need to have the resources so that women get what they need, whether it’s toast or a smile, or, actually, care from a midwife who’s qualified. Those things take resourcing, and this Government has cut, cut, cut in our health system. We will happily hold that Government to account for their kind words towards mothers today.

Tēnā koe, Madam Speaker. I want to mihi to Catherine Wedd for bringing this bill to the House today—and the work of many before her, who have been acknowledged. I want to acknowledge them too. This is a bill that Te Pāti Kākāriki will be supporting through to select committee.

Now, some of us have challenging but overall positive birthing experiences and post-natal experiences and are so grateful for those, but, unfortunately, Australian research tells us that one in three mothers report their birth as being traumatic. In Aotearoa, this equates to 50 people per day, leaving birth traumatised: 4 to 6 percent of them meet clinical criteria for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) as a consequence of their birth experience, and many more have symptoms of PTSD rather than a diagnosis. Koi Tū research in Aotearoa highlights that this kind of perinatal distress impacts not only the birthing parent but the wider whānau, including the baby. We know that suicide is, very sadly, the leading cause of maternal death in Aotearoa, and our Māori wāhine are over-represented in these deaths.

We’ve heard from my colleague Ayesha Verrall how our support services and how our health system for parents and for whānau are chronically strained. Often, it’s only those with particularly high needs that actually gain the support that they need, meaning many, many miss out. And those who can afford private care might gain access to that care, but this, just simply, increases the inequities in our health system.

When we proceed with this bill to select committee, we want to make sure that it is truly fit for purpose. It was great to hear Catherine Wedd acknowledge the importance of actual funding and investment in this space, because we want to make it as comprehensive as possible in keeping all of our very damning statistics and realities at the forefront of our minds. We really don’t want to see this three-day post-natal stay being seen as, basically, this hollow, purported silver bullet to real investment and improvement in maternal health and wellbeing. Likely a lot of pressure will already be put on our already strained healthcare system to enable this three-day stay. We’ve heard these horror stories about women not being able to gain access to a Milo and a cup of tea after giving birth, so we don’t want to basically put them in this system if they’re not going to have a truly well-supported experience.

What we know as well, from the support that parents and whānau need after their birthing experiences, is that it’s so much more than just that first one to three days; it needs to be spread out from birth to five years, because, particularly if these parents are experiencing traumatic birthing incidences, they want to get out of there, they want to get out of hospital, and they want to get out of that system and back home, and it’s really important that those follow-up services are there.

We would also like to see, really specifically, a focus on the need for trauma-informed care, and this is particularly relevant in Aotearoa when we have really high rates of domestic violence and intimate-partner violence, as well as this ongoing trauma that we see in so many ways throughout our healthcare system as a result of colonisation and everything that’s happened from that point.

Ultimately, we know the best cure for something is prevention, and I want to shout out to Kate from Birth Trauma Aotearoa for consistently reminding us of this. We know this bill won’t have scope to fix everything, but, wherever possible, at every connection with the birthing parent and their wider whānau, we want to focus on birth trauma prevention in the first instance. So, yes, we will be supporting this bill and look forward to genuine listening and adopting the needs of our whānau. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise in support of this bill—I think I’ll preface with that. ACT will be supporting this bill through to the select committee. We do have a couple of concerns, which I’ll talk about in a minute.

Firstly, I just want to thank the member Catherine Wedd and those that have come before her and all of the brave mothers out there that have been advocating for change in this space; not just for the change in their rights to stay in postnatal care if they want it but also the way in which that they’re actually treated during their whole birth process and their time within the following period.

As a few of the others have spoken a little bit about their personal experiences, I thought I’d cover off my own. I’ve had two beautiful children. My first child was born after almost 48 hours of labour, thrown into an emergency C-section at 3 a.m. in the morning. When he was born, I remember they held him up and I thought, “Oh my goodness, who are you? I don’t even recognise you.” It was actually quite a terrifying feeling because everybody tells you, “You’ll see your baby, you’ll meet your baby, and you’ll feel that love and warmth, and you’ll bond with them instantly”. That was not true for me. I was exhausted. I was probably sick. I was tired and needed a good sleep. Then, the next day, all of those things started happening. Complete opposite with my daughter: when she was born, it was a planned C-section, so everything went hunky-dory. When they handed her to me, I got those initial feelings—everything was fantastic.

I think what that highlights is that there are varying different levels of experiences. Everybody’s birth is different. As Catherine mentioned, you can plan for all kinds of wonderful, excellent things and they may not go down that track at all. I think there is a really true reality in that, and our system has to be able to adapt. I know that it’s challenging because it’s really hard for a health system to know what a woman’s needs will be at the actual time. I do want to say that I think that we do have a health system that is trying, but, of course, it’s not adequate and it’s not enough.

Those first few days with your baby, if you’re a new mum, you need to know what to do and you need to feel comfortable and you need to have that care. I was talking with my colleague Cam Luxton, who said that, after quite a traumatic birth, his wife left the hospital after two hours and they were on their way. That is actually what they wanted to do. There are a lot of people that are out there that do feel like they want to be getting back into their home and they might have those supports in place. But what if you don’t have those supports in place? Those are the people that I’m really thinking about, or I’m thinking about myself as a first-time mum with a baby that I hadn’t bonded with. What if I had been put out after a few hours of giving birth? I mean, that is quite a horrifying thought. And the thing is, it actually happens.

There are real stories of this happening; I’ve got friends, I’ve got whānau in my family that have all experienced something along these lines. I wonder whether it’s the fact that they didn’t know they were eligible for those 48 hours of care or whether it’s the overburdened health system just not having a bed or having a space at some of the post-natal care facilities. I think there’s probably a bit of a combination of both of that. As a woman, you don’t often know your rights. Like I said, after a long, extreme birth potentially, the last thing you’re going to be thinking about is having a battle with a bunch of midwives or nurses in a hospital around whether you can stay or leave. I think making sure, with the 72 hours, that that is actually straight up given as an opportunity to families to take that up—I think that will be a really important part of this legislation, just actually knowing your rights in the first place.

Like I mentioned before, we do have some concerns around the resourcing of this. How will we make sure we still have this care available? Maybe it actually could look like for the ones that want to go home, it could be something more like frequent visits in the home or something that’s actually—doesn’t have to be within a facility as such. There could be other ideas and things that we can consider with this, but, in essence, we support this. I wish the member well on her journey through the rest of the House. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It is truly a privilege to stand on behalf of New Zealand First in support of the Pae Ora (Healthy Futures) (3 Day Postnatal Stay) Amendment Bill. I’d like to begin my contribution today by acknowledging the member in charge of this bill, Catherine Wedd. Congratulations to you. I’m also acknowledging Louise Upston as well, and noting that you have begun your contribution today in the first reading talking about prioritising natal care and the funding for it. To the member in charge, it is good to hear that acknowledgment.

I’d also like to just point out that when there is a new baby, many of the women in this House who have given birth acknowledge there can be this afterglow that happens upon the arrival of the beautiful baby. Unfortunately, today that afterglow in this House was popped by the Hon Dr Ayesha Verrall bringing down the mood and the tone of the House with some negative comments. I’m going to lift that back up as we celebrate what is a small but significant amendment bill.

This bill will increase, as the member outlined—we’ve already noticed an increase in the midwifery workforce. That is a very important step because it is those midwives who are critical to ensuring that the information about the extended stay from 48 to 72 hours—they’re the ones that will be helping to ensure women are informed that that will be their right. As the lead maternity carers, those women will be required to inform mothers of their eligibility to allow for the longer stays, if medically required.

Now, it would be remiss of me not to share my own personal birth story. However, I would like to avoid giving you any gory gynaecological details. Mark Patterson is clearly quivering at the potential of that, even though he is a farmer.

SPEAKER: You’re very civil.

JENNY MARCROFT: One of the really amazing things that I experienced when I had my daughter was at the North Shore Hospital, as an older mum having that care, because I was totally unprepared. Did I have a maternity plan? No. Did I go to pre-natal classes, antenatal classes? No. I was far too busy working, holding down multiple jobs.

Actually, when I had a code red emergency caesarean, I was totally unprepared. However, it all worked well because of the care that I was given by those at the North Shore maternity wing. Maybe I’ve never even had the opportunity to publicly acknowledge them, but today I’m able to do that 23 years later. The way that I was treated on that day—incredible care. There were 13 other mothers giving birth on that day.

When my child was born, obviously, I had a caesarean. My daughter’s father texted everybody. We’d already agreed on the name. This is the only plan we had, what we were going to call our baby. We’d agreed on a name. Next minute, he texts everybody, “Lily has arrived.” However, that wasn’t the name that we’d agreed on, but Lily’s stuck. So Lily she is, and Trinity, which was the name we agreed on, became her middle name.

While it’s lovely to talk about our personal stories, and I look forward to hearing many more across the House as we continue through this reading, I would like to just note a couple of points about the bill, what it will amend. Clause 4 inserts a definition for in-patient post-natal care. New section 93A, inserted by clause 5, will establish the purpose of ensuring a minimum of 72 hours of in-patient post-natal care. New section 93B, inserted by clause 5, guarantees every mother and newborn a publicly funded 72-hour post-natal stay starting after delivery or on admission.

I would like to finish just on something a little poetical, because I think babies inspire that from us. It’s part of the creativity that comes with a new life being born into the world. From one of my favourite authors, Khalil Gibran, just a small quote here, and it’s been truncated: “Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of life’s longing for itself. You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.” Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I’m really delighted to stand in support of the first reading of the Pae Ora (Healthy Futures) (3 Day Postnatal Stay) Amendment Bill, which is in the name of my parliamentary colleague Catherine Wedd.

I wanted to just traverse the birth of this piece of policy, which we announced, as the National Party, on Mother’s Day in 2019. It was a group of people called Mothers Matter who visited Parliament in 2018, and this group was meeting with every parliamentary caucus to talk about the importance of the first 48 hours. The founder of Mothers Matter was, of course, the late Chloe Wright of the Wright Family Foundation. There were also Dame Lesley Max, Nathan Wallis, Dr Anil Sharma, and Tracy O’Sullivan.

I remember sitting in the National Party caucus room as this group came and spoke to us about how important the first 48 hours are for post-natal care. They spoke about their very deep concerns about the fact that too many mothers were missing out because of the pressures that were applied and they felt they needed to leave early, and the group spoke about the dire impacts that that was having on mothers and babies. I remember reflecting in that discussion, and I came away thinking that if there was one thing the New Zealand health system should provide, it is care in that first 48 hours. If we are serious about the lives of our children, we should be investing in those first precious hours and days, so it was somewhat disturbing when they came to see us in 2018 that they said they had seen a deterioration in the access that new mothers had in those first 48 hours of care.

I know that there have been conversations about resourcing, but the thing that is really not OK is that with regard to the funding that was available for women who were entitled to—and who are entitled to, to this very day—48 hours of post-natal care, decisions were being made so that that resource was taken away from them, and it’s still happening today. That was the birth of this member’s bill to increase it from 48 hours to 72 hours. I know that some will say that, “Well, it’s still not enough.” but it is a very important signal that the National Party sees as critical that investment in the first three days of a child’s life and the mother having given birth as being critical.

There are a couple of comments that I want to put on record, because there are a couple of things. When Mothers Matter came to us originally, too many women didn’t understand that they were entitled to 48 hours. So, deliberately in this bill, there is a clear direction that mothers must know what they are entitled to. The second thing is that the funding must be ring-fenced so that those in charge in health resources in a hospital, in a DHB, or in Health New Zealand can’t deprioritise mothers and babies, because that’s exactly what’s been happening. The ring-fencing of the funding for 72 hours then allows for mothers to know that they are ensured of having access to support. It is, of course, up to every mother and their family to make decisions and choices about what it is that works for them. If one mother chooses to go home after a day, that’s fantastic, but the funding would be ring-fenced so that another mother who may need more support can get it, and those are the fundamentals of this piece of legislation. It is about mothers.

I’m proud to lead a child and youth strategy where one of the three priorities is the first 2,000 days. This is a really important start, but it is definitely not the end of what we must do. In closing my address in support of this, I just want to put on the House’s notice my recognition of the late Chloe Wright and the important work that she led.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I too would like to congratulate the member for having her bill drawn from the ballot and for what seems to be a well-intentioned bill, which, unfortunately, in the absence of proper resourcing will be window dressing. The reason I say that is we cannot look at something like new section 93D, which does enshrine women’s entitlement to have the care resourced, when what we are seeing on the ground means that it is just very unlikely to happen in the current environment. I say that with the backdrop of what is happening in Whakatāne. My colleague the Hon Dr Ayesha Verrall referred to the story, today, about Whakatāne Hospital shortages meaning some mothers will have to give birth in Tauranga.

I would like to extrapolate on that because that is the situation that is being faced through midwifery shortages, which relate very directly to this bill. I have some more information because actually this crisis was known earlier in December, and it’s a two-fold crisis. The first is that the availability of an obstetric and gynaecologist (O and G) specialist was dwindling to literally nothing most days, but probably more problematic for me is that the Te Whatu Ora Health New Zealand team knew about this and have not advised mothers. What was happening with rosters was there was no obstetric specialist on call as early as the first week of December. All that could be offered was primary maternity birth by midwives for low-risk babies and mothers. The last O and G locum finished that week in the week of 7 December. For the week of Christmas, coming up, which is next week, there is an O and G specialist on call only for Christmas Day and Boxing Day but no other days that week. Women were not informed, and there have been no advertisements for those positions.

I note that Dr Reti has not responded to questions from the media about it. We’ve got Health New Zealand and the media saying that Whakatāne is committed to resuming secondary maternity services at the hospital as soon as possible, and then we’ve got Dr Reti not responding. The reason it’s related very directly to this bill is because it’s all very well for Government members to make promises like new section 93D saying that women are entitled to resourcing, when the fact is that they are not even resourcing things properly now. It’s important for the public to see the realities of the bill, a well-intentioned bill that intends to give women extended cover but that cannot happen, in fact, in the current climate, because of the front-line cuts that this Government is making. It is so poignant, so sadly poignant, that this bill has come to the House the same day that expectant mothers in Whakatāne are getting the news that they may have to go to Tauranga over Christmas—

Carl Bates: What did you do about it? Six years.

INGRID LEARY: —and into the New Year because there is no resourcing. One of the members opposite has said, “What are we going to do about it?”—

Carl Bates: No, I said, “What did you do about it?”

INGRID LEARY: Well, the Government promised, on the campaign trail, to allow qualified midwives to enter the country on a six-month temporary visa without a job offer to look for work and bring their immediate families with them. The policy included a relocation support scheme offering, to up to 1,000 qualified overseas nurses and midwives, relocation grants worth up to $10,000 each to support their move. That has not happened, and the Minister of Health, Dr Reti, is not answering those questions.

To respond to the member opposite who asked, “What has Labour done?”, Labour introduced pay equity for midwives. That was a major move to incentivise people to stay in the sector. We had programmes for retaining midwives, and we also, as my colleague pointed out, made a really significant change to the ACC rules, which meant that women who suffered birth injuries as a result of giving birth were entitled to ACC. That is world-leading legislation.

I do offer the member my congratulations, because I can see she’s well intentioned. She’s done a lot of work on this, and it’s unfortunate for her that the Government members of her team, who are making front-line cuts and who are not providing adequate resource to Health New Zealand, are stymieing the potential impacts of this bill, which won’t be realised until we see a health workforce that has more funding than just keeping the lights on.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I, firstly, want to commend Catherine Wedd for bringing this to the House, for the work that she has put in during this year of Parliament to ensure that we have this bill here today and that it is supported by the Government benches. I also want to thank Catherine for her personal story, because I think it’s stories that bring the value of these bills in this House alive. I’m disappointed, though, that the kōrero today, the conversation around this first reading, has dropped to the level of being about political points-winning. I do intend on coming back to that and making sure that mums, expectant mums, and parents thinking about having a child in the years to come know that they have this Government’s back.

This bill moves that 48-hour allowance, if you like, to 72 hours with a key part of this being informing mothers that they have this right. There’s been a lot of conversation during the course of this first reading about first-time mums and I suppose Catherine asked me to speak on the bill today to bring a dad’s perspective to the conversation. I recently had the opportunity to visit Plunket Whanganui as part of their immunisation roll-out that is coming in the new year, and I had this bill and this speaking slot, so to speak, on my mind.

Every birth for mothers and parents is different. In our household, when our first son was born in South Africa, Candice ended up in ICU, in high care, and then in bed rest for a number of weeks, indeed a couple of months. I took on dad duties from day one. When our second son was born here in New Zealand, it all went pretty quickly, and I remember Candice saying to me that the nurse had just said, “OK, this is your second; you know what to do, you’ll be right, and you can go home today.” But, really, it wasn’t Candice’s second. She hadn’t been in a position to have any of those first-time experiences that a first mum has in hospital, nor actually in the initial couple of weeks after the birth of our baby, and for a period of time there, she wasn’t even allowed to see Angus when she was in ICU. If it hadn’t been for my mum—I suggest to all members of the House, if you ever come across her, do not enter a debate with her—if she hadn’t got up and had a bit of a fight with the medical staff, I think the story around Angus’s birth would have been slightly different.

Anyhow, the point I’m looking to make here is that only Candice knew in that moment what she needed and what was right for her. I think that having a nurse point out to her very clearly that she could have stayed in the hospital for 48 hours if she chose, indeed 72 hours under this new bill, would have made her much more comfortable and not feel like an imposition on the hospital in that moment. I’m looking forward, under this bill, for that to be the case and for mums to know that they have the support of the healthcare system in that really important time should they need it.

There’s been some conversation this morning about the fact that this isn’t funded, that the Government is cutting healthcare. That’s just a complete misnomer. It’s really important for every New Zealander to know that in this year’s Budget, this Government put $16 billion into healthcare over the next three years. That’s not a myth, that’s not a dream, that’s not some hairy idea; that is fact, and it’s about time that the Labour Party, the Green Party, and Te Pāti Māori recognise that the Government has put money into healthcare and not send scaremongering down the spines of these expectant mums and parents that are looking forward to having their child in a hospital in this country. They should know, going into Christmas, that they have a Government that supports them. I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I certainly support the intent of this bill—I don’t think anyone denies that. My eldest daughter was born in Adelaide after a long and difficult labour. My daughter was what’s called a “posterior presentation”, which means a long and difficult labour. The nice thing about it, the baby comes out facing up instead of facing down. It means all the pressure is wrong, so it creates a long and difficult labour. It’s sometimes called a “back labour” because of the back pain. My brother, who’s an anaesthetist, put it right for me. He said, “Oh, we have a name for babies like that; they’re called ‘stargazers’.” My eldest was born as a little stargazer, but because of that long and difficult labour, I spent, I think, four days in hospital, and it was much needed.

My younger two daughters were born here in New Zealand, in Palmerston North Hospital—a twin delivery. They too were both little stargazers—bless them—so another long and difficult delivery. Again, because it was a twin delivery, I had four days in the hospital with them, which I needed. There’s an advantage to that, not just for women and babies who have had long and difficult labours, but, actually, for uncomplicated labours and deliveries as well. I don’t know if anyone spoke on it, but that window of time in the hospital allows time for milk to come in, for a woman to be able to start towards establishing breastfeeding, to enable her to get assistance with it from lactation consultants and the like. Those 72 hours can make a real difference, I think, not just in terms of recovery from birth but also in terms of establishing breastfeeding and establishing an ongoing bonding between mother and tiny new baby. It is really important.

On those grounds, we do support the intent of this bill—who could not? It would be churlish to do so. What is difficult is the promise without the funding and the promise being made when we know that there is a shortage of midwives. The promise being made when we know that the health budget is under pressure. Contra to the previous speaker, Carl Bates, I want to direct his attention to the Half Year Economic and Fiscal Update. It’s sitting on the Table in the House, so the member can consult it himself if he likes. I want to direct him to page 67, when it talks about specific risks, and it talks about the risks of the health system running a deficit—a significant deficit.

Now, it’s a bit odd to talk about a deficit in healthcare when what it is caused by is Government choosing not to fund it. What I am seeking from the Government benches is any indication that the Government will choose to fund this promise—this promise that we all agree with the intent of—but a promise without any substance behind it is just fine words: lovely words, words that we all support, words that do support women and their babies, that do support new families, but hollow words, unless there is a commitment to funding as well. The Government are the people who sit on the Treasury benches—the Government. They are the ones who can say whether or not something will be funded. It is time for the Government to put their money where their mouth is on this one. Will they actually fund this fine promise?

SPEAKER: Catherine Wedd—five minutes in reply.

Look, it’s wonderful to speak in reply to the debate that we’ve just had on the first reading of this bill and it’s wonderful to see cross-party support on this really important issue—obviously, everyone recognising that mothers matter and how important the issue is of post-natal care in New Zealand. I want to thank all parties for their support today and their commitment to post-natal care in New Zealand. It does need improvement and this is critical to giving mums and families the protection and support that they need. It’s not often that we all agree on an issue. I’m very humbled and proud to see everyone agreeing today that post-natal care needs the spotlight, it needs to be fleshed out through the select committee process, and we need to ensure that we are protecting our mums, babies, and families.

Thank you also to those around the House who have shared their personal stories today. We can all resonate with post-natal care. Whether we’ve had a baby or whether we know someone who’s had a baby, it really does impact us all. It’s also good to recognise that some mums will not always have a good birth and that it is different in many situations for all. Just listening, obviously, to Deborah, then with obviously having twins; to Carl Bates, who also spoke about our other children—the first birth, as Laura McClure also mentioned, can be very traumatic, but the next births that you have may go brilliantly.

I spoke, obviously, about my first very traumatic birth, but for numbers two, three, and four, they whizzed out very, very quickly and I almost actually had one of them in the car park of the hospital. That was certainly an interesting experience! Thankfully, I was able to make it into the hospital and have number three in the hospital just in the nick of time—a 10-pound baby, I might add. Actually, all four of them were very healthy, large babies. I thank you for sharing all your personal stories from around the House today, because that certainly makes it real for us all.

I also want to just acknowledge some of the points that were raised around funding and resourcing. Of course, funding is very important and, as the Hon Louise Upston spoke about—72 hours and this being ring-fenced and ensuring that we have that set aside for those first three days for mums after they have had their babies.

I also just want to acknowledge that it’s also about our midwifery workforce and this really does play a critical role. It was lovely to hear Jenny Marcroft acknowledge the North Shore Hospital and all the wonderful midwives that played a huge role in her journey in having her lovely Lily. I think, for all of us, our midwives out there just do an incredible, incredible job bringing joy into our world and helping us navigate that really challenging journey sometimes of having our children. It is a really, really special time and that bond that we form in those first few hours and those first few days with our babies is really, really critical. It’s really fundamental. But, of course, we understand that there are pressures out there at the moment in the health system and with our midwives.

This select committee process is also an opportunity where we can hear the stories; we can hear stories from mums, from fathers, from families, from midwives, from advocacy groups, and we certainly encourage these groups and people to come forward through this process, because it is an opportunity for us to put the spotlight on post-natal care in New Zealand. This is our chance to have better post-natal care in New Zealand. This bill is about protecting mums and families, because mothers matter. I commend this bill to the House.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a first time.

The question is, That the Pae Ora (Healthy Futures) (3 Day Postnatal Stay) Amendment Bill be considered by the Health Committee.

Motion agreed to.

Bill referred to the Health Committee.