Roche Denise: Parental Leave and Employment Protection (Six Months’ Paid Leave) Amendment Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeRoche Denise: Parental Leave and Employment Protection (Six Months’ Paid Leave) Amendment Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 28 May 2014. Volume:699;Page:18453. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]DENISE ROCHE (Green): I rise to take this short call for the Greens on the Parental Leave and Employment Protection (Six Months’ Paid Leave) Amendment Bill. I agree with the previous speaker Trevor Mallard that it is indeed a sad irony that one of the members of this House will not be granted leave for the birth of a child which he wants to be at and to have his vote counted. We will be supporting—Hon Hekia Parata: He’s got leave.DENISE ROCHE: His vote is not counted. We will be supporting this bill because our policy is for 13 months’ paid parental leave and we agree that this bill—26 weeks’ paid parental leave—is a step in the right direction.Parental leave was first introduced in legislation—and that was unpaid parental leave in 1987—and it has been baby steps since then. That was a deliberate pun. We have taken baby steps. In 2002 we first introduced paid parental leave. It was for 12 weeks. In 2006 we extended it to 14 weeks and it has languished there ever since until of course the last couple of weeks when the National Government signalled that from next year paid parental leave will be extended to 16 weeks and to 18 weeks the year after.If we carry on at this rate it will be 2020 before we get to 26 weeks. Frankly I do not believe that the women of New Zealand can afford to wait that long before the National Government—or any Government for that matter—catches up with the rest of the world. We are behind the rest of the world. The average amount of paid parental leave internationally is 30 weeks. We are ranked about 24th out of 25 OECD countries for what we offer families who experience the birth of a new child. In Norway which is probably the best place to be I would say it is 56 weeks. It is more than a year.The benefits of paid parental leave have been well canvassed and were well canvassed through the Government Administration Committee where I note there were 3800 submissions with most of them supporting an extension to paid parental leave. It is good for families. The research is unequivocal. Twenty-six weeks—6 months—helps to establish strong parent-child attachments and that has longer-term benefits for families because the bonds are extended and established which means there is less likelihood of abuse and neglect and that fathers are involved in those families. That is what we need—strong healthy families. That is what we have not been getting from this Government.Paid parental leave is good for babies. We have seen that with the World Health Organization research which says that children—babies—should be breastfed if they possibly can be for at least the first 6 months of their life because it establishes and enhances the emotional and physical benefits and attachments that a child has with its parent. It is good for them in the longer term—for their cognition I understand—and it usually results in fewer behavioural problems for the child.I also think that paid parental leave is good just in terms of gender equity. We seem to forget that the work of women should be counted so their jobs should be protected when they take leave to bear their children. We do not take that into account. It has been going on like this for years. It was a National Party member of Parliament Marilyn Waring who established that beyond doubt in her bookCounting for Nothing.We cannot afford not to invest in our families. It is good for the economy to invest in paid parental leave because we need to keep those jobs open and to be able to compete internationally on workplace provision so that we attract the best and brightest to our country and to our workforce. It makes sense economically because it is good for businesses. They spend less on retraining and recruiting new workers. I implore the other side of the House to see reason and support SueMoroney’s bill.