Ardern Shane: Parental Leave and Employment Protection Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Ardern Shane: Parental Leave and Employment Protection Amendment Bill — In Committee 
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SHANE ARDERN (National—Taranaki-King Country) 
: 
 I take a call to speak against the Parental Leave and Employment Protection Amendment Bill There are a number of reasons why I will do that and I will explain them to Government members in just a moment. The first and most important is that this legislation discriminates against self-employed people. Have Government members ever visited a dairy farm in their life? Do they know how dairy farmers work? Do they realise that a dairy farm or rather the collective of 14000 dairy farmers in New Zealand earns 20 percent of this country’s export earnings? Do they know who is responsible for achieving that outcome? Do they know that? Do they know how much is earned from the meat and wool industries in this country and how those farmers are involved in their business? Do they understand that? Do they understand the significance of small business in this country? The answer to all those questions is no they have no idea at all. Nobody can get John Tamihere on the phone to ask him. Nobody can get him; the phone is off the hook. There has been no answer to that call tonight to tell us what the Minister for Small Business has to say on this issue—none whatsoever. 
I say to the Committee tonight that the title of this bill is very very misleading. As members have said before it should be clearly stated that this legislation discriminates against people who are self-employed. The unfortunate part about that is that those people make up something like 85 percent of the export earnings of this country. That is the unfortunate bit. We are discriminating against a substantial part of the workforce but more importantly we are discriminating against those who add the real horsepower to the economy. This Government will use the tax it collects from them to pay for the parental leave and employment protection legislation. I ask the Government members—the Minister and anybody else who would like to—to take a call to explain to us how that fits in with the Prime Minister’s Speech from the Throne at the beginning of this Parliament when she said that this Government would be pro-growth. Will Government members explain to me where the evidence is that this legislation will be pro-growth? Will they give us just one little bit of evidence—anything something to clutch to or the slightest bit of evidence—that somehow or other this measure will create growth in the economy? 
I say to Government members that the problem with socialist Governments and socialists anywhere in the world is that they do not understand that they are hurting the people that they purport to represent. I put it to members that small business out there—a farm—that is looking to employ a person for the job will look at young women today and will ask whether it will be lumbered with a person who may potentially be away having children. OK she would be paid by the taxpayer while she is absent but she would still be on that business’s employment list. Will small business look at that when it has to choose between a young male or a young female and make that choice? Will it or will it not? What do Government members think will happen? What does the trade union movement think? What do their mates in the union movement tell them? Will this measure discriminate against women? The answer is overwhelmingly yes it will. 
I say to Government members that they cannot regulate everything. The dairy industry the industry I spoke of previously has a very proud record in terms of treating its employees well. In fact one of the very first jobs I did on becoming an MP was to open a creche solely paid for by Kiwi Co-operative Dairies Ltd—by the dairy farmers. The Hon Trevor Mallard who was then the Opposition spokesman on education was there as well. Paid parental leave was actually provided—that choice was made. What the socialists on the Government side of the Chamber do not understand is that people can go out and say to a young family whose house and mortgage are on the line that they will not get parental leave and that although it will not be given to them it would be given to whatever person the family may employ. How is that fair? How is that pro-growth? How will that protect the most vulnerable people? There is no evidence that that is the case. What is the cost of this measure to small business? Has any work been done on that? Do Government members know the cost? What about the fact that this measure discriminates against one of the very strong platforms that this Government has built itself up on?