Newman Muriel: Parental Leave and Employment Protection Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Newman Muriel: Parental Leave and Employment Protection Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:621;Page:16476] 
Dr MURIEL NEWMAN (Deputy Leader—ACT) 
: 
 I rise to take the first call for the ACT party on the Parental Leave and Employment Protection Amendment Bill. As we have already heard in this debate this bill is all about what sort of assistance we want to give to people in the workplace who are having a child: whether we want to give them welfare assistance or whether we should as the ACT party has always advocated give them a taxation break. In other words if we lowered taxes we probably would not need to be here today to debate this bill. 
I would like to call on the Minister in the chair Ruth Dyson to take a call in particular regarding clause 3 “Purpose of this Part”. I refer in particular to paragraph (a) which states that a teacher who is employed in more than one school or has more than one role—inother words a teacher who has more than one job—can be regarded as essentially being full-time and therefore as being entitled to the paid parental leave provisions in this bill. However as I understand it someone who is in part-time jobs that are not teaching jobs with different employers and whose hours add up to 40 hours a week—the full week is just made up of different component parts—is not entitled to paid parental leave. We have already heard members of the Committee express their concern over a bill like this that discriminates against the self-employed but it now appears to me that we have a bill that largely discriminates against part-time workers except when they are teachers. That just does not make sense. 
When we look at women in the workforce in New Zealand we see that they have a wide variety of roles. It does not make sense for the Government to favour one group of women in one type of occupation. That occupation happens to be teaching which as I understand it is represented by the biggest union in the country. I may have that wrong—if it is not the biggest union in the country then it is certainly one of the most powerful unions in the country. It does seem to me that we have a situation here whereby the Labour Party is favouring its union friends and to my mind that is unacceptable not only to our party and to the other Opposition parties but also to the large majority of New Zealanders who believe that if the Government is to pass laws at least they should be fair. 
I would like the Minister in the chair Ruth Dyson to explain to us and remind the Committee why it is that a teacher who has part-time employment in a variety of different schools with more than one school board as his or her employer can add it all up make it come to 40 hours a week and be entitled to parental leave while other workers are not entitled to do that. What is the difference between a teacher in that situation and somebody else who has a different selection of employers making up his or her 40 hours of work a week? Why should that person be discriminated against by the Labour Government when it is treating a teacher in that position in a favourable manner? Could the Minister explain to us whether in fact the Government had meetings with the Post Primary Teachers Association and the New Zealand Educational Institute the teachers’ unions over this bill and whether the Government then decided to give favouritism to those two unions for their members. Why was it that the Government did not give that sort of an understanding to other people around New Zealand who are part-time workers? I think that is a very serious issue.