Henderson EmilyDr EMILY HENDERSON (Labour—Whangārei): What an absolute privilege to have been in this House tonight to listen to this debate. This is a bill that I am proud to rise in support of but it's a bill that is obviously opening up some deep and some serious issues in our thinking about our pēpi and our thinking about parenting and our thinking about what it is to value our whānau and to value the most vulnerable members of our society.It has been such a privilege to listen to my colleagues in the Greens and in Te Paati Māori and to my colleagues in Labour who have talked about their experience as professionals dealing with beneficiaries dealing with the shame that people feel when they have to come and ask for State help and to listen to the experiences of solo mums and dads—particularly the mums—talking about what it was like to put themselves and their children through those difficult early years. It has been a privilege to hear my colleague Ricardo Menéndez March across the aisle talk about his experiences in listening to the various submitters and to hear from the member Debbie Ngarewa-Packer her speech. Colleagues I am grateful to be here. I was lucky as a mother. I never had to make the choice between a benefit or a job—I was lucky. But one of the divisions that has opened up tonight in this House is around the valuing of parenting and the valuing of the hard work that is parenting. I remember the first day I chose—because I had that choice—to go back to work. I had three little kids and I was doing two mornings a week. My youngest was 11 months old. I left him and I went in and after about the first morning tea a young woman who'd just started in our office came up to me. She said You must be finding it so hard." and I thought "What a nice young woman. She's valuing the fact that I've left my babies for the first time." I said "Oh well we've found a really nice babysitter. It's all right." and she said to me "No no I mean concentrating having had all those years off with children doing nothing." I nearly fell over. I have done jobs that society considers prestigious and difficult. I have never done anything as difficult as looking after small children. I have never done anything as difficult sleepless night after sleepless night as maintaining my temper in the face of tantrums and remaining the adult with three under 3½ and a very frenetic six-year-old. We need to value parenting and the difficult work that it is and what I worry about in the debate is that we have seen a lack of value placed on parenting and lip service paid to the importance of the first thousand days but not a real appreciation of the value of the unpaid work that we do as parents and I do not think that it is a coincidence that most of that unpaid work is done by wāhine. I am sorry to say it but it is the fact. So I see a division opening up and I worry about it. I see also a certain amount—and I am sorry to see it—of blaming of beneficiaries for being where they are and we need to think about that. There has been a constant rhetoric from across the House about the need to get people off benefits and how that is best for children. Well that's lovely but what about when it's not possible? How exactly do we do this with this policy that's been in place since 2012? This policy has had nine years to show us that it works and the empirical evidence is that it does not. More parents have not ended up in paid employment as the result of this punitive piece of legislation. More whānau have not ended up better off as a result of this punitive piece of legislation. When you talk about wanting to make results I suggest we have a look at the last nine years and we see that there haven't been any so let's start with the facts. Now let's go to the next set of facts which include the importance of those first fabled 1000 days. Let's talk about the importance of what actually happens in those thousand days. When a baby is born—ignoring those previous nine months—its brain is essentially smooth it is undeveloped and it is small. It is in those first two years of life that children's brains become incredibly more complicated. If that child is not provided with stimulation and with security above all that child is not going to develop to its full potential. Now I am not saying—and here we come across another part of this debate which has been really interesting. There is a cringe factor. There is a fear factor in talking about the way in which we parent and the encouragement of mothers who want to work to work. I support my sisters—literally my sisters—who want to work when their children are small. But when you do it however you do it what we need is stability. If you have a child who you want to stay home with—if you have a child who for example does not really cope in a childcare situation—then you need to think about the possibility of staying home if possible because the fact is attachment theory proves that in those first three years in fact children need some regular steady attachment to one or two people in their lives for optimal development. Now that could be just about anyone but if you want to make the choice that you're the mum or you're the dad and you stay home then I say that is actually going to add to our society. Attachment theory is said by psychologists to be at the basis of all good development. It is not merely a child's emotional ability to attach to one person and to maintain a relationship; it goes throughout their entire lives. It forms the basis of their educational achievement and of their intellectual ability as well. If you want on pure economics to come up with a policy that will add to our society's wellbeing privilege those days. Privilege the ability of parents to stay home with children if that is what they choose to do. There's an old saying "A stitch in time saves nine". There is evidence upon evidence upon evidence that if you put money into a child's early development you will reap the rewards. We can pay $100000 a year to keep someone in prison or we can give that parent the ability to look after the child early on. This debate is one which is opening some serious issues in the way in which we think about parenting and the way in which we think I poverty and the way in which we want to blame the poor for their situation. I ask that we step back from that and that we actually consider the best interests of society in the round. We take away the blame that we want to attach to poverty because if we can blame someone then maybe it won't happen to us because clearly it was their fault in some way and we can avoid their mistakes. Let's step back from it and let's think about the long-term good of society. The long-term good of society is we have children who are rounded who are whole and who understand what it is to love and be loved. If the best way for your particular pēpi is for you to stay home then by all means let us finally make the investment in our beneficiary parents—the investment in our children and in our future—because that is how we will build back better and that is what the Labour Government is trying to do. We are putting into place a range of measures which will in the round contribute to the looking after of our children the power of our whānau to raise good children for a good society rather than to build more prisons—it's up to us. What are we going to do: the $100000 a year to keep them in prison or the money to keep the ability of whānau to look after their babies at home? For those reasons I commend this bill to the House."