Scott Lynda: Parental Leave and Employment Protection Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Scott Lynda: Parental Leave and Employment Protection Amendment Bill — In Committee 
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Dr LYNDA SCOTT (National—Kaikoura) 
: 
 The title is about parental leave and employment protection. When people are self-employed surely their employment is just as important as that of employees. People say that the jobs of the self-employed are not actually at risk. But if we are talking about protecting the ability of those people to stay in business and to be able to continue to have a job—to be employed to have employment and to be able to continue to work—then we realise the costs that are associated with self-employed people having a child and having to take leave means that they are as vulnerable as workers who take time off for that. I just cannot understand why this Government has chosen to extend the parental leave from 12 to 14 weeks. That has a certain fiscal cost. Why has that happened? If the Government has enough money the provisions should be extended to the self-employed; if it has not why did it make the choice to go from 12 weeks to 14 weeks for parental leave instead of including the self-employed? I remember being in the House and having these debates again and again. The Government knows that it has had many submissions to the Social Services Committee not just on this amendment bill but also on the original paid parental leave bill that talked about this issue for the self-employed. 
One has to say that this is simply and utterly a decision that shows that the Government does not value self-employed people. It does not value our farmers and it does not value the self-employed yet this country runs on small businesses. They are often family businesses with mum dad and the kids working together. Certainly many businesses have husband and wife teams that work together. If one of those people is out of the workforce because of in this case having a child why should he or she be discriminated against? I would very much like just one member from the Government side of the Chamber or the Minister in the chair Marian Hobbs to get up and answer the question that so many New Zealanders have wanted to know the answer to: why has the Government discriminated so markedly against the self-employed and against our rural women? Why has it done that? The Government obviously has the money to extend parental leave to them. It has been running huge surpluses but it has not chosen to address that issue. 
The other question I have is this: has the previous paid parental leave worked and will extending that leave work? What is meant by work? What is the Government trying to achieve by funding women to be able to stay at home? It is trying to fund better outcomes. Have we seen those? Do we have any evidence— 
Steve Chadwick 
: A 3 percent increase in breastfeeding at 6 months. 
Dr LYNDA SCOTT 
: The member knows that that 3 percent is within the margin of error and has no significance whatsoever. It is a statistical anomaly. One cannot use that sort of statistical analysis; the figure is within the margin of error. We know that Child Youth and Family Services has a report that shows that the care of our most disadvantaged children has worsened. 
What would be far better than this legislation would be to stop encouraging the idea that the State owes people everything. People expect to be dependent on the State. We should teach our children and our young mums about independence. We should teach them that the State does not owe them a living and that the only way they will get ahead in this world is by taking responsibility for themselves and their work. People should not think that their employers owe them X Y or Z but that they actually owe their country and their employers X Y and Z. If we tell people that they are lucky to have jobs and to be able stay in them that would be a far better idea. It would be far better to encourage that sort of philosophy than the sort that New Zealand has at the moment—because that is one of the problems that New Zealand has. When we travel to other parts of the world we recognise that.