Martin Tracey: Parental Leave and Employment Protection (Six Months’ Paid Leave and Work Contact Hours) Amendment Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeMartin Tracey: Parental Leave and Employment Protection (Six Months’ Paid Leave and Work Contact Hours) Amendment Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 16 September 2015. Volume:708;Page:6743. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]TRACEY MARTIN (NZ First): Simon O’Connor’s final contribution just threw me there for a minute actually because I think part of the problem with the conversation that we are having around this bill is that there are too many men like Mr O’Connor inside of it. The last statement that Mr O’Connor made with regard to this bill which is about actually supporting babies and babies and babies was that if you cannot afford to have babies then do not have them and do not ask the State for help. That was the last contribution Mr O’Connor made to this debate. It just blew me away that he on a taxpayers salary had the audacity to stand up in this House paid for by taxpayers and say that “If you can’t afford to have babies don’t come and ask me to help you out with it.”David Seymour: You can’t oppose any taxpayer spending in this House.TRACEY MARTIN: To get back to what I was going to start with—and the gentleman who is calling from one side is the gentleman who denied babies this amount of money the last time we were sitting at a debate on this bill. He sits there with the audacity to take credit for the work that Sue Moroney did when he sold off his vote to the National Government for a bill that it has now introduced which was actually in Ms Moroney’s amended bill when this Government voted it down. Mr Seymour will stand at some stage and he will laud it about the place about how he will not support this bill because he has arranged to actually get some kudos from this Government for a bill that Ms Moroney actually put in this place which the Government tricked her out of. That is what happened the last time this bill was in the House.I wanted to actually start with where I was going to start with which was commending Sue Moroney for her tenacity because at the end of the day we will get there—“we” being the women and the men in this House who actually value babies and the relationship between them and their parents. I worry about the constant perhaps over-accentuation of mothers with regard to this bill. I have some massive concerns about the fact that fathers seem to be left out of the dialogue and I would really love for this bill to go to the select committee and to have an opportunity to talk about how we can better support fathers to be able to participate in the early years and the early months of their babies’ lives—their children’s lives. I truly truly believe that when we get equality in the home we will finally get equality in the workplace. When men feel that they are 100 percent equal to women in the raising of their children and that they are not stigmatised in any way shape or form by taking parental leave to stay at home then actually women will be advanced inside the workplace. So I would very much—David Seymour: Oh maybe if people weren’t so sexist in Parliament!TRACEY MARTIN: Mr Seymour if you ever have children then maybe we would have a dialogue but not right now.I want to give credit to Ms Moroney. I want to give thanks to the goddess because not only did Ms Moroney get two member’s bills drawn in a very close space of time but she got the same member’s bill drawn in a very close space of time. Therefore it should be recognised that perhaps it is in the gods that this bill should go through. New Zealand First will support this bill’s referral to the select committee.Before I close and before I sit I want to remind the House of the contribution by someone who is a Minister of the National Government at the moment—her final contribution at one of the first readings of this bill which Ms Moroney brought through last time. It was the contribution by Maggie Barry. She said: “I am very very glad indeed … that we are not supporting this rubbish.” That was the contribution by Maggie Barry. This is the continued contribution. It has got harder for the National Government to stand against it because we can hear it from Ms Dowie. Ms Dowie must have swallowed the largest rat she has had to swallow so far in her political career by being forced by the National Government to stand up and take the 10-minute call at the beginning of this bill. Ms Dowie almost sold the whole thing and yet the National Government made her stand up and take the 10-minute call in opposition. So well done Ms Dowie—you did the job that National asked you to do. None of us believe that you want to vote against this bill and none of us believe that this was something that you chose to do but you took a rat for the National Party. Kia ora.