Collins Judith: Parental Leave and Employment Protection Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Collins Judith: Parental Leave and Employment Protection Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:621;Page:16485] 
JUDITH COLLINS (National—Clevedon) 
: 
 I would like to deal with the Supplementary Order Paper that the Minister has put forward as well as with Part 2. I will start off with a somewhat controversial statement: this country needs more babies. I for one am very keen for other people to have more babies because frankly I am getting a bit old for it. 
Hon Marian Hobbs 
: I’m not offering. 
JUDITH COLLINS 
: The Minister is not offering either. It is really really tough having babies when one is in business. I have been there. This is something that we on this side of the House can share with fellow members on the other side who have no experience of it. It is really really tough having babies bringing them up going to work and doing all those things. It is so much tougher when people are self-employed and do not get any parental leave or help yet they see other people who will be getting it—people who happen to be their employees. 
I looked at the Minister’s Supplementary Order Paper to see whether she was taking the opportunity to do the big thing. I thought she might have listened—possibly not to Federated Farmers of New Zealand Inc. because unfortunately I do not think she holds them in quite the same regard as I do and as the National Party does. I thought she might take notice of the submission of the New Zealand Federation of Business and Professional Women Inc. that this bill still does not address the needs of self-employed women in giving them access to any form of paid parental leave. There are lots of things I think about when it comes to business. One of them is that the people who pay the taxes are often the best people to make the decisions about how that money is spent. 
If we are to have a provision to entitle more and more people to have the extra 14 weeks’ leave—if we are to have a provision of that sort—then let us extend it. Let us be a generous House. The Government has had the opportunity to come and talk with us about it. It has had the opportunity to talk to New Zealand First has it not? And what has it done? Did the Government talk to the Greens about it? I do not think it did actually. I heard the member from United Future talk about how it is all a big elephant and that we eat it one bite at a time. 
Dr Wayne Mapp 
: Of an elephant. 
JUDITH COLLINS 
: One bite at a time of an elephant. I would absolutely agree with that if this bill did not impose a huge cost—an extra 14 weeks’ leave—on the self-employed mums and dads who are struggling to get through. We have to have more babies in this country. It is so much better when mums and dads are committed to their children—taking responsibility for them looking after them themselves paying for them making sure they get to school making sure they do their homework—I hope my boy has done his homework tonight—getting them to the doctor when necessary and doing all those sorts of things. That is why we have to encourage people to have children. But we should not be excluding the very people who are the backbone of the economy—the farmers and the self-employed business people—in favour of teachers so that it is the teachers who get the 14 weeks’ leave rather than the poor old taxpaying farmer who happens to get the pleasure of paying for it. 
My mother had her babies—including me—when she was a farmer and at no stage did she get 14 weeks’ paid leave to do so. She had to milk the cows and feed the calves. She did all that work and what good strong babies she got for it. But I can tell members that she would have loved to receive a little bit of help during that time. When we had big families as we did in the country in those days—and it was not a religious thing; we did not have television the opiate of the people—it was very very difficult. It is even more difficult now to encourage people to have babies particularly those whom we want to be working enjoying their lives and contributing. However we certainly are not going to help those very fine New Zealanders in this way.