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:16484] 
Dr MURIEL NEWMAN (Deputy Leader—ACT) 
: 
 The ACT party will be opposing the Parental Leave and Employment Protection Amendment Bill. Part of the reason for that is that this is another example of the Labour Government increasing welfare dependency in New Zealand. ACT is opposed to that when there are better ways of doing things. I ask the member what she has against giving taxes back to families so that couples are in a better position to make their own choices about whether both parents have to go out to work or whether they can afford for the mum to stay at home to look after her children. I would like the member to be aware of the fact that 46 percent of the average household income now ends up being paid out in taxes. If we add income tax GST and all the petrol taxes and sneaky taxes that Labour has put on we find 46 percent of the income of the average household in New Zealand now goes in tax. That is why so many families are struggling. 
What we should be doing in this Parliament is passing laws that give families more choice by letting them keep more of what they earn. That should be the right of working families in New Zealand. But of course this Labour Government does not intend to allow that. It has the belief that it cannot trust the people of New Zealand—that as a Government it has to tax them heavily take the money in and then give it back in election bribes in order to try to win another term of office. If the people who are listening to this debate do not understand that point all they have to do is to look at Part 2 which provides that the increased entitlement to parental leave comes into force on 1 December 2005. They will realise that this part which increases the entitlement from 13 weeks to 14 weeks will come into force after the election next year. So there it is in black and white: another election bribe from the Labour Government. I think that is appalling. What we should do is to give the surplus back. This is a greedy Government that is taking too much money from people—$6 billion to $7 billion too much. If that money was returned to families we could bring taxes down to a rate of about 20c in the dollar. 
I want to make a point about the fact that the entitlement is now being extended from people who have been in work for 12 months down to people who have been in work for 6 months. I say that that is the beginning of a series of discriminatory decisions that employers will make against women of childbearing age. They will not mean to make those decisions but they will do it anyway. If an employer is faced with a guy and with a woman who could be pregnant why would the employer take on a woman who could be pregnant and who under this Government’s laws could be off work for 13 to 14 weeks after she has had her baby and may then take the statutory period of time which would allow her to be off work for 1 year? The disruption to small businesses when one of the key employees is taking leave for an extended period—and it is not known whether it is for 3 months or whether it is for a year—is huge. The only reason this sort of law is being brought into Parliament is that the Labour Government does not understand business. This is another piece of anti-business legislation that makes it hard for small business in New Zealand to make a living. But it is also an anti-women piece of legislation because it will end up causing people to discriminate against women. The member over there can shake his head but let him wait watch and see. In fact if he were running a small business the same thing would cross his mind as to whether to hire a woman of childbearing age or somebody else who is not of that age. 
This is a bill of the worst sort.