Ardern Jacinda: Parental Leave and Employment Protection (Six Months’ Paid Leave) Amendment Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeArdern Jacinda: Parental Leave and Employment Protection (Six Months’ Paid Leave) Amendment Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 05 November 2014. Volume:701;Page:683. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]JACINDA ARDERN (Labour):It is my pleasure to take another call in this debate on the Parental Leave and Employment Protection) Six Months’ Paid Leave) Amendment Bill. Although I was very interested to hear the discussion from Metiria Turei on clause 5 I want to speak to one of the Green Party’s Supplementary Order Papers Supplementary Order Paper 18 which would add an additional clause after clause 5 around the parental tax credit or—The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): Before you go on—because otherwise I will have to terminate your speech—I understand that the Greens have withdrawn their Supplementary Order Papers and therefore you cannot talk to those Supplementary Order Papers.JACINDA ARDERN: I am happy then to simply talk to section 71J in clause 5 of this bill but with some regret that we are not able to lament of course the opportunity that the bill did raise and papering over the fact that despite the Government’s rhetoric around issues of child poverty and child deprivation there has been some reluctance to put any meat on the bones as it were in terms of policy.This bill provided the Government an opportunity to give additional support to families with newborns. In particular it would have made a very big difference by extending paid parental leave to 26 weeks as clause 5 does to those families who are living in the most deprivation in this country. The reason I wanted to highlight that is because the Prime Minister himself in his state of the nation address said that child poverty was an issue that he specifically wanted to focus on that this was going to be a key focus of this Government. This bill and the extension of paid parental leave generally is one manner in which we can do that. Sure it is a universal way but there has been a bit of a trend for us in the past to move away from universalism in support of children. That is a trend we need to start reversing. In fact we saw that trend even further entrenched with the last Budget initiatives around the parental tax credit.This is relevant because we are talking about universal extension around the duration of paid parental leave versus other mechanisms that have previously been proposed. Those other mechanisms like for instance the parental tax credit as we have seen are flawed. When you start narrowing and moving away from generalised provisions of support rather than just saying: “Look anyone who is eligible for paid parental leave should receive it regardless of income test.”—the amount yes sure is income tested. A universal provision means that we do not get the fraught issues we got at the last Budget when we started looking at filling in gaps with things like parental tax credits. The Government when it had that opportunity with the parental tax credit continued to allow an exclusion zone for those families who are in the most poverty in New Zealand. If the Government was as serious about child poverty as it claimed it was that would have been a prime opportunity to remove an exclusion zone and allow families who are for instance on benefits to receive that support. Of course unlike this clause which talks about an extension beyond 18 weeks that was not for a full 26 weeks. That again was a very narrow range of support. But it does prove the general principle that if we want to improve child well-being generally we should be moving to more universal provisions as this bill tried to do for families in work rather than moving away from that and to the kind of targeted support that this Government has favoured instead.I have heard the idea reiterated in this House again—by Anne Tolley in particular; it almost sounded like actually she wanted to support the general notion of paid parental leave—that somehow we do not have the money to prioritise this now. It is something that we pushed back strongly on this side of the House. We have provided ample evidence of other priorities that we could have moved away from in order to allow this to happen. She also tried to claim that the decision of Sue Moroney the member in the chair to try to at least eke out something from this Government for premature babies for multiple births for children with disabilities was somehow a concession that this Government has done enough for families with newborns. That is an absolute stretch. It is not only a stretch it is actually making a mockery of what everyone who has pushed so hard for this bill said. The points that they have made the principle that they have stood on—none of that shifts. The fact that the member in the chair has been willing to make the amendments that we have seen today is an example I think of just really principled pragmatism. It is saying that we have gone as far as we can but if this Government is absolutely determined to veto what we have put forward in this bill generally—if it is that determined to do that—then we will make a compromise.