Ngaro Alfred: Parental Leave and Employment Protection (Six Months’ Paid Leave) Amendment Bill — Recommittal Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeNgaro Alfred: Parental Leave and Employment Protection (Six Months’ Paid Leave) Amendment Bill — Recommittal Third Reading[Sitting date: 25 February 2015. Volume:703;Page:1940. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]ALFRED NGARO (National): It is an honour to be able to stand this afternoon and speak on the Parental Leave and Employment Protection (Six Months’ Paid Leave) Amendment Bill. I like others also want to commend Ms Moroney. She is not here right now but I just commend her intent.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Order! The member cannot refer to the absence of a member.ALFRED NGARO: Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker. I was trying to speak in acknowledgment of the member who is not here but I do want to acknowledge—Iain Lees-Galloway: For goodness’ sake Alfred learn the rules.ALFRED NGARO: —OK—the sponsor of the bill. It is a bit of a mean spirit there. I am actually acknowledging the sponsor of the bill and her intent. That is what I want to do because the intent is right.It is of interest I know to all MPs to be able to have their own member’s bill pulled out of the ballot and to have it presented to the House. It is important to us. The reason why it is important—and I know that later on tonight in the House Tracey Martin’s bill will be debated—is that the ability to have your own bill drawn out of the ballot means that you can become the champion of a cause that is important to you. That is what members’ bills allow you to do especially for those in your community who advocate for the importance of a bill. So I take nothing away from the sponsor of this bill and the importance that the issue of this bill tries to address around paid parental leave and employment protection.With that I acknowledge the intent like the intent of all members who are honourable members in this House. However where we begin to differ is in the how. How do we ensure that we meet that demand and that need in the community? I want to just make some comments because there have been previous speakers in the House who talked about the previous Labour Government and what it did when it introduced paid parental leave. They talked about the extension of that paid parental leave. I want to just go over those points. For instance in 2002 paid parental leave went from 10 weeks to 12 weeks—that was in 2002. In 2004 it went from 12 weeks to 14 weeks which is what it is currently until its extension later this year from 14 weeks to 16 weeks. And in 2016 it will go from 16 weeks to 18 weeks.The reason I make mention of that is that those increments of change are the same increments of change that this Government is also making. They are the same increments of change by 2 weeks so it is no different from what the Labour Government did in its time to increase paid parental leave by 2 weeks in that period of 2 years from 10 weeks to 12 weeks and then from 12 weeks to 14 weeks. For us it goes from 14 weeks to 16 weeks and then 16 weeks to 18 weeks. So I make the point that we are making the same responsible judgments which we think are absolutely important as well.The other thing I want to make mention of is that there was talk about this Government being mean-spirited in this. It is my understanding that the Hon Ruth Dyson who was a Minister at that time was also presented with a brief about extending paid parental leave even further and at that time it was declined. So again under a Labour Government there was no intent to try to increase it even further even though petitions were made on the same issues relating to parental care and responsibility. Again under a Labour Government it was not increased.The other point made by Ms Ardern the previous speaker was in regard to a Labour Government looking towards introducing bills that it felt were important to New Zealanders. Can I mention that this was talked about by a member who was previously here in Parliament the Hon Tariana Turia when she talked about the issue of Whānau Ora. I want to make mention of this in the House because it is not often talked about but when she talked about Whānau Ora at a number of conferences she made mention of the fact that it was under a Labour Government—under the leadership of Helen Clark—that she introduced the idea. She talked about Whānau Ora being important for Māori and their families. She talked about having a better way to meet their needs and to have self-determination so that they could be self-determining for themselves for the hapū the iwi and for the nation of Māori all together. It was a Labour Government under Helen Clark that declined—she declined—to even introduce this into the conversation. Yet it was under a National Government that Whānau Ora was not only introduced with a commitment of over $137 million over 4 years but we now have three commissioning agents—two for Māori; one for Pasifika.That is the care and concern—that is the difference between a National Government and a Labour Government that seeks to create continuing dependency rather than saying to those communities in particular that it can find a way to help support them. I make mention of that to say again what this National Government is doing to make a difference to families in our community.Iain Lees-Galloway: Tell us a bit more about the bill.ALFRED NGARO: Let us talk a little about this bill for Mr Lees-Galloway because he probably has not read the bill. Changes to the parental leave framework—here is the difference that we are making. We are going out and having a consultation process to talk about how we can change the bill in an appropriate way that is fiscally responsible—as was talked about before on the other side of the House—and that ensures that the changes that we make meet the different complexities that different families have in this day. Over 900 submissions have already been put forward and from that the changes will allow for greater access and increased flexibility.Here are some of the key proposals that we are introducing which are really important and which we believe supersede the intent of this bill and instead show what we are doing to support and care for families and children in New Zealand. The key proposals are as follows. We are extending parental leave payments to people in less regular work such as seasonal and casual workers those with more than one employer and people who have recently changed jobs. We are extending parental leave payments to primary carers providing permanent foster care akin to adoption such as Home for Life parents. People who have permanent guardianship biological fathers and grandparents caring for grandchildren will be eligible provided they meet the work test criteria. Employees will be able to work limited hours or days and keep up skills development during their paid parental leave. We are allowing workers who have been with their employer for more than 6 months but less than 1 year to be entitled to some form of work and unpaid leave. These are some of the things that we are doing and that we believe are making a difference to families. We believe that that is the way that we are showing we care.The reason why we oppose this bill is that we are increasing paid parental leave from 14 weeks to 16 weeks and then to 18 weeks but we are doing more than that. We are introducing a number of things. I want to mention this one again because it relates to Mr Faafoi. I remember him saying in his speech that down in Porirua in the Mana electorate he went to a pharmacy and what he saw as a clear image was the number of prescriptions that were lined up. He said this: “How can we allow these prescriptions which need to meet the medical and health needs of our children and our community to be sitting on a bench on a shelf? What are we going to do about it?”. Mr Faafoi help is on its way. This is what we are doing about it. We are extending free GP visits and prescriptions to children aged under 13 from July this year.So Mr Faafoi you can go along and know that when you look into that pharmacy those prescriptions will be free. They will be free for them and they can access them in the pharmacy. In fact I look forward to it. Maybe you will take me out there and we will look at that pharmacy. We will meet the pharmacist and talk to the people in Mana as well.The other thing that we are doing is making homes warm and dry. In the communities where I have begun to talk to constituents we have talked about the importance of having warm and dry homes. Over 300000 homes have been insulated. We think that those things are important. Why? Because they contribute to the care and concern for families which relates to the fact that their needs are being met by this Government.Just lastly I want to talk about offering free breakfasts in schools. That is absolutely important so that parents know—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Order! The member is wide of the mark. I know that it is a small bill and there has been some licence but you are getting well outside the scope of the bill so I ask the member to come back. The bill is about paid parental leave. That is what we are talking about.ALFRED NGARO: Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker. Yes it is about paid parental leave. It is also about how we care. We have had robust debate from Opposition members and I know you have given them licence to talk about all the things that we are not doing.So in my final comments I want to say this. Again as I said—and now that Ms Moroney is here—I applaud the intent of the bill but I cannot agree with the approach. The Government is making a difference. It is extending paid parental leave. We believe that that measure will meet the needs of our families and our communities. On behalf of the Government I say that we do not support this bill and we oppose it in its third reading.