Lees-Galloway Iain: Employment Standards Legislation Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeLees-Galloway Iain: Employment Standards Legislation Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 08 March 2016. Volume:711;Page:9460. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Labour—Palmerston North): It is a pleasure to speak in favour of Part 1 of the Employment Standards Legislation Bill and also to note my support for the amendment in the name of Sue Moroney which I am sure she is looking forward to addressing with a call shortly.I see these changes to our paid parental leave scheme as being the natural evolution of something that was initially 15 years ago—back in 2001 when it was first being debated by this House—a big bold and some would say scary new programme that did not have the universal support that it enjoys in the House now. When one is introducing big bold audacious new programmes such as this in the way that the Labour Government was back in 2001 one has to start somewhere and one has to start with a programme that is going to garner the maximum possible support. I note that back in 2001 it was not just Labour and the Alliance that voted in favour of paid parental leave; it was also the Green Party and the New Zealand First Party. It is pleasing to see that those parties have been consistent in their support for paid parental leave over the years.Naturally these programmes do evolve. Labour extended the availability of parental leave to 14 weeks. We extended it to self-employed people. We felt over the last few years that it really is time to extend the provision of paid parental leave out to 26 weeks. That is what the science tells us we should be aiming for at this stage and it allows for greater opportunities for the child and their parent who is usually mum but often dad or—as we are extending it in this legislation—other primary caregivers as well. That is important and the science tells us we should be doing this so it is pleasing that the Government has seen fit to do this. The other broad comment I would make is that the reason we are doing this now—and other members have noted this—is the very effective campaigning that has been carried out by the 26 for Babies campaign that has been carried out by the Labour Party and that has been carried out by Sue Moroney in making sure that paid parental leave remains on the agenda and that the need to extend both its eligibility and the period of time for which people can get paid parental leave remains on the agenda.This bill does a number of things. One thing that has not been addressed too much in the debate so far is that it extends the entitlement to paid parental leave to workers who are in more precarious employment arrangements such as casual agreements and seasonal agreements. That is important and we on this side of the Chamberabsolutely support that—we agree. That was a natural evolution that was probably always going to happen and it is about time that it did happen.It is particularly important that it happens in the context of what is happening in our labour market right now. Over 25 percent of the new jobs created since 2009 are in fact temporary work. They are casual they are part-time or they are zero-hour contracts—and we will get to that later on this evening—but they are not permanent part-time jobs. So as more and more of our workforce finds itself in that type of precarious work we have to ensure that these types of entitlements are extended to that workforce or otherwise what actually happens is we get a shrinking number of people who are entitled to paid parental leave and to other minimum entitlements in our employment law if we provide those entitlements only to people who are in that traditional form—that very good form—of work which is the permanent part-time role as opposed to the more temporary and more precarious types of work. I think it is important that we make this change now as we are seeing more and more people moving into those types of roles.Part 1 of the bill does also allow for more flexibility in the way that paid parental leave is taken—in particular the concept of keeping-in-touch days. I really like this idea. I like the idea that people who are on paid parental leave and who wish to be able to come back into work every now and again to keep in touch to attend training days or just to keep their working brains fresh and maybe even dare I say it have a break from the work that is going on at home because goodness knows I think everybody in the House would agree that actually the work that goes on at home is often harder than the work that goes on in the workplace. I think this is a very good idea. Sue Moroney has an excellent amendment that just tweaks those keeping-in-touch days to make sure that the legislation does not create a loophole and does not create an opportunity to exploit or to put pressure on workers. I think it is a good amendment. That is an excellent idea and is a good way to improve the flexibility of this scheme.We have heard a lot this evening about the extension of paid parental leave to the parents of pre-term babies. Again it is a very very good idea but let it not be forgotten where that idea came from. It came from the fact that Sue Moroney was prepared to do absolutely anything to get this House to support legislation that would improve outcomes for parents and babies. Even when this House was prepared to support 26 weeks for babies but the Government was going to use its veto power on that Sue Moroney said: “Look if we cannot get 26 weeks and if the Government is not prepared to agree to that let’s at least apply that to the parents of pre-term babies.” The Government was not prepared to do it when it was sponsored by a Labour member but it is prepared to do it as a Government bill—so be it. We will support it. We on this side are not quite as churlish as those members on the other sideare. It is a good idea and this Committee should vote for it and it does not matter whose idea it is.This is a good extension of paid parental leave as I said. I personally see it as being nothing more than a natural evolution of this scheme. We have had paid parental leave—it is 15 years since we first started debating the concept of having paid parental leave in New Zealand. It has gone from something that divided this House. It has gone from being something that the National Party and the ACT Party voted against to being something that we are all in agreement about. Sometimes you have got to have Labour and the parties of the left actually being prepared to be progressive prepared to be the ground-breakers on this and prepared to take the slings and arrows that will be hurled in our direction. We know that the conservative parties always catch up on this and now it is great that this House is working in a united fashion to extend these provisions of paid parental leave. There is more work to do. We will get to 26 weeks eventually—not tonight but we will get there eventually—and this is a good step along that path.