Dowie Sarah; Rurawhe AdrianSARAH DOWIE (National—Invercargill): Thank you very much Mr Assistant Speaker. It is true: I am very pleased to be rising in support of this bill the Parental Leave and Employment Protection Amendment Bill. Let me just preface that. I do have some concerns about the process that is being used and I do have some concerns about some technicalities that the bill does not address but as this House will be aware in the past Parliament—the 51st Parliament—I was a prolific speaker on paid parental leave having sat on the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee having worked on the Government bill that progressively and in a fiscally prudent way having extended periodically paid parental leave and looked to nuance it to support preterm babies and their parents. But also I was a member of the Government Administration Committee where Sue Moroney referred her paid parental leave bill so I have heard it from both sides.I have always spoken in favour of the concept of paid parental leave. Being a mother myself of two children now—Christabel who is seven and Hunter who is five—I understand what paid parental leave means. I understand the benefits of it. So I am very pleased to be supporting this bill and I was extremely pleased in the campaign as well. This bill mirrors what we campaigned on as the National Party to extend paid parental leave along with a suite of measures to give babies and families a great leg-up when they start on the journey to having children and raising children so that those children and those families can achieve all of their hopes and dreams in this fantastic country which is New Zealand.Let me digress Mr Assistant Speaker for one moment to congratulate you and the Speaker's team. I have worked with you Mr Assistant Speaker on the Government Administration Committee and also heard that you were there for Sue Moroney's bill. We did work very collegially listening to those fine submitters that came along to select committee and educated us on paid parental leave and discussed some of the issues that were facing New Zealanders as they were working through having their babies and dealing with the workplace. So we've worked together. I'm very pleased at your appointment along with the rest of the Speaker's team which I think will be a phenomenal team. I think that all of the Speakers bring something different to the House and as a member of the Opposition I will be looking forward to learning more about procedure and using it to our advantage to hold the new Government to account.In that vein let me also say congratulations to our new members over this side of the House. We also have some fathers here—some young fathers—that have just had babies themselves. I think in some regards it's no different for women and fathers—the challenges they face having young children—so I congratulate them for coming to Parliament and bringing the experiences that they do. Also to the members opposite especially the new members congratulations on your elections. And to the women that have young children over the other side of the House thank you for your courage to bring your babies here to the House. I could not imagine doing it the same. I had terrible pregnancies and I had very challenging young children in the first years of their lives but I think what the members opposite who have young babies have done is put this issue at the forefront of the Parliament and I am very pleased that Speaker Mallard has taken up that challenge. So I think that Parliament will be a better place and a more family-friendly place moving forward.Look as I've said before paid parental leave is something that I support but on this side of the House we do believe in fiscal prudency. That's why when we extended paid parental leave we did it in a very measured way and when we costed out our policy we costed it out at $60 million for a couple of weeks' extension. So to extend it even further would bring it up to around about $120 million. I think what the Government will start to learn is that when you're looking at one issue in isolation which may be a very good issue to look at in isolation there are a suite of measures that can also help to give baby the best start in life and give families that leg-up. And certainly that's what they'll learn in Government—that it is about balancing competing priorities. You can't put all your eggs in one basket.Moving back to the benefits of paid parental leave obviously extra time allows more bonding with baby. It allows for women to become more proficient with breastfeeding and believe you me breastfeeding is not the most easy thing to do especially if you do have premature babies. Again I've got two myself. In saying that even though the World Health Organization promotes breastfeeding the bonding time taken when you are bottle-feeding your baby should not be sniffed at either. It is still a vital time when you are holding your baby you're feeding your baby you're looking into your baby's eyes and really bonding to make sure that that connection's there so that the baby has the best start in life.Also of course paid parental leave is about job protection—that is important for us to progress women's issues moving forward—and of course that very important financial assistance when you have a child because let's face it those little critters cost a lot of money and it doesn't get any easier as they get older I can assure you. Some of the things that I am concerned about with this bill—and especially that it's not going to a select committee process—is that the KIT hours the keeping-in-touch hours remain untouched. Now one of the things that wasn't properly discussed with respect to Sue Moroney's bill when we were in the Government Administration Committee was the keeping-in-touch hours. Keeping-in-touch hours are an important part of the paid parental leave system.Hon Member: We passed it.SARAH DOWIE: We passed it absolutely and we looked at it quite significantly in the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee but when you start extending out paid parental leave what does that actually do to the keeping-in-touch hours? Keeping-in-touch hours are a really important tool in the tool kit to make sure that women do stay connected to the workplace. And no from what I can tell in this bill it remains untouched.I would like to see that go back to select committee so that we can investigate what the balance is between extending paid parental leave and perhaps extending some of those keeping-in-touch hours. It's OK for some women—they want to keep in touch with their careers and their jobs and progress themselves that way but they also want to have the best of both worlds don't they? They want to stay connected with their family and their children but they also want to stay connected with the workplace and that's the important essence of keeping-in-touch hours. But if we lose that kilter if we get out of balance and if we start extending paid parental leave and start skewing it to one level we could find—and the Hon Judith Collins raised this—there is some research out there that suggests that the longer that women stay out of work the less likely they are to go back to work. Again the select committee process is about looking at that research seeing if it's robust looking at its legitimacy and testing that theory. What does that do to the balance of paid parental leave versus keeping-in-touch hours?Like I say keeping-in-touch hours are a very important tool in the tool kit to make sure that paid parental leave is nuanced that it's fit for purpose and that it's flexible enough to apply to every single woman that has a child—for their circumstances—and also apply to those males that want to take time off with their babies to connect and be a good father.The other thing that I think needs to be explored is the isolation factor. We don't want women just to stay at home on paid parental leave and do nothing. Paid parental leave is an important part of making sure that women have the financial strength but also the time to connect with their community and get support from their peers who have also had babies going through the same milestones and to stay connected with their community and basically combat any post-natal depression. So again I'm pointing to nuanced issues of paid parental leave that should have been discussed at the select committee stage. I support the spirit of the bill but there is still more work to be done.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): This is a split call. I call Raymond Huo—five minutes.