Dowie Sarah: Parental Leave and Employment Protection (Six Months’ Paid Leave) Amendment Bill — Recommittal Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeDowie Sarah: Parental Leave and Employment Protection (Six Months’ Paid Leave) Amendment Bill — Recommittal Third Reading[Sitting date: 25 February 2015. Volume:703;Page:1936. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]SARAH DOWIE (National—Invercargill): Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker for allowing me to take this short call on the Parental Leave and Employment Protection (Six Months’ Paid Leave) Amendment Bill. I would like to start out by acknowledging the sponsor of this bill Sue Moroney. Like the speakers before her I do acknowledge the intention she has in bringing this bill to the floor of the House and the spirit of the bill but unfortunately this Government cannot support it on the grounds of fiscal responsibility. I also want to respond to the claims made by the member opposite Ms Ardern who pointed to a number of dissenting opinions in 2002.I stand here and say as part of this Government that we do support the spirit of the bill—we do support paid parental leave—but we disagree as to the fiscal constraints and how we are going to implement it. As such talking about the spirit of the bill we are saying that this is not a case of one size fits all and as a Government we have to balance competing priorities and look across the board as to the well-being of children and their mums. In that vein I want to reiterate as the Hon Michael Woodhouse did that this Government is extending paid parental leave from 14 to 16 weeks on 1 April this year and then again to 18 weeks on 1 April 2016. That meets the fiscal responsibilities of being in Government and it will be a very good help to those families having children.But again in response to the spirit of the bill we are looking at measures across the board and I want to take time to talk about one of them that I as a mother found extremely helpful. I am talking about the $20 million extra invested into maternity services and Well Child services for new mothers and babies. For me the Well Child services were a godsend. I as a new mum relied heavily on the support of my family but also the experts such as the community nurses who worked for Plunket. They provided me with advice as to how to deal with children and how to bond properly without getting too concerned about the colic I faced or the other issues I had to work through. Just in terms of that example although paid parental leave is being extended by this Government and is of help the advice that those nurses gave me rounded out that support and was incredibly well received by me. It helped me enjoy the time I had with my newborn baby.I also want to talk about this Government extending free general practitioner visits and prescriptions to children under the age of 13. Again from a cost perspective for a family to be able to take your child to the doctor and not worry about the cost is extremely important. You do not need to worry about the cost. You certainly do not worry about the burden that you could be putting on your finances. Again that support from GPs to enable your child to be seen to get the treatment that they may need and to help them to flourish into the future is another example of an all-rounded package that this Government is bringing into force. Again I stand here as part of this Government and I say we support the intent and spirit of the bill. Again I do acknowledge the member who sponsored this bill for her passion but there are fiscal constraints when you are in Government and as such we cannot support this bill.