Ardern JacindaJACINDA ARDERN (Labour): I would like to say that it was my pleasure to speak on this third reading. Usually you have some sense of satisfaction that you might be at the point where your bill is about to pass but sadly this is a highly unusual situation that the Parliament finds itself in today. In fact I was reflecting on this as I went to speak to a school group today—these were intermediate-aged children—where one of the questions from a student was: What has been your most memorable moment in Parliament?". I have to say that two things sprung to mind: one was a protest here in Parliament and another was standing next to my colleague Louisa Wall when marriage equality passed in this House. Moments like that stay in your mind as a member of Parliament. I have to say that when you are an Opposition member of Parliament those memories are even more acute. We should have been having one of those memories here today because we have as a Parliament as a collective voted in favour of a bill that will now not pass through this House. That will seem extraordinary to people who are listening here this evening—that we could have a convention where a majority have shared their will and still not had a bill pass through their House. Now I might wish that that would happen for instance for a Brexit vote or something like that in the UK but that is not the way that democracy works—unless you are the National Party and you have got the power of veto. That is what we are seeing enacted in this House tonight and that is a tragedy. Before I go any further I do want to—as other speakers have done and rightly so—acknowledge the work of Sue Moroney. Earlier today I was appalled to hear David Seymour question the motives of Sue Moroney in bringing this bill to Parliament. I have known Sue for years. Anyone who knows Sue well knows that her motivation not only through her entire time in this Parliament but also for this bill has been about the best interest of families and babies. She has been absolutely unwavering in that goal and so to hear that questioned in that way I found really appalling. If nothing else this third reading at least gives us the ability to show our support and thanks to Sue and to right the record in a couple of areas because right up until last week we have seen complete misinformation shared in this debate—not that it mattered because actually the majority of Parliament supported it anyway—but misinformation none the less. I want to cover off a few of those points. The first point was actually from David Seymour. It was a new argument that I had not heard consistently through this debate but an argument none the less and it was why focus on the first 6 months what about 20 years of development? It was an extraordinary point to raise. I think we have probably been quite consistent in this House in talking about the importance of the first 6 months of a child's life. In fact as a party we often talk about the first 3 years but obviously when it comes to the research and evidence around breastfeeding and how important those first early months are we honed in on the first 6 months as the step that we wanted to see pass in this Parliament. So of course we want people to have time to parent and that does go beyond 6 months. In fact Mr Seymour if he chooses to look at our children's policy will see that actually we have been targeting those first 3 years through things like Best Start. As for the first 20 years I would have to point out that actually for the male brain Mr Seymour it is 24 but I doubt many parents would want to advocate a policy that enables them to be at home parenting a child right up until that point. There are different ages and stages and you only need to look at the likes of the Brainwave Trust to know about that. The second question that has been raised in this House is: why not a year? Well actually we have asked that question ourselves. We know that in an ideal world a year would be fantastic but we drew a line in the sand. We drew a line in the sand and said: "Look we have got progression over time that we want to aim to. This is our trajectory; this is where we want to be but in the here and now this is where we believe it is possible to go now.". We made that call. We demonstrated to this House and to the country that we were able to weigh up what was in the best interests of families what was fiscally possible and what we hope to do in the future. On the one hand those Government members are saying "Why not a year?" and on the other hand they are saying that 26 weeks is not affordable. Well we have so many examples of alternative spending that the Government has decided is affordable I almost do not know where to start. But what I think probably puts it into perspective is that when you compare the costings for the bill that we are debating here tonight with the next spend budgeted for 2016-17 it basically represents 0.7 percent of the additional net spending for that Budget—that is 0.7 percent. I would challenge members on that side of the House to show us their hierarchy of the most important things that we are able to spend on as a collective. Show me your hierarchy. Where is Defence Force spending in that hierarchy? Where are all the other things that the Government has decided are absolutely priorities and how do they beat the needs of babies and their families? We have seen other spending decisions that I have to say really lead me to question the priorities of the Government. A couple of weeks ago the Minister announced that she was cutting a programme called Parents as First Teachers. It has been running since 1992—that will tell you that it is curious that it has been cancelled by this Government. Plunket is one of the agencies that offer it so do the kindergarten associations. It is also offered by educators health providers and social services. After a baby is born a programme provider goes into the home and the programme helps low-income families sole parent families young families and families without support—the very people whom you think we would want to be focusing on as a Parliament. That is where it goes.Tim Macindoe: The money will now go to Family Start.JACINDA ARDERN: Correction—correction. That member just yelled out that it is going to Family Start. No it is not. There has been $7.2 million cut and roughly $3 million is going to Family Start. Where is the rest going? I can tell you it is going into a bureaucracy. As much as I support establishing a Ministry for Children I do not support doing it at the expense of on-the-ground support for family and whānau and that is exactly what this Government is doing. So show me your hierarchy of needs and I and the Labour Party will show those Government members and this House that paid parental leave can be done. We have also heard it said in this House that the support for this bill was not real. I was astounded when I heard one of the members of this House Alfred Ngaro stand up and say that because there were form submissions the number of people who supported this bill was somehow not represented by those submissions. Well I can tell you that a form submission still takes an individual to sit at their device to read the petition to enter in their name and their details and to proactively support something: an idea a movement. Now what is wrong with emphasising your view using that tool? What is wrong? And how does that lessen it? On this side of the House we never questioned that every single one of those 6817 submissions in support of this bill was real. In fact they represented only the tip of the iceberg when it came to the strength of feeling behind this bill. I have spoken before in this House about a friend of mine who was desperately hoping that this Government would change its mind. She is having a baby soon. She wanted to see the Government show support for the experience that she is about to have with her partner. She never filled in a form submission but she was watching and she got a clear message when this Government decided to veto a bill that Parliament ultimately wanted to support. I do not believe that all members of the National Party actually oppose this bill. I would like to advocate that we give them the ability to vote on whether or not this veto should go ahead and whether this bill should in fact be enacted along with the will of Parliament. I think they should have their say. I have heard speeches in this House that have led me to believe that actually some of them would like the chance to vote—particularly those who are parents themselves. I genuinely believe that not all of them are on board with what is happening so let us give them that democratic right and allow them to exercise it. Ultimately I would love to see history made here tonight. I would love this to be my next memorable parliamentary moment and I know there are a lot of families who would want that too. You may roll your eyes at me Mr Bennett but for a lot of people this is important and it is a mark of what matters to this Government and so why do you not put it to the vote? Let us make this a memorable day."