Curran ClareHon CLARE CURRAN (Labour—Dunedin South): Tēnā koe Mr Speaker. Well I think it was nearly three years ago—in fact it might be slightly more than three years ago—that Kathryn van Beek wrote a letter actually to all of the MPs in Dunedin raising her own personal circumstances having suffered a miscarriage and the pain it had caused and having done a little bit of research on what a potential change in law might look like and begging to come and talk to somebody about it. I met with her at the beginning of 2017 in my office and we talked for a while and what we decided was that she would go away and build some support amongst other women—she had been I think on a Facebook page; there was a support page—for a law change and then we'd talk again. It took her nearly a year to come back to me for lots of reasons. Kathryn I hope that you are watching today because boy you did the work. She had built a lot of support and I want to read to you some of the comments that were made by other women when Kathryn reached out. I'll just read a few. I found out at 17 weeks my baby boys heartbeat had stopped and had a D&C the next day. My bosses didn't even question details giving me full bereavement and any time I needed off in the weeks following (which is awesome because they're all the biggest bunch of lads). This was a big help I was incapable of functioning for a while. Totally support this."—that woman was lucky because she had support. "I lost my very first baby [in 2017] to miscarriage. After having a miscarriage confirmed I took a week off work to help with the grieving process. My partner also took a week off. What really pissed me off is that he got given bereavement leave by his work yet I wasn't even though I was the one who was carrying the baby. After my week off I attempted to go back to work but was not ready to so asked for another day off. I was told by my bosses to 'get over it' and 'move on' because it wasn't a real loss and that I had been taken off the rosters for two weeks and that they were now looking for a replacement for me as I had become unreliable. I handed in my resignation the next day. Miscarriage definitely needs to be recognised as bereavement leave." Kathryn the work that you did has made such a huge change. By the time she came back to me the Government had changed and I was a Minister and I really wanted this to become law. Ginny really was keen and Ginny you have done such incredible work on this issue that has got international recognition. It is something that really means an awful lot. If we did a survey of women in this House I wonder how many would put up their hands and say they'd had a miscarriage because we are reflective of society. I haven't had a miscarriage but I did go through several years of pain and trauma in trying to conceive and going through IVF. Every woman who has been through these sorts of experiences knows how important it is to receive support and how alone you can feel without it. What this bill does is makes society recognise the importance of this issue and gives and sanctions the importance of women and families going through the pain and trauma of miscarriage. This is a bill that corrects an ambiguity it removes an ambiguity and it's simple but powerful. It's amazing today that everyone I hope across this House is going to support it. I just want to say something else about Kathryn van Beek. She has many strings to her bow. At the time she came in to see me at the end of 2017 she handed me a book that she'd written and illustrated. It's called Bruce Finds a Home and it's about a kitten. She's a children's writer. She's writing another book at the moment on pets. It explores the relationships that we have with animals in a short story and that is called Emotional Support Animal. Thank you Kathryn for the amazing work that you've done to get us this far on this issue."