Ardern Jacinda: Parental Leave and Employment Protection (Six Months’ Paid Leave) Amendment Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeArdern Jacinda: Parental Leave and Employment Protection (Six Months’ Paid Leave) Amendment Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 03 December 2014. Volume:702;Page:1090. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]JACINDA ARDERN (Labour):It is my pleasure to make another contribution to the debate on the Parental Leave and Employment Protection (Six Months’ Paid Leave) Amendment Bill. As you have pointed out we are debating only new clause 6 which is very specific in that it is a clause that amends I guess the length of leave and also narrows the criteria for those who are eligible for parental leave. All of the reasons that that has been done have been well traversed in this Committee. It is obviously with some reluctance from the original drafter of the bill that we are now looking at the consideration of that extended eligibility being only for those families that have one of three criteria: multiple births—multiple births during one gestation; that is clear in Supplementary Order Paper 15—premature births or giving birth to a child who has a disability.I want to ask a couple of questions based on those criteria though of the member in the chair Sue Moroney. My colleague Chris Hipkins raised a few questions around this. I want to support those and add in a different one. New clause 6 states that this applies “to 1 or more children before 37 weeks of gestation where the child or children survive birth for the duration of the parental leave payment; or to a child whose impairment would entitle the person to a government-funded disability support service.” Would that be within Ministry of Education guidelines or for instance Work and Income guidelines? Obviously there are disability allowances that are within Work and Income that I think probably have broader criteria than you are likely to get within the very narrow scope the Ministry of Education applies to extra entitlements for children. So what are the criteria for that Government-funded disability support? I would hope they would be reasonably broad.The other additional interesting issue I guess is that there are some impairments or disabilities that are not yet recognised by the Government or do not receive Government-funded support directly but have a significant effect on a parent or caregiver. One of two particular types of support that are now becoming a bit more frequent is for children who are born with foetal alcohol syndrome for instance. The Ministry of Social Development is increasingly I think putting in additional support around caregivers who may be caring for children who are found to have foetal alcohol syndrome but it is not well developed. It seems to be ad hoc. I do not believe there is a firm Government policy yet; there should be. The Health Committee which did some excellent work under Paul Hutchison on the first 100 days of a child’s life did look at the need for us to do more work around foetal alcohol syndrome and to formulate a plan. I think the country that has probably done the most and that has gone the furthest is Canada. It has a way of recognising and diagnosing that is not yet well established in New Zealand. It is a bit ad hoc but I would like to think that it would be eligible under this clause so I ask for some clarification from the member in the chair as to whether or not she would anticipate that as well.Equally children who are perhaps born to parents who are on a methadone programme—it may not be that those parents have ongoing care of that child as these children are frequently removed. I note that the clause would of course allow caregivers to be eligible for this as well which I think is really important. Often these children are actually premature so they would probably be covered that way. But those who would not be covered often remain hospitalised because of essentially the addiction they are born with and therefore withdraw from. That has additional costs as well. It would probably not be considered a Government-funded disability but it certainly has significant consequences. So did the member consider for instance whether the length of stay in hospital would become a criterion? Premature birth obviously indicates that yes that would be the case but I know of families where children are born with heart conditions for instance that may not be considered a long-term disability but it is a health impairment that at times requires lengthy hospitalisation and I do think it is worthy of consideration.