Foster-Bell Paul: Parental Leave and Employment Protection (6 Months’ Paid Leave) Amendment Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeFoster-Bell Paul: Parental Leave and Employment Protection (6 Months’ Paid Leave) Amendment Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 08 June 2016. Volume:714;Page:11826. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]PAUL FOSTER-BELL (National): E Te Kaiwhakahaere tēnā koe. Thank you for this opportunity to contribute to Part 2 of this Committee of the whole House debate. I want to pose a couple of questions to the member on Part 2 of this bill. I do not have high hopes that they will be answered or even addressed given what happened with my questions on Part 1 but I am going to ask them anyway. I have a couple of comments to make first though on the contribution of the member in charge of this bill Sue Moroney.Firstly I think that the comparison that has been drawn between the extra funding that has been sought via this measure and the $20 billion investment into our Defence Force which is being considered in the white paper process is completely fallacious and specious and I think quite misleading to the public. I think Governments over a number of generations now have accepted that the defence of the realm is the first and absolutely primary responsibility of any Government. No child in this country—Richard Prosser: We haven’t seen any proof of that out of you lot.PAUL FOSTER-BELL: No child in this country Mr Prosser is able to live a happy and healthy and productive life in this country if they do not live in a safe country that is well guarded and well defended and that is why that investment in our Defence Force is required.Secondly the term over which the member is talking is quite different. She is comparing apples and pears. That is an investment to be considered over a 15-year period whereas the costings that the Government side has been quite correctly using—and let us point out that these are Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment costings and I think it is disrespectful to the officials who did their very best work and submitted those figures—in some cases they were estimates Ms Moroney and in some cases they were forecasts. They are predictions; they are guesses because this is something that might happen in the future. Those very best guesses that the ministry was able to give us were in the range of just under half a billion dollars but over a 4-year period once this policy takes full force. So she is comparing something over a 4-year period with something over a 15-year period. I think that that is a very false comparison to make and it is quite misleading to any of the poor unfortunate viewers who may be following this debate this evening.Thirdly I want to turn to the fact that there was a split view—in fact a mixed series of opinions—given to us as we heard submissions on the Government Administration Committee. I want to reference in particular the submission made to the committee by the Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) because I think that evidences very much the fact that there is not universal agreement on this among the NGOs and those who care very deeply about the well-being of children in New Zealand. In referencing the submission presented by Associate Professor Susan St John the respected professor at Auckland University I would like to quote directly from the submission if I may.The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Chester Borrows): You are talking about 26 weeks now.PAUL FOSTER-BELL: So in terms of the 26 weeks what the Child Poverty Action Group had to say was “Extending the duration of [paid parental leave] will have no impact on child poverty which is the most critical issue at this time and a stated priority of the Government.”—Carmel Sepuloni: Nothing the National Government has done has had an impact—PAUL FOSTER-BELL: —contrary it seems to what the Opposition whip is screaming out at the moment. “In fact”—it went on to say—“spending more on PPL may preclude other more vital spending for the 250000 children in New Zealand enduring poverty such as extending the full Working for Families package to all the low income families with children as CPAG has recommended.”.So in its submission No.1 the Child Poverty Action Group submitted that the extension of paid parental leave to 26 weeks as is proposed in Part 2 of this bill be delayed until there is adequate recognition of the needs of all newborns. This I think backs up some of the points that members on this side of the Chamber have been making thus far in the debate. There are always competing priorities for precious taxpayer dollars. This is one very important area—looking out for our youngest and most vulnerable citizens—but it is not only this measure that is competing for those precious taxpayer dollars and to divert resources from our hospital system from our education system and even from the defence of this country in order to extend this measure to something that we are not able to afford is in my view the wrong path of action to take. It is not just members on this side of the Chamber who are saying it. There are other people saying it including some whom we would often disagree with such as the Child Poverty Action Group which I think gave quite a persuasive submission to the select committee.So I would like to hear from the member in the chair the sponsor of this bill what her view was on its submission and why she thinks it is important that we ignore that and actually proceed with 26 weeks which she argues is not an arbitrary figure but is a World Health Organization - mandated figure.