Fenton Darien: Parental Leave and Employment Protection (Six Months’ Paid Leave) Amendment Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeFenton Darien: Parental Leave and Employment Protection (Six Months’ Paid Leave) Amendment Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 28 May 2014. Volume:699;Page:18450. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]DARIEN FENTON (Labour): I am absolutely delighted to take a call in the second reading of this bill the Parental Leave and Employment Protection (Six Months’ Paid Leave) Amendment Bill and I am delighted that I am also going to have the opportunity to speak on this bill in the Committee stage as one of the last things I do before I leave this Parliament. As I start my speech may I first of all acknowledge my colleague Sue Moroney for the fantastic work that she has done. Can I also acknowledge the chair of the Government Administration Committee another wonderful Labour woman Ruth Dyson. I also want to acknowledge all the women up and down New Zealand the child advocacy groups community organisations business organisations unions and working families who have got behind this idea of the 26 for Babies campaign.But I want to go back a little bit further than that if I can because paid parental leave is not a new notion. It has been around for decades. It goes right back to that wonderful woman that wonderful Labour MP Sonja Davies when she got involved in the working women’s charter in 1974 I think it was. Women began saying that if women were going to be treated fairly in the workplace and carry out their responsibilities and were going to be part of the economy but at the same time had to raise the babies of the future they needed paid parental leave. There has been a very long history of paid parental leave advocacy from women in this country and I acknowledge my sisters in the Green Party and my sisters in the Labour Party because many of us have been together over many many years—many many years—advocating strongly for paid parental leave.I am proud to say—very proud to say—that it was a Labour-led Government in 2002 that finally implemented 12 weeks’ paid parental leave. That was fantastic. And then we extended it to 14 weeks’ paid parental leave and then after that we extended it to the self-employed. In fact now we are in a situation in this country where almost everybody supports paid parental leave.The National Party has never supported paid parental leave. It has come to this debate and to the Budget in a very grudging way. It has been forced by the women and the mothers and the fathers of this country to accept that having paid parental leave having time off when your baby is born having time to bond with your baby and having time to breastfeed is something that is not only about women; it is about children but it is also about the workforce. It is about the contribution that women make in the workforce. It is about the contribution that fathers make in the workforce. It is about accepting that raising our children is as important a part of our future as anything else we do in this country.As I said National has been incredibly grudging about this. It has voted against every paid parental leave provision over many years. It even voted against as I recall extending it to the self-employed when Labour introduced that. It seems to me as I prepare to leave this Parliament that good ideas are not welcomed by National. If it is a Labour proposition it says there is something wrong with it and it must be opposed. Let us look back at some of the abhorrent comments that were made by National Party members—going way back now to 2002—and from some of the Ministers of the National Government who we are supposed to believe have now had a change of heart. The Hon Anne Tolley in 2002 said: “This legislation … shows how the Labour-Alliance Government is stuck in the radical feminist era of the 1960s and 1970s … and is completely out of touch with women of the 21st century.” Can you believe it? I wouldlike to know from the Hon Anne Tolley whether she still thinks that. Does she still think that?Hon Anne Tolley: I still think Labour is stuck in the 1960s and 1970s and the man ban proves it—absolutely.DARIEN FENTON: You still think that. So you do not support your Government’s pitiful move to increase it from 16 to 18 weeks. Then there was Nick Smith that father of I am not sure how many. He said in 2002: “I say that if a member went out of their way to draft a dumb bill this would have to be it.” He said the bill in 2002 introducing 12 weeks’ paid parental leave was a dumb idea. Now here we are more than 10 years later—how many years later? More than a decade later and suddenly it is not such a dumb idea. Finally National has caught on.Look I could go on. The Hon Judith Collins—we have been quoting her quite a lot—in 2004 said: “It is another example of this Government using taxpayers’ money to try to win some votes.” That is what the Hon Judith Collins said. That is what she did and yet she has been part of a Cabinet that has just brought forward a Budget that has grudgingly increased paid parental leave and it has grudgingly increased it because the women and parents of New Zealand have forced this Government to accept that it is the one that is behind on this issue.Look one of the most important jobs that we ever have in this country is being parents and raising children and future generations. Having extended paid parental leave will give parents the opportunity to give their babies the best start in life. I am sitting here with some of my colleagues who had children when we did not have paid parental leave. My only complaint about this is that I had a child without paid parental leave so I would quite like it to be backdated.Tracey Martin: Me too.DARIEN FENTON: Yes I reckon a few of us I think would like it to be backdated except for Anne Tolley of course who would turn paid parental leave down for herself—well actually for her daughters and her grandchildren—because she still thinks it is from the radical feminist era of the 1960s and 1970s.The only little thing I would say about the Government and the only slight kudos I would give the Government is its extension of paid parental leave to casual temporary and seasonal workers. That needed to happen and that would have happened under a Labour Government. We also know that this is a tiny little move—a tiny little move—because the Government was forced to do it. We continue to be criticised internationally because of our record not only on progress for women but also on paid parental leave.As other speakers have pointed out we are still well behind. In fact since the time when Labour was in office we have had this long long gap of 6 years—and in fact longer than that because the last extension to paid parental leave was in 2004 I think—when nothing has happened on paid parental leave. In fact all the Government has done is waste members’ day after members’ day on making sure that we never got to have the vote on this bill because it was too ashamed to stand up and say it did not support mothers it did not support babies and it did not support the parents of New Zealand having the opportunity to raise their children to have a good start in life and to have a decent go at doing the most important job that has to be done which is giving our children and giving our families the best possible start in life.Instead National would rather waste money on a whole range of foolish ventures. We have seen it in the last year or so wasting more on consultants on crazy asset sales and on tax cuts for the better off. Goodness knows what it is going to do should we have the misfortune to have National re-elected as Government.I end by repeating what I said at the beginning: I am really proud to be able to speak on this bill on behalf of Labour and on behalf of all the women and men who fordecades have fought for paid parental leave in this country. Shame on the National Government for being so miserable about this.