Moroney Sue: Employment Standards Legislation Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeMoroney Sue: Employment Standards Legislation Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 08 March 2016. Volume:711;Page:9450. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]SUE MORONEY (Labour): Today is International Women’s Day and so it seems right and proper that we are here debating some positive moves on paid parental leave. We are doing that in Part 1 of this bill so I think that is very appropriate. Paid parental leave has been a bit like that in this House. It seems that every day that we are debating this in the House—whether the Government is for it or against it; it seems to flip-flop around a bit on it—seems to be on a day that is incredibly important to the issue that we are debating and today International Women’s Day is no different.For my initial contribution on this bill I would like to focus on replaced section 71DA. It is an amendment in clause 56 of this bill and it is something that I feel very proud to have had a part in bringing about because this amendment will make a big difference to many many families actually in New Zealand—the families whose baby has been born pre-term a prematurely born baby. What the Labour Party has been able to do is to drive a position where the whole Parliament is about to actually extend paid parental leave—give additional paid parental leave—to exactly those families.I particularly want to pay my respects to a woman by the name of Donnelle Belanger-Taylor because I actually think that if there is one person who is responsible for this—and I know the Government is going to try to lay claim to it and say that it is its idea and the ACT Party will say it was its idea but the parliamentary record will show that it was actually a Labour Party amendment that was the first idea around getting additional paid parental leave for families in this situation. So I talk about Donnelle Belanger-Taylor because she is a woman who came and gave a submission to a select committee which first put this issue on the table. I think this is a great story to be told because this is a story of how participating in democracy by making a submission to a select committee can make a big difference. And it can make a big difference to a whole range of families.So in this instance the simple submission that Donnelle Belanger-Taylor came along and gave to a select committee about the experience that she had as a mother of twins has ended up bringing about this change. She told her story. She talked about how traumatic it was and how difficult it was for her to be back in paid employment when her twins were 5 months old. The problem that it created for her was so big that she resigned from her job because she could not make it work. If she was not up feeding one twin or the other throughout the night—she was not getting much sleep then she was trying to go to work the next day dropping the twins off at early childhood education going back on two or three occasions throughout the day to feed them and then going home on public transport and doing it all over again 5 days a week. She simply found that she could not continue to do it and so she resigned from her job.She was back before the select committee when her twins were 5 years of age to tell us that she had still not made her way back into paid employment. She had lost her connection with her employment at that point in time because it was just too hard. This caused me to think about not only the plight of families where there is the joy of a multiple birth but the plight of families where there is a prematurely born baby or a baby born with disabilities. There is a need to have additional paid parental leave so that the bonding and attachment can be formed so that families under more pressure are able to actually sustain that and able to focus on developing that bonding and attachment with their babies. So that was the beginning of the story that brings about replaced section 71DA in Part 1.What happened next I think is pretty instructive about our parliamentary environment because I proposed an amendment along those lines to a bill I had before this Parliament in an effort to secure the Government’s support for that measure. Actually it was not much more than 12 months ago that I proposed that amendment—probably about 14 months ago. What did the Government do then? It voted against it—it voted against it just 14 months ago. And not only did it vote against this particular measure just 14 months ago but it also made sure that the amendment could not pass.What I did was I went to secure the vote of as many MPs as I could to get that amendment through for those families and I was one vote short. I knew that I could not look those families in the eye and say that I had done everything possible to get their needs addressed if I did not go and look at every MP and ask for their vote. That meant that I ended up in the office of David Seymour asking for his support. I want to say that in an MMP environment was this not a lesson? Actually David Seymour said “Yeah that’s an entirely reasonable thing to think about and to support.” and he said that he would support it. So suddenly that amendment had the numbers in the House 14 months ago to go through.So the truth is that if the National Government had not meddled and got in the way this provision could have been in 14 months ago and the prematurely born babies and their families for the last 14 months could have had exactly this provision in place. But the National Government played politics. It played politics instead and so here we are today with all those families in the interim period missing out on this provision.What is the provision? The provision is that if a baby is born before 37 weeks’ gestation—that is the medically accepted definition of full term; so a baby is full term if it is born at 37 weeks of gestation or beyond—they are technically pre-term. What this part of the bill does is it says that for every week that that baby is born prematurely the parents of that baby will be able to have an additional week of paid parental leave. And that is going to be a big relief for those families.Think about being in the situation of having sometimes surprisingly a baby born early. Sometimes people know their baby is coming early but often they do not and it just happens. Suddenly you have finished work when you did not expect to suddenly you have a baby earlier than you expected to and suddenly and quite frequently the prematurely born baby is in hospital for a prolonged period of time. Often the parent has to take time off work from that point onwards even though their baby may not come out of hospital for 3 or 4 weeks.What happens quite frequently is that under the provisions that we have currently in this country those families are forced to go back into paid employment before their baby is really at the age of 4 or 5 months with where the paid parental leave provisions are now. These are the babies that probably need a lot of support. They need that extra bonding time and certainly their families need additional time to prepare because in many instances they have not been prepared for this early birth and in many instances there are complications that come with the fact that this child has been born early.So it is great to see on International Women’s Day that this going to be addressed.In fact it will come into effect on 1 April. Should this bill pass through all its stages this week this provision will come in from 1 April this year.I am very proud of the role that Labour has played in making this happen because there is no doubt that this would not have happened if it was not for the Labour Party pushing this agenda of extending paid parental leave. In this instance it was joined by and informed by a fantastic young mum by the name of Donnelle Belanger-Taylor who came along to have her say in our parliamentary process and who has changed and improved the lives of thousands of New Zealand children as a result. It is a great celebration on International Women’s Day to think about how one woman made such a difference for children throughout this country and I really want to celebrate that.But the downside of this is that if it was not for the politics being played by National over paid parental leave and over families and the support they need for goodness’ sake then we would have had this measure a good 14 months ago. It is very sad for those families and there are many of them who have had prematurely born babies in the meantime.