Williams Poto: Employment Standards Legislation Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeWilliams Poto: Employment Standards Legislation Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 08 March 2016. Volume:711;Page:9458. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]POTO WILLIAMS (Labour—Christchurch East): I want to concentrate my call on the extension of eligibility around some critical areas: seasonal and casual employees whāngai adoptions Home for Life parents and also extending paid parental leave to parents who have children who are born pre-term. On that note I would just like to welcome the newest member of our extended whānau Baden Pekera who was born about 4 weeks ago at the tender gestation of about 35 weeks. I understand from mum that he is just about due to go home any day now.I bring Baden into the conversation because had this bill been passed earlier his mum Phoebe would have been able to take advantage of the fact that he was born pre-term and have an extension of paid parental leave for the weeks that he was pre-term. He was around 5 weeks pre-term so his mum would have had access to 5 weeks on top of the increased eligibility to 18 weeks.I think that is an important thing to talk about. It is very stressful giving birth in any situation. Having a baby is a big deal but when baby is not quite through all of the cooking that is required it can—Jacinda Ardern: Not quite baked.POTO WILLIAMS: Yes not quite done—a little under-baked. It is quite a stressful time for parents and for mums particularly—and to be able to have that extra support and to know that you can support your child your baby through to the period of time when they are ready to go home.I talk about my own experiences many many many years ago when my own daughter was born 7 weeks early. The stress that is placed upon new parents to support pre-term babies is quite significant. You are often very vigilant around being there because baby will be in hospital for some period of time until their bodies are developed enough to be able to cope with being at home full time without the support of medical staff and nurses. So it is quite a stressful time for parents.I know that in my own experience being mindful of my daughter being so pre-term that she had not developed the ability to suckle we were tube-feeding her for a period of weeks. I remember getting the call at 11 or 11.25 one night after I had gone home after a day at the hospital with her to say that the reflex had come on. So I dashed into hospital—I can see you nodding Dr Reti; you know what I am saying—to take advantage of the fact that she had reached a developmental milestone. That is often what happens with pre-term babies. They are not fully able to function completely independently of some intervention so it is really important for parents to have the ability to be there to support their babies until such time as they are well enough to go home and be cared for by mum and dad at home. So I think that is very important.The other aspect I want to talk about is whāngai adoptions. I am pleased to see that they are being recognised because within Māori and Pacific families they are a very normal way of ensuring that children have the opportunity to be brought up by people who may not have the ability to conceive children on their own. So it really provides that every child has a parent who is appropriate and can take over the care of those children.Within my own family there are many many occasions where whāngai has been used to support children who may have parents who are unable to care for their children or who may actually have a lot of children and want to just share the love a little bit. It is not unusual in Pacific families particularly for parents to have children specifically to provide for a childless couple.I know of one case in particular where a friend of mine had been in contact with a couple who had a young child. They were having some difficulty in raising the child. There were some external issues placing some pressure on the children. I remember her coming to work on a Monday morning and saying to me: “Yesterday I went to lunch and came home with a baby.” My first reaction was: “What are you doing at work?”. Over a period of time we negotiated how she would be able to take some time out to bond with this child. These are not unusual situations and it is good to see that Parliament has recognised these unusual perhaps ways of supporting families through whāngai adoptions. I am very pleased to see that as part of this bill.I just want to touch on in the rest of my call some of the issues that have been raised around keeping-in-touch hours. I completely concur with the concerns that have been raised. It is and can be a very very useful mechanism for working mums who have established careers to have an opportunity to maintain contact not only with the workplace but with any new workforce development or training or professional development that is going on and to maintain contact with new ways of working new technologies and new people even who may be starting on a team. So I think it is an important aspect.I do also mirror the concerns about who should determine whether a new parent should actually have the keeping-in-touch hours. There has been some concern raised about the issue that it is done by negotiation between employer and employee. But I am of the mind that really it should be at the choice of the employee if they wish to do that because there may be some things that happen within that paid parental leave time that may mean that they are unable to take advantage of the opportunities of these keeping-in-touch hours.So I am concerned around this particular aspect that we do not lose sight of the fact that paid parental leave is primarily around supporting parents to be at home to care for their children and that must be the prime reason that they are taking the leave. Any perceived pressure that may be applied by employers needs to be taken out of the equation by ensuring that the employee is able to direct that completely themselves.Just in saying that there are very useful situations when keeping-in-touch hours can be used and can be prescribed and I think that it is a useful mechanism to ensure that when that parent is ready to go back to the workplace they are as ready to pick up their work as they can be. Thank you.