Tisch Lindsay: Parental Leave and Employment Protection Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
Tisch Lindsay: Parental Leave and Employment Protection Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
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LINDSAY TISCH (National—Piako) 
: 
 We have just heard from that member over there that another 3500 people will be paid parental leave. What about the rest? What about the self-employed people who will miss out in this legislation? It is all very well that he says it is part of the process to take a little bit here and a little bit there. I am telling the Government that until the legislation affects everybody and everybody has the benefit of it we will vote against it. We will vote against it because it is absolutely discriminatory. Where is the equity here? We are a nation of small businesses. We have 292000 small businesses. That is the mums and dads out there who are working hard trying to make things work. Shortly we will be looking at the taxation bill in the Committee stage and I will have a bit to say when we get there. However the backbone of the economy those people who put in the hard yards make the investments and if they happen to be self-employed do not qualify under this bill. 
The Government says that it has to look after small business. I am absolutely ashamed of United Future which is meant to stand up for those people. I hope that Mr Alexander takes a call not in this debate but in the debate on the taxation bill because that is important as well. A party that can support this legislation—which is inequitable which is discriminatory—and wants to support the Government on it when we could actually bring this down is a nonsense. 
What will the Government do? The 3500 extra people the previous member just spoke about is fine but what about the rest of us? What about the rest of those families? I shall tell members what is happening in business. In particular small-business people are saying that they will not employ somebody who will possibly want to start a family. That is what they are saying. So who will miss out? It is those people whom we should be trying to help. In the real world—and Labour members do not know about the real world; they have never been in the real world; they have never put their money at risk so they would not know—it is about the bottom line. 
I can tell members that small businesses cannot afford to carry people where there is no commitment that they will come back. They could hold a job open for 12 months. This is what happens in the real world which they do not know about. It is about survival and it is very very difficult for small businesses with these compliance costs. All this is is another compliance cost. 
The bill states that a person has to work for somebody for only 6 months. It used to be 12 months. At least with 12 months there was a bit of flexibility but when it is only 6 months that a person has to work for somebody that person will qualify for 12 weeks now but that person has had to work for someone for only 6 months. That is absolutely intolerable. This is another huge compliance cost with red tape that this Government is so fond of getting involved in and it is another nail in its coffin. Not only that the policy also applies if people are going to adopt. Many people do not realise that this will apply not only if they are having their own child but also applies to those people who adopt. 
If I take someone on to work in my business what will I do? I will not ask whether that person wishes to have a family but I would probably look at just taking on a male. But of course how it works is that the wife or the partner may work in a person’s business decide that he or she will have a family and will get paid parental leave but does not need to take the whole period of 14 weeks or 12 weeks as it is now. It could be that the husband or partner would work for me and would be able to pick up a couple of those weeks. Some think they are very smart because they will not take on a woman specifically because she might want to have a family and what actually might happen is that I could be caught out as well if the husband also qualifies. A lot of businesses today are being caught out on that because they do not understand how this legislation works. That is an absolute indictment on a Government that has no understanding of what makes communities work no understanding about small business in particular yet it wants to foist on us an extra couple of weeks of compliance costs and reduce of course the time period in which a person will become eligible. If the Government had included everybody then it might be a different ball game. 
 Because when we look at who is ineligible to qualify for the 14 weeks’ leave it is self-employed women and those who job-share; it is women in casual employment either part-time or full-time; it is women who cannot find or choose not to engage in formal employment including women who choose to stop work to have a family; it is women who for many reasons have had a new employer within the last 6 months and women who cannot have children or choose not to have children. 
I repeat the point I made right at the beginning that this legislation is discriminatory. It is not equitable because not all women qualify for 14 weeks’ leave. National will oppose the bill. We have voted against these matters before. We certainly oppose the bill tonight. This Government should be looking after businesses because they are the wealth creators in our communities. But no the Government says it has to look after these particular workers. The next item on the Order Paper is a taxation bill and the same sort of arguments will be very very important. 
New Zealand relies on the productive sector and on the growth of small communities. That is where the wealth of the country comes from. It comes from those 295000 small businesses that employ 92 percent of all employees. Those self-employed people the ones who put their dollars in and want a return on their dollars are being told by this Government: “We’re going to sock you one with this along with the Holidays Act the Employment Law Reform Act and increases in excise tax on fuel because of Kyoto.” However this legislation will prove to be the nail in the coffin for the Government because it shows it is uncaring and does not understand what makes communities work. I must say we are disappointed that United Future is supporting the bill because there was a chance that we could defeat it. The bill is discriminatory and inequitable and the Government will pay for that.