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:11805. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]PAUL FOSTER-BELL (National): E Te Kaiwhakahaere tēnā koe. Tēnā koutou katoa e ngā mema o Te Whare. I am sure that the member Sue Moroney has brought this bill to the House with very very good intentions but I do want to I suppose respond to some of the comments she has made during the first two calls that she took in this Committee stage debate and also perhaps pose a couple of questions to the member in the chair as well.I think that despite the good intentions of this bill if we look very closely at Part 1 and some of the amendments to the principal Act that are proposed in that part—namely the extension of the duration of paid parental leave—the extensions that would be provided for in Part 1 obviously are only those that take effect on 1 April 2017 and subsequent parts deal with the subsequent tranches or phases of extension of parental leave. The figure that she quoted was a figure I did not catch exactly. Maybe she would be able to just confirm. It was something like $10 million or $11 million worth of costs—Sue Moroney: $12.7 million.PAUL FOSTER-BELL: —$12 million worth of costs in the first year. The question is whether that figure is actually an accurate portrayal of the real costs of the provisions provided for in this part given that other estimates that we have seen show that those costs are actually compounding. They are not a one-off. They go on year after year and they will compound up to a cost of something in the order of $445.8 million a year—at least that was the figure that the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment has provided as an estimate.I would also like some clarification from the member. She said that there would be significant cost savings which from memory were roughly twice as much as the costs of this bill and that would be met by the taxpayer. Would she be able to provide I suppose some clarification for us of how realistic she thinks those cost savings calculations might be?The other question I have came from the select committee stage. We heard evidence from a range of submitters many of whom were in favour and I will concede that. I think actually that for people on this side of the Chamber there is no inherent opposition to the concept of providing paid parental leave as Part 1 does. Actually this Government has been progressively extending paid parental leave not only in duration as Part 1 provides for but certainly in breadth of availability to those who are self-employed seasonal employees—people who traditionally were not receiving this sort of paid parental leave support.The question comes from the submissions particularly the submission of Mr Paul Clark who is the managing director and owner of the New Zealand Ammunition Co.—it is a small business that provides essential equipment not only to our police force but also to our Defence Force. He is also the chair of the Council of Licensed Firearms Owners so he is someone who is well versed in the recreational shooting and hunting industries. He made what I thought was a very good submission which does have some material questions that are relevant to this part around the costs on small businesses. So far in this debate we have talked about the costs and the impact on the Government’s fiscal outlook potentially and the figure that I have quoted is in the order of $450 million going forward. That is a 4-year cost.That is not over the lifetime of this policy but that is just within 4 years.The points made by Mr Clark which I actually think do deserve a response from the member in the chair are around the cost to small businesses—the calculations made by small-business owners; not only the financial calculations but the employment decisions that are influenced—under the understanding that they will be required by the law to take on a considerable financial expense should one of their staff have children. So I would like some responses from the member on those questions.As I have said on the side of the Chamber we are very very hesitant. In fact we are opposed to the provisions provided for in Part 1 because we believe that they do represent going a little bit too far that there is a balance to be achieved here and that a reasonable amount of paid parental leave is something we can all agree to. But when the costs rack up into the hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars per year then that is an issue that I think we need to look at very seriously.