Moroney Sue: Parental Leave and Employment Protection (Six Months’ Paid Leave) Amendment Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeMoroney Sue: Parental Leave and Employment Protection (Six Months’ Paid Leave) Amendment Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 03 December 2014. Volume:702;Page:1101. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]SUE MORONEY (Labour):I just wish to make probably a quite brief contribution on new clause 8 of the Parental Leave and Employment Protection (Six Months’ Paid Leave) Amendment Bill. This is the clause that comes about because since we have been debating 26 weeks’ paid parental leave guess what has happened? The Government decided to pass its own legislation in 2014.Phil Twyford: What a coincidence.SUE MORONEY: It is a coincidence a strange coincidence but actually the victory that this bill has had—this brave little bill as I call it—is that it forced the Government into extending paid parental leave to 16 weeks from 1 April I think next year and to 18 weeks from 1 April the following year 2016. So we have had a victory. It might not feel like it today because all those parents so desperately needing the ability to have 26 weeks in the set of circumstances we have talked about during the course of this debate will not be having that thanks to National voting against it. I think that is a great tragedy. But clause 8 was I guess acknowledging that there has been a movement in paid parental leave due to the success of this bill. That has happened in 2014 and as a result of that we needed to have some consequential amendments to that piece of legislation which passed earlier in the year.It is with regret that this call will be my last contribution on this bill in this House but please be warned that it will not be the last time we will hear about 26 weeks’ paid parental leave—universally actually because there is such a groundswell of support throughout the country for this now that the Government is not going to get away with burying its head in the sand and pretending it has done what is needed for the future of the country because it simply has not. I want to take this opportunity to thank all those parties who have had the foresight to support the bill in its various stages up until this point. We are going to keep this battle going. We are going to keep this argument going because this is the right thing for New Zealand families. This is the thing that really does deliver the brighter future for New Zealand. This is the investment that would make a difference and yet the very Government that campaigned on delivering a brighter future is the Government that is stopping it from happening.Thank you to the Green Party. Thank you to New Zealand First. Thank you to Mana when Mana was here voting for it. Thank you to United Future. Thank you to the Māori Party and particularly thank you to my Labour colleagues who had the courage to know that this was the right time even though we proposed it in the midst of a global recession. It was the right time to make sure that we invested in our families and it was the right time to get this debate going and New Zealanders joined with us. It is a great tragedy that the Government has not been able to see how important this is and has not had the foresight to understand what a wise investment it is in the future and how really to build a brighter future. But the good news is that the rest of us are here to keep reminding you and we will.