Moroney Sue: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to MinistersText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeMoroney Sue: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers[Sitting date: 08 May 2013. Volume:689;Page:9783. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]11.SUE MORONEY (Labour) to theMinister of Women’s Affairs: Does she have any positive announcements to make for New Zealand mothers as families prepare to celebrate Mothers’ Day?Hon JO GOODHEW (Minister of Women’s Affairs): Yes there are a number of positive announcements. Mothers will celebrate an additional $21.3 million over 4 years to fight rheumatic fever amongst their children and an additional $70 million extra for aged care and dementia which will help older mothers and those mothers caring for their parents. They will also be celebrating the March 2013 household labour force survey showing an increase in female employment of 0.9 percentage points over the last year and a drop in the unemployment rate of 0.2 percentage points in the last year—the first quarter since December 2011. I would like to take this opportunity to wish all of the mothers present in this House a joy-filled day on Sunday.Sue Moroney: Thank you to the Minister but has she seen the report from Save the Children on the state of the world’s mothers that shows New Zealand in 17th place in 2013 plummeting from fourth place in its 2012 report?Hon JO GOODHEW: Yes I have seen reports about that report and I am aware that the chair of our very own Perinatal and Maternal Mortality Review Committee has disputed the figures in that report and says that for the majority of women we have a very safe and effective system. In fact the actual figures for New Zealand are very different from the figures in that report. In our first Budget we committed more than $103 million over 4 years to improve maternity services. In 2011 this Government committed in this area an extra $54 million and in 2012 an extra $20.5 million. No one could say that this Government is not doing more for mothers and babies.Sue Moroney: Well how does she then explain Australia being—Mr SPEAKER: Order! This time the noise is definitely coming from the far right-hand corner of the Chamber. Sue Moroney—[Interruption] Order! Now it is coming from the front bench of the Labour Party. Can we please have—[Interruption] Can we please have consideration for the member asking the question.Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. When a Speaker gives a ruling that seems to be unfair to some person I think it is beholden on a member of Parliament to raise the issue as to whether it was fair. If you look at the far corner of the House that is Mr Gilmore and he was not making a noise at all.Mr SPEAKER: And I was not referring to him. That is not a valid point of order.Sue Moroney: Thank you. Does she attribute the staggering decline of 13 places in New Zealand’s ranking as a country for mothers to the fact that the 2012 report relied on data from 2007 onwards when Labour was in Government whereas the 2013 report used data gathered since 2010?Hon JO GOODHEW: I can answer the member that what I am relying on to keep this report in perspective is the comments from the chairwoman of the Perinatal and Maternal Mortality Review Committee who says that its own report shows about one in 8000 women dying in pregnancy or childbirth which varies greatly from the one in3300 in that report. The additional information that the chairperson Cindy Farquar was able to give was that we have a comprehensive data collection system unlike Australia which may account for why it is rated better in the report.Sue Moroney: Does she agree with the Prime Minister when he said he thought paid parental leave would increase one day; if so does she think that that “one day” will be while she is the Minister of Women’s Affairs or will families need to elect a Labour Government to extend paid parental leave?Hon JO GOODHEW: I am in agreement with what the Prime Minister said. He has said it publicly several times. The Government still plans to veto the bill to extend paid parental leave. As he has said we are not opposed to paid parental leave. We already have it in New Zealand and more would be better. What we are saying is that an increase now in paid parental leave will mean that we have to either forgo our goal of getting back to surplus or stop spending money on something else. We are not ruling out an extension at some stage when the books are back in surplus. We are just saying that it is not the right time to do it now.Sue Moroney: When will the right time be Minister?Hon JO GOODHEW: We all look forward to the day that we are back in surplus.