Young Jonathan: Parental Leave and Employment Protection (Six Months’ Paid Leave) Amendment Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeYoung Jonathan: Parental Leave and Employment Protection (Six Months’ Paid Leave) Amendment Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 23 July 2014. Volume:700;Page:19377. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]JONATHAN YOUNG (National—New Plymouth):I think what we want to probably make clear is that things are a matter of balance and when the sponsor of the bill says that this Government does not support children or does not support families that is incorrect. We know and she knows that this Government introduced with the Budget and passed through all stages into law on 16 May legislation that increases the number of weeks of paid parental leave from the current 14 weeks to 16 weeks as of 1 April 2015 and to 18 weeks as of 1 April 2016.I think that the member she was referring to made a comment around affordability. When I talk about balance and affordability what we have to understand is that this Government spends its money out of essentially a single bucket. So money we spend in one area cannot be spent in another and so we have issues. Last week for example the Hon Tony Ryall sent out a press release regarding people who need kidney transplants. There are 600 on the waiting list in New Zealand and we do a hundred a year. So he has increased funding—Andrew Little: What’s this got to do with paid parental leave?JONATHAN YOUNG: Yes it does have something to do with paid parental leave because it has to do with the balance of funding that we seek to spread over the needs of New Zealanders. We need to understand that when we say that some areas take too much it is not because there is a lack of concern; it is because there is also concern for other areas where money needs to be spent. I think that is the rationale that we need to understand when it comes to spending the Government’s resources or the taxpayers’ funds.So when the sponsor of the bill says that this Government does not care I refute that. What we are essentially saying is that her bill though well intentioned goes too far and costs too much because it takes away money that needs to be spent in other areas of desperate need for New Zealanders. So it is a matter of finding the balance. I think what Mike Sabin has talked about and what I spoke about not long ago is that the balance also around parental responsibility needs to be considered because as much as we would like to make everything easy we have got to understand that there is balance needed.I remember when parental leave legislation first went through—going back to the principal Act in 1987. I do not know about you but I remember hearing Richard Prebble speaking on the radio. I am not sure whether it was around this point in time but he said something about parenting that stuck with me all of these years. [Interruption] And he is one of them by the way. You know that. He said: “When it comes to having children and you can’t afford it”—because that can be a relative thing for a start—“love your kids and enjoy them even though there is going to be financial pressure.” What he was saying I think was that there is joy that comes with every child. I think that we forget some of those great values.I talked before about when I was brought up as a kid in South Taranaki on the farm and out in the rural areas before I became a townie at the age of 10. There were a lot of things that we could not afford but we had a great life. You know you think that you can have a great life only if you have got all the support that comes from the Government and we do not believe in that. We believe that it is appropriate to give support where it is needed and where it is affordable but sometimes when you go too far you create other things that happen. Some of those things that happen are a lack of community support and a lack of wider family support.We have gone through our society with 14 weeks’ leave and we have done that to assist families who need to have a transition period when they can make decisions about how they are going to manage financially—perhaps go back to work or if not then make adjustments so their budget can cope. We have done all that. But now to extend it out from 14 to 26 weeks—